Incollect Magazine - Issue 14

34 www.incollect.com Where does Keith Haring sit within art history? Keith Haring sits at the intersection of Pop, street culture, and late twentieth-century political art. He is closely associated with the 1980s downtown New York scene. What makes him historically distinct is that he carried a street-born visual language into museums and the art world without losing its urgency or politicality. When and why did Keith Haring make drawings in the New York subway system? They were created illegally and initially anonymously on unused black advertising panels in New York City subway stations, between 1980 and 1985. They were never meant to be precious objects; he used the subway because it gave him a daily public audience. The subway allowed him to create art for everyone in real time. Why do you think the subway drawings are important today? The subway drawings are foundational. Without them, most people would not know who Keith Haring was. They helped establish a model of contemporary street art that is now global: a legible visual language accessible to everyone, made in real time, and created outside the museum gates. Today, they are increasingly understood not simply as early works, but as key documents of 1980s downtown New York culture and the origins of contemporary street art. Street Art Comes Out of the Shadows Collector and Dealer Alejandro Eduardo Trimper on the Growing Market for Keith Haring’s Subway Drawings by Benjamin Genocchio Installation shot from “Voice of the Street: Keith Haring’s Subway Drawings” presented at Moco Museum London, which opened March 18. The exhibition includes a large number of works on loan from Trimper Gallery. Photo by Kyle Andrew Szpyrka. Below: Alejandro Trimper, owner of Trimper Gallery. Photo by Kyle Andrew Szpyrka.