It’s not an easy time to be alive, and maybe an even more difficult time to die

Keith Haring Portrait by Tseng Kwong Ching

Courants d'art

Through all the shit, shines the small ray of hope that lives in the common sense of the few. The music, dance, theatre, and the visual arts; the forms of expression, the arts of hope. This is where I think I fit in.
– Memorial Day 1977 (p. 45*)

 No artists are parts of a movement. Unless they are followers. And then they are unnecessary and doing unnecessary art.
– October 14, 1978 (p. 49*)

I love to paint. And you can see it in the work.
I don’t care if it is a painting/drawing/sculpture performance.
I don’t care if you don’t like it.
I don’t care of the paper is wrinkled, torn.
I don’t care if somebody walked across it and got dirt on it.
I don’t care if the lines vary and there are drips and splatters.
I don’t care if I don’t paint on it.
If I don’t care about all of the lesser elements of the painting; if it is not regarded as “sacred” and “valuable,” then I can paint, without inhibition, and experience the interaction of line and shapes. I can paint spontaneously without worrying if it looks “good” and I can let my movement and my instant reaction/response control the piece, control my energy (if there is any control at all). Maybe control is a bad word.
– October 14, 1978 (pp. 53-54*)

I hope I am not vain in thinking that I may be exploring possibilities that artists like Stuart Davis, Jackson Pollock, Jean Dubuffet and Pierre Alechinsky have initiated but did not resolve. Their ideas are living ideas. They cannot be resolved, only explored deeper and deeper. I find comfort in the knowledge that they were on a similar search.
In some sense I am not alone. I feel it when I see their work. Their ideas live on and increase in power as they are explored and rediscovered. I am not alone, as they were not alone, as no artist of the brotherhood ever was or ever will be alone. When I am aware of this unity, and refuse to let my self-doubt and lack of self-confidence interfere, it is one of the most wonderful feelings I’ve ever experienced. I am a necessary part of an important search to which there is no end. 
– Election Day, November 7, 1978 (p. 57*)

In questioning the reason “why” I make art and “what” I want to achieve by making “art,” the question inevitably arises:
“What is the effect of my creation on the viewer?” and then, “What do people respond to, and how do you induce a specific response within these guidelines?” or “Am I seeking a conditioned response?”
– January 12, 1979 21 First Avenue Apt.18, New York City (p. 67*)

It causes great emotion to be stirred inside of me to be in contact with the lifetime of work of a powerful artist. While at the same time being overwhelmed and intellectually moved and filled with respect—having to listen to people denounce this work as meaningless, abstract, all the same thing, “You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all”—to hear people walking through and trashing what seems to me quite an incredible feat. It fills me with disgust sometimes to the point of wanting to say something and usually laughing quietly or walking away. These paintings are 40 years old and some people can’t even begin to deal with them, how in the hell can I hope to even consider these people while I try to make “art” in the present. And they are the majority.
– November 1979 (pp. 90-91*)

I think I was born an artist. I think I have a responsibility to live up to that. I’ve spent my life up to this point trying to find out just what that responsibility is. I learned from studying other artists’ lives and studying the world. Now I live in New York City, which I believe to be the center of the world. My contribution to the world is my ability to draw. I will draw as much as I can for as many people as I can for as long as I can. Drawing is still basically the same as it has been since prehistoric times. It brings together man and the world. It lives through magic.
– March 18, 1982 (pp. 100-101*)

It is sad to make all these things and then just sell them. I want to keep everything for myself.
– Tuesday June 23, 1987 (p. 166*)

I don’t want the things I have already made to interfere with what I will make. I don’t want what I have made to dictate what I should or should not make or how much I should work. I wish I could make things all the time and never have to think about what happens to them afterward; I just want to “make” them.
– Thursday June 25, 1987 (p. 168*)

    

Un langage universel

There is within all forms a basic structure, an indication of the entire object with a minimum of lines, that becomes a symbol. This is common to all languages, all people, all times. Possibly that is why I am so inclined to use calligraphic images, hieroglyphic forms, basic structures that are common to all people of all times and, therefore, interesting to us as well.
– January 12, 1979 21 First Avenue Apt.18, New York City (p. 70*)

