#KEITH HARING SWATCH FULL#
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The byproduct was two-fold firstly, they engaged artists and other luminaries to craft unique versions of the Swatch Watch which was a completely new tactic in the mid-’80s. From their earliest days, they’ve embraced the notion of “a watch as a fashion statement.” As such, they knew individuality was almost as important as the utilitarian function of the watch itself. It would be impossible to discuss watch collaborations without first mentioning the achievements of Swatch. Although a watch is a decidedly smaller canvas on which to work, the resulting collaborations are arguably that much more unique, because even the smallest details have a dramatic impact on an original silhouette. We’ve seen it in high-fashion, we’ve seen it in streetwear, and we’ve seen it in the watch world. “It lives through magic.Collaboration is as powerful a currency as any these days for both the brand and the partner they work with. “Drawing is still basically the same as it has been since prehistoric times,” Haring once declared. While his works sometimes included text, for the most part, he chose to communicate through drawing. In a foreshadowing of today’s intermingling of art and fashion, the shop sold merchandise and novelty items featuring imagery by Haring and contemporaries like Kenny Scharf and Jean-Michel Basquiat. To make his art even more accessible, in 1986, Haring opened the Pop Shop in Soho.

#KEITH HARING SWATCH FULL#

They derive much of their impact from the powerful contrast between these serious subjects and the joyful, vibrant pictographic language he uses to express them, full of dancing figures, babies, barking dogs, hearts and rhythmic lines, as well as references to pop culture. Haring’s paintings, prints and murals address the universal themes of death, love and sex, as well as contemporary issues he experienced personally, like the crack-cocaine and AIDS epidemics. He called them his “laboratory,” places to develop a radical new aesthetic based on an ideology of creating truly democratic public art. Keith Haring began experimenting with his bold, graphic lines and cartoon-inspired figures on the walls of New York City subway stations in the early 1980s. Haring’s works can be found in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.

#KEITH HARING SWATCH CRACK#

Throughout his career, Haring made his art widely available through the location of his murals, as well as through the Pop Shop-Haring's own storefront which he used to sell his memorabilia.The artist’s mural Crack is Wack (1986), can still be seen today on a retaining wall along FDR Drive in Manhattan. Before his death, Haring established the Keith Haring Foundation, a non-profit committed to raising awareness of the illness through art programing and community outreach. Diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in 1988, Haring’s prodigious career was brief, and he died of AIDS-related complications on Februat the age of 31. By the mid-1980s, he had befriended fellow artists Andy Warhol, Kenny Scharf, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, and collaborated with celebrities like the singer Grace Jones. Haring moved to New York in the late 1970s to attend the School of Visual Arts, and soon immersed himself in the city’s graffiti culture. It celebrates humanity instead of manipulating it.” Born on in Reading, PA, he grew up in neighboring Kutztown, where he was inspired to draw from an early age by Walt Disney cartoons and his father who was an amateur cartoonist.

“It should be something that liberates the soul, provokes the imagination and encourages people to go further. “I don't think art is propaganda,” he once stated. His white chalk drawings could often been found on the blank poster marquees in New York’s public spaces and subways. Keith Haring was an American artist and social activist known for his illustrative depictions of figures and symbols. Minor age related wear in otherwise good overall vintage condition. Rare vintage original 1980s Keith Haring illustrated poster for Swatch Watches & Saks Fifth Ave.

Keith haring swatch