Re-Noted: Keith Haring's Public Notes

"Art is for everybody."

Keith Haring (1958-1990) came to NYC in the late 70s with a crazy idea: he believed that art should be free and accessible. As he wrote in an early journal:

Art is for everybody.¹

In his journals, we find Haring consolidating his personal philosophy of art that would bring him to the subways of New York—and, ultimately, to cities around the world.

Keith rarely drafted preliminary sketches. Instead, he worked through ideas in aphoristic sentences and thoughtful paragraphs in his notebooks.² This is why, in 1978, he wrote,

Everything in this notebook is subject to change.³

With his simple, elegant lines, Keith Haring conveyed profound ideas. In what follows, I consider a few of Haring’s iconic images as public note-taking. While I turn to his journal entries to elucidate his work, it should be said: Keith would be far more interested in our experience of his art. As he pondered in a Journal entry:

Is there art if no one is seeing or receiving it?⁴

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Haring’s Graffiti

Haring took to New York’s subway system and drew his now iconic figures on empty advertisement spots.

In a journal entry from 1987, he reflects on how his Subway art was an action, a kind of performance. But, because of his fame, it became a thing—something to be bought and sold:

The act of creation itself is very clear and pure. But this creation immediately results in a “thing” that has a “value” that must be reckoned with. Even the subway drawings, which were quite obviously about the “act,” not the “thing,” are now turning up, having been “rescued” from destruction by would-be collectors.⁵

Here’s some fantastic video footage of Haring in action in New York subway stations:

I think of graffiti as a kind of note-taking system. Writing on walls has deep historic roots (think Egyptian hieroglyphs or bawdy notes preserved on the walls of Pompeii). It is fundamental to the human experience.7 By its very nature, graffiti is subversive— a non-traditional form of publishing without authorities’ approval. Graffiti spreads ideas quickly—especially in a time before social media. And Keith’s art spread wildly.

Keith developed his distinctive iconography—the radiant baby, the family dog, his dancing people—as a kind of universally understandable language. Haring began to think about images in this way after seeing Egyptian drawings. In his journal, he reflects on

…the shapes people chose as their symbols…There is within all forms a basic structure, an indication of the entire object with a minimum of lines, that becomes a symbol… Possibly that is why I am so inclined to use calligraphic images, hieroglyphic forms, basic structures that are common to all people of all times and, therefore, interesting to us as well.⁶

Haring’s Ciphers from The Brooklyn Museum’s 2012 Exhibit

Let’s take a closer look at some of Haring’s most iconic images, designed to help New Yorkers of the 1970s and 80s think through pressing issues like nuclear war, capitalism, and AIDS.

A cover of one of Keith’s Notebooks

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Haring’s Atomic Symbol

Haring was an activist. Before he devoted himself to spreading awareness about AIDS, he spread awareness about nuclear war. The thought terrified him. In 1978 he wrote in his journal:

Also, living under the threat of possible destruction in the form of nuclear war, etc., the most important thing to me is the present. Living day to day for each day as if it were the most important thing to think about. These environments were created to induce some reaction from the viewer. They evoke feelings, ideas, impressions. I want to let people experience art without having to feel inhibited. It can be touched, felt, manipulated, altered, experienced. It is art that is somewhat less “serious,” less untouchable…⁷

In 1982, he created and distributed 20,000 free posters (“touchable art”) for an anti-nuclear rally.⁸

Haring’s Anti-Nuclear Rally Poster

The radiant baby figure in this poster, engulfed in a nuclear cloud. Here, Haring conveys the destruction of nuclear war with a series of symbols—most obviously, his atomic symbol underneath it all.