[...]  I really prefer if the work speaks for itself. I try to make images that are universally “readable” and self-explanatory. The person who is looking for a simple answer to their questions will probably be disappointed. An artist is a spokesman for a society at any given point in history. His language is determined by his perception of the world we all live in. He is a medium between “what is” and “what could be.” If an artist is really honest to himself and his culture he lets the culture speak through him and imposes his own ego as little as possible. If there is no mystery there is only propaganda.
– June 13, 1984 (p. 111*)

I think the work I am doing and the direction my life and career have taken was completely determined by my graphic sensibility (my drawing style) and a careful evaluation and understanding of what that is and what it possesses within itself that determines its evolution. It’s about understanding not only the works, but the world we live in and the times we live in and being a kind of mirror of that. I think it happens really naturally and inevitably if you are honest with yourself and your times.
That is the reason I have the Pop Shop and why I can do a video for Grace Jones and why I can use computers, design sculpture parks, vodka ads, and make paintings without it contradicting itself. The line determines the work. The philosophy and attitude of the early work (i.e., the subway drawings, public murals, graphic contribution) determined the public-ness of the work. Popular culture ingests it whether I like it or not.
– February 1987 (pp. 135-136*)

Had a nice conversation about the “Eastern” (i.e., Japanese, Chinese calligraphy) aspect of my work, the approach, method, attitude, etc. I think people see my work completely clearly after they realize the connection to (what seems obvious to me) a larger philosophic and aesthetic tradition. I think my ability to explain this is definitely developing more coherently, the more I write and the more I answer questions (i.e., interviews, lectures). I think I always sensed it and understood it intuitively, but it is difficult to explain.
– Wednesday May 20, 1987 (p. 154*)

Il n'y a pas d'art sans public

Pure art exists only on the level of instant response to pure life.
– October 14, 1978 (p. 48*)

The meaning of art as it is experienced by the viewer, not the artist.
The artist’s ideas are not essential to the art as seen by the viewer.
The viewer is an artist in the sense that he conceives a given piece of his own way that is unique to him.
His own imagination determines what it is, what it means.
The viewer does not have to be considered during the conception of the art, but should not be told, then, what to think or how to conceive it or what it means. There is no need for definition.
Definition can be the most dangerous, destructive tool the artist can use when he is making art for a society of individuals.
Definition is not necessary.
Definition defeats itself and its goals by defining them.
The public has a right to art.
– October 14, 1978 (p. 50*)

There is an audience that is being ignored, but they are not necessarily ignorant. They are open to art when it is open to them.
– December 18, 1978 (p. 65*)

Incredible Van Gogh collections all hanging salon-style, side by side, packed together because main building was getting repainted or under construction. Funny situation. It made them all look like cheap imitations because of how they were hung, Manet and Renoir and Mondrians all mixed up, side by side and only inches apart. Funny how important “space” is . . .
When their “importance” is reduced and they’re forced to compete with each other they are not so “grand” anymore. Only the great ones withstand this test. Great lesson in art history and reality.
– April 25, 1987 (p. 142*)

I have letters from children all over the world that testify to this connection. I don’t know if it is my funny face or my simple nature that provokes laughter and sympathy between me and them. But we share something that to me is very important to understand the reason for living and meaning of “life,” if there is any “meaning” to life at all.
– July 7, 1986 Montreux (p. 120*)

I think public sculpture should aggressively alter our perception of the environment in a positive way. People love to interact with sculptures by climbing, sitting, touching and moving. For me, the most effective public sculpture would function as visual and physical entertainment. I think public art (unless there is a specific political or ideological message) should make people feel comfortable, and brighten their environment. These sculptures were designed to be played on . . . a kind of “adult-scale” playground.
– April 1986 (p. 116*)

It’s really satisfying to make the things and really fulfilling to see people’s response to them, but the rest is difficult. I tried, as much as I could, to take a new position, a different attitude about selling things, by doing things in public and by doing commercial things that go against the ideas of the “commodity-hype” art market. However, even these things are co-opted and seen by some as mere advertising for my salable artworks. I fear there is no way out of this trap. Once you begin to sell things (anything) you are guilty of participating in the game.
– Thursday June 25, 1987 (pp. 167-168*)

