Keith Haring’s “Art is For Everybody” at Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario

Fotini Stephen (Toronto, 9November2023)

The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) has collaborated with the Broad Los Angeles to assemble a major exhibition of Keith Haring’s work. The exhibit displays a broad range of Haring’s work created in the short and highly prolific 10-year period in which he painted. The last AGO exhibit of his work was 25 years ago. 

Keith Haring lived and worked in New York City in the 1980’s and emerged contemporaneously with other well known artists who lived and worked in New York City such as fellow artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, pop singer Madonna, performer and model Grace Jones and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. 

Many of these artists created art that reflected the rebellion of 1980’s urban youth. Although the artists may have captured a feeling and moment in time, their work continues to be relevant and has withstood the test of time. Keith Haring’s work is certainly no exception and in fact continues to grow in popularity since his death in 1990 at age 33, of AIDS related illnesses. One wonders what additional contributions and directions Haring would have taken had he lived longer.

The AGO exhibit focuses on Haring’s concept that “Art is for Everybody” which for Haring meant that art is essential in creating a better world and should therefore be accessible to everybody. This point of view also reflects Haring’s activism on a broad range of social issues, including apartheid, nuclear disarmament, UNICEF and AIDS. 

The exhibit is divided into a number of sections including: Finding his Line, From Street Drawing to Gallery Walls, Party of Life, Monumental, Day-Glow, AIDS Activism, and Pop Shop Anti Capitalism. The latter referring to Haring’s pop shop opened in 1985 as a response to the theft of the public pictures he painted over blank and expired advertisements in the NYC subway. 

The AGO has put together a fabulous exhibit of Keith Haring’s art focusing on the various stages of his life and art. It is a must-see exhibit for those who admire Keith Haring’s art but also for anyone looking to discover his art for the first time.  People who have not grown up with Keith Haring’s art may be surprised to discover that a favourite T-shirt may actually contain a Keith Haring graphic.

Keith Haring, “Art is for Everybody” opens at the AGO from November 8, 2023 – March 17, 2024.