The first time I had my professional headshot done, by the Salmieris in Manhattan, I went to their walk-up studio in Chinatown. On the door of the apartment below theirs was a red image of a crawling baby, which I recognized immediately as the work of Keith Haring. I asked how it got there, and Michele replied: Keith lived here. He was our neighbor. That was in 1995, five years after he had died. The apartment, which I didn’t get to see, was covered, from floor to ceiling, with his work: the stove, the fridge, the doors, the floor — all of it.
I heard that the landlord eventually painted it all over, destroying not just millions of dollars worth of art (owned by Keith’s estate), but also a perfect specimen of his existence; magnificent proof that Keith was here.
I just looked up his data on Astrodatabank, the most accurate public data source, and was very happy that it was there and has a good rating (technically a B rating, which means from biography / autobiography, though no birth certificate in hand). His bio describes him as an “American artist, a pop and graffiti artist who moved from a small section of Americana into the hip and hectic New York scene before burning himself out on the fast lane of the good life by age 31.”
He died of AIDS, back in the day when it was a guaranteed death sentence: no drug cocktails, less known about the syndrome, less evolved human immune response: it took many great men from every walk of life. AIDS is generally not just the reaction to a virus; it’s a lifestyle syndrome, and Haring was in the perfect position to fall prey.
“The fast lane” is basically immune suppressing; which leaves one vulnerable; and so on and on.
First a bit about the chart, then some more from his bio on Astrodatabank. A Taurus with Leo rising, born just before noon (in standard time), he has the perfect chart not only for stardom, but enduring fame. I say this because the fixed signs create an enduring legacy (he had his Moon in one, as well). Leo rising shines out, and the Taurus Sun at noon booms over the airwaves with integrity and a message rooted in values. Haring shifted how we see art; as any good artist does, he taught us to see a new way — among other gifts, to see “the writing on the wall” as the truly creative matter that it is.
Thanks to Keith we see graffiti as something beautiful, or at least potentially so. We hardly remember a time when it was merely viewed as an obnoxious annoyance.