I really love to work. I swear it is one of the things that makes me most happy and it seems to have a similar effect on everyone who is around me while I work.
– Tuesday October 27, 1987 Tokyo (p.205*)

L'art dénaturé par l'argent

People keep asking me how “success” has changed me. I always say that success has changed people’s responses and behavior toward me and that change has affected me, but it has not really changed me. I feel the same on the inside now as I did ten years ago. I was as happy then as I am now.
– July 7, 1986 Montreux (p. 120*)

It is very strange to me that people expect “success” to equal happiness, even after they have seen all their media stars suffer and die and hurt themselves.
Money doesn’t mean anything. I think money is the hardest thing for me to deal with. It is much easier to live with no money than to live with money. Money breeds guilt (if you have any conscience at all). And if you don’t have any conscience, then money breeds evil. Money itself is not evil, in fact it can actually be very effective for “good” if it is used properly and not taken seriously.
You have to be objective about money to use it fairly. It doesn’t make you any better or any more useful than any other person. Even if you use your money to help people . . . that doesn’t make you better than somebody who has no money but is sympathetic and genuinely loving to fellow humans.
Usually the people who are the most generous are people who have the least to give. I learned this first-hand as a newspaper carrier when I was 12 years old. The biggest tips came from the poorest people. I was surprised by this, but I learned it as a lesson. People on the streets of New York who give money to beggars are often people who have very little themselves. They don’t expect anything in return. It is quite natural. Charity for the sake of making one feel better about oneself is not really charity.
– July 7, 1986 Montreux (pp. 120-121*)

Most critics only write to defend their own ideas and previous statements, anyway.
– February 1987 (p. 134*)

You can only help and encourage people to live for themselves. The most evil people are the people who pretend to have the answers. The fundamentalist Christians, all dogmatic “control religions,” are evil. The original ideas are good. But they are so convoluted and changed that only a skeleton of good intentions is left. . . .
Most of the evil in the world is done in the name of good (religion, false prophets, bullshit artists, politicians, businessmen).
The whole concept of “business” is evil.
Most white men are evil. The white man has always used religion as the tool to fulfill his greed and power-hungry aggression.
Business is only another name for control. Control of mind, body and spirit. Control is evil.
– March 28, 1987 On a plane from Düsseldorf to New York City (p. 139*)

My collection of “propositions ignored” is one of my favorite files.
– May 8, 1987 (p. 147*)

Always the same story. Getting money that is owed to me is like they are doing me a favor. They’ve got it backwards. I may have to take drastic action and finally start working on my own.
– May 8, 1987 (p. 148*)

I sometimes get really sick of the selling part. I would love to just make things and let them accumulate and pile up. I like to make them, but I don’t like to sell them. All the time I spend thinking of how much they should cost and what percentage I get and which ones I should keep and how many I should do, etc., etc., seems really counterproductive and anti-art. The reason I make art and the reason I became an artist was not for this.
– Thursday June 25, 1987 (pp. 167-168*)

It is impossible to separate the activity and the result. The act of creation itself is very clear and pure. But this creation immediately results in a “thing” that has a “value” that must be reckoned with. Even the subway drawings, which were quite obviously about the “act,” not the “thing,” are now turning up, having been “rescued” from destruction by would-be collectors. Possibly only the murals on cement walls that cannot be removed and the computer drawings, which can be rearranged at will, are free from these considerations.
– Thursday June 25, 1987 (p. 168*)

The art market is one of the most dangerous, parasitic, corrupt organizations in the world, next to the Roman Catholic church or the justice system in the United States.
– October 2, 1987 (p.183*)

Les contrefaçons, vecteurs de popularité

[...] she said she had something she wanted me to see, but was hoping I wouldn’t be mad. I was curious. It turned out she had painted their dining room table à la [sic] Swatch with my figures running around the top of the table. I was flattered and surprised, not angry.
Sometimes this kind of transformation is the most interesting thing for me to see.
– July 26, 1986 The Watch Story (p. 128*)

