Review by Booklist Review
His alphabet was unlike any other, comprised of flying saucers and pyramids, baton sticks and stairways, nuclear reactors and barking dogs. Keith Haring started out as a graffiti artist on the streets of Manhattan, using a baby as his "tag"or signature, and went on to worldwide fame. Born in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, and deeply influenced by Dr. Seuss and Disney cartoons, he went through various phases in his short life--he died in 1990 at age 31--from Jesus freak to hippie to art student to artist and political activist for ACT UP. In New York, he hung out in gay bars, worked on poetry and experimental writing, and, for a short time, curated shows. One day he started drawing whimsical images--a crawling baby, a barking dog, a UFO--on black matte paper squares with white chalk and put them in subways stations. His motto? Art for everybody. Haring's artistic orbit included Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Dennis Hopper, and Madonna. Gooch concludes with an epilogue that discusses Haring's lucrative afterlife, including the work of the Keith Haring Foundation as well as the licensing of the now ubiquitous Haring apparel. A thorough, intricately detailed, and enthralling portrait of a singular artist who followed his own winding road to artistic success until AIDS cut short his highly creative life.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Gooch (Rumi's Secret) takes a rewarding deep dive into the life of pop artist Keith Haring (1958--1990), from his small-town Pennsylvania roots to international fame. Gooch zeroes in on Haring's role in the vibrant New York City street art scene starting in the late 1970s, when he graffitied streetlamps and walls with cartoon-inspired characters and used the black paper pasted over expired subway advertisements for chalked drawings--often of crawling babies--that he sometimes created in front of crowds. Also explored are Haring's artistic relationships with Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, art critics' insinuations that his work was unserious or overly commercial (suggestions that multiplied after the 1986 opening of his Pop Shop, which sold self-branded merchandise), and his work on such causes as children's education and HIV/AIDS awareness (he was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1988). Drawing on more than 200 interviews with Haring's friends, family, and colleagues, Gooch captures the innovative, whirlwind creative spirit of the artist, who continued working and planning projects just weeks before dying from complications of HIV/AIDs at age 31. Shot through with details that bring to life the tumultuous social ferment of the era, this honors the inimitable spirit of a defining figure in the art world. Photos. Agent: Joy Harris, Joy Harris Literary. (Mar.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
This new biography of artist Keith Haring is a thorough and thoughtful look at his childhood through his death in 1990 at age 31. Poet and biographer Gooch (City Poet) details how Haring's early interest in art and eventually iconic artistic style were shaped not only by his family and teachers but also by the gritty streets of New York City and artists such as Warhol and Basquiat. Gooch describes in depth the NYC gay community and the many exhibitions, projects, friends, and lovers that were part of Haring's life. He also details Haring's diagnosis with HIV and his death from AIDS-related complications. Primary sources are cited throughout, including quotes from family and friends, as well as Haring's own words as captured in his writing and in interviews. VERDICT A solid choice for those with an interest in pop art figures or gay culture of the 1970s and '80s, particularly in relation to the AIDS epidemic in New York City.--Sarah Stimson
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The life and legacy of an instantly recognizable artist. Biographer, novelist, and memoirist Gooch draws on archival sources to chronicle the energetic life of Keith Haring (1958-1990), who "occupied a space both in high fine art culture and low demotic street art." The son of an amateur cartoonist, as a child Haring was obsessed with Dr. Seuss and Disney. "His number one obsession through all his school years," Gooch writes, "remained the magic box of television," which transported him outside of Kutztown, Pennsylvania, where he grew up. The author traces Haring's exposure to art at several art schools, notably New York's School of Visual Arts, where he enrolled in the fall of 1978. There, Gooch reveals, he "quickly adopted and adapted the various innovative movements and styles" to which he was being exposed. As Haring searched for his identity as an artist, he also came to terms with his sexuality. At camp, when he was a young teenager, he'd felt his first attraction to a boy. By the time he came to New York, he methodically "made coming out into a project, an item on a to-do list." Haring is the central figure in Gooch's lively portrayal of a roiling art world and of gay culture in the 1980s. By 1981, Haring was sought after by collectors, but he became frustrated "at the disconnect between his popular success and his lagging acceptance by the art establishment." Nevertheless, among the glitterati populating "the moveable scene" he created around himself were Madonna, Sean Lennon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Yoko Ono, and Andy Warhol. Gooch's Haring was a romantic, "boyish, sweet, innocent" and "not quite grown-up." His logo was the image of a baby, "the purest and most positive experience of human existence," wrote Haring. "Children are the bearers of life in its simplest and most joyous form." A sympathetic and well-researched portrait. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