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Haring’s Radiant Baby

Keith saw the radiant baby as his “logo.” He explains that it represents

…the purest and most positive experience of human existence.⁹

Throughout his diaries, Keith remarks on his love for children. For example, in 1987, he wrote:

I love life. I love babies and children and some people, most people—well maybe not most, but a lot of people!¹⁰

Haring’s “Radiant Baby” in the 59th Street Subway Station

Throughout his work, Keith often places the radiant baby in positions of danger, as a way of heightening the sense of risk. The baby is a universally understood symbol and, also, a kind of signature for Haring.¹¹

Sitting in the airport at Brussels on his 24th birthday, Keith reflects on the uniqueness of his gift:

The world is waiting for the things and I am the only one who can bring them these things. There is a kind of freedom in that. There is also a kind of hysteria in that, but it depends how you see the world. I only think that I want to be the one who makes the “things.” I don’t know what I want the world to be. But only I can make these “things.” These things that are called the works of Keith Haring.¹²

It is fitting, I think, that he should finish this page with his “radiant baby."

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Haring’s Dollar Signs

In his journals, Keith suggests that it is easier to live without money because “money breeds guilt.”

Once Haring’s work became internationally recognized, money came pouring in. His parents recount how one day Keith came home and gave them a few hundred dollar bills. They protested, knowing how expensive New York is. But Keith had become a financially successful artist and he wanted to share his wealth.¹³

At the same time, he struggled with the implications of putting a market value on art. He wrote:

Money is the opposite of magic. Art is magic. The worlds of art and money are constantly intermingling. To survive this mixture the magic in art has to be applied in new ways. Magic must always triumph.¹⁴

The dollar sign appears throughout Keith’s work as a symbol of people’s desire—a desire that Keith understood even as he had his own conflicted relationship with it. He wrote that a person needed to be “objective” about money to use it fairly. The problem, from Keith’s perspective was not money itself. Rather, the problem comes from people’s irrational actions surrounding money.

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If you’d like more Keith (and, why wouldn’t you?) check out this fantastic PBS documentary:

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Notes on Harings Notes

• Notes can be public: I love when notes are social—like shared notebooks. And, street art also feels like a social form of communication.

• Invent your own iconography: Haring developed his own personal collection of images that he could use in various combinations to create meaning. They were building blocks for him, like words in a sentence.

• Writing can be preparation for drawing: I’m impressed that Keith did very little sketching in his notebooks. Instead, he thought through ideas that would appear in his art. In my post about Sylvia Plath, I discussed the kinship between the visual arts and literary arts.

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Noted is fueled by you. Your ❤️’s and comments inspire me. As always, I would love to know your thoughts.

Till Monday,

P.S.

Paid subscribers, read about Keith Haring and poetry here!

1. Haring, Keith. Keith Haring Journals: Penguin Books , 2010, p. 57

2. Journals, p. 254. During his career, many people who witnessed Keith Haring at work noted how his process did not rely at all on preliminary sketches.— “Artist Sketchbooks,” The Keith Haring Foundation.

3. Journals, p. 66.

4. Journals, p. 254.

5. Journals, p. 120

6. Journals, p. 84.

7. Journals, p. 120. Haring was discussing thinkers like Barthes at this time who argued that a readers interpretation of literature or art is just as valid as the author’s intention.

8. Journals, p. 75.

9. He writes in his journal:

Print and distribute 20,000 free posters for June 12 anti-nuclear rally, Central Park, New York City Paint fluorescent mural on cement handball court, Houston Street at Bowery, New York City.

Journals, p. 142.

10. Journals, p. 165-6.

11. Journals, p. 200.

12. Kim Hastreiter compares the Haring’s baby with Basquiat’s crown. She writes:

These symbols were like little “Elmo was here” symbols. Haring’s babies began popping up on the subways while at the same time a young, very handsome artist named Jean-Michel (Basquiat) was also running around drawing a small crown with the word “SAMO” under it. “SAMO” and the “BABY” became the new symbols of downtown. They were everywhere below 14th Street.

You can read Hastreiter’s full essay here.

13. Keith Haring Documentary | American Masters | PBS. Directed by David Polk, 2021, https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/keith-haring-documentary/16918/.

14. Journals, p.139.