It’s really funny to me how all these museums sell poster and postcard reproductions of my art, but refuse to exhibit, collect or even acknowledge it within the museum. I bet they didn’t sell Peter Max in art museum bookshops ever. They want to play with me, but they don’t have the balls to stand up and support me now. Wait, everyone says, just wait and be patient. I should be glad, I suppose, that I am still outside of their acceptance. It gives me a kind of freedom and gives me something to work against.
– October 2, 1987 (pp.182-183*)

I don’t think I can get people to go out of their way to come to the Shop, especially if there are fake things everywhere else. I am worried that maybe people are tired of the things because they have seen them so much because of all the imitations. And unless a bigger company is involved it will be very costly and time-consuming to pursue all the fakes. I suppose I have to decide if I want to be involved or not—or find a way to be less involved, but still have the work be present. Maybe I just have to hire someone in New York who will act more like an agent or manager for the “things.” I seem to have distanced myself more and more from the mass-produced K. Haring, and I am certainly more interested in inventing than distributing.
– Monday July 25, 1988 (p.223*)

There are so many fakes now it’s hard to believe. It is hard to find a store that doesn’t have some fake KH things or KH-inspired things. I’ve stopped collecting them, unless they are particularly amusing.
It is interesting to see the way the images have become generic in a way. They don’t really signify KH, but something that seems much more of the collective consciousness or “universal” culture. Sometimes they are only barely recognizable as my drawings. This is interesting to a degree, but when it gets to the point where they are overshadowing my own things then it becomes more of a problem.
– Monday July 25, 1988 (p.224*)

Amoureux de la vie

 [...] I guess I’m afraid I’m wrong, because I constantly relate myself to other people, other experiences, other ideas. I should be looking at both in perspective, not comparing. I relate my life to an idea or an example that is some entirely different life. I should be relating it to my life only in the sense that each has good and bad facets.
– April 29, 1977. Pittsburgh (p. 41*)

I am me. I may look like you, but if you take a closer look you will realize that I am nothing like you at all. I am very different. I see things through a completely different perspective because in my life I had experiences that you didn’t have, and I had feelings you didn’t have, and I’ve lived places and seen places and experienced life from a completely different point of view than you have. I may be wearing the same shoes and the same haircut, but that gives you no right to have any preconceived notions about what I am or who I am.
You don’t even know me.
You never will.
– October 14, 1978 (p. 50*)

These fucking beautiful boys drive me crazy. This guy in the subway sitting with his legs wide open in front of him—on purpose. Glancing at me and just enjoying being looked at. This guy in the cafeteria. Gorgeous. I just stand there and say “gorgeous” to myself over and over again. I find a reason to use the phone so I can stand there near him a little longer, just a little longer—pretty—pretty—pretty boys. And I just look and I know it’s just as bad because I only look and I have an incredible imagination. I can have these boys, any of them, all of them, tonight alone in my little room in the dark—just my imagination—dark eyes, dark hair and gorgeous bodies, penetrating gaze. To quote from an essay by Jean Genet I read recently, “Eager thick penis rising from a bed of black curls.” So writing it out. Writing it out of myself—stop thinking about it and take this energy into another form. This energy, sexual energy, may be the single strongest impulse I feel—more than art?(!)
– March 18, 1980 (pp. 97-98*)
 
Many of the lessons I have learned my whole life have been about what I don’t want to do or be.
I don’t really know exactly what I want to be, but I know what I don’t want to be.
– July 7, 1986 Montreux (p. 119*)

I’m glad I’m different. I’m proud to be gay. I’m proud to have friends and lovers of every color. I am ashamed of my forefathers. I am not like them.
– March 28, 1987 On a plane from Düsseldorf to New York City (p. 140*)

He’s convinced if he has a commitment from me he won’t be enticed to fuck around anymore. I’m not so sure. In reality I am not fucking around like he imagines I am. People do not throw themselves at me 24-7. I look, but so what? Nothing ever happens. I’m sure for him it’s different since he is a walking sex object. I’m real confused. I think I want to be independent sometimes, but if he would call me and say he was leaving for good and really do it, I think I would freak out.
I’ve never been good at this. I’ve never really understood love or had a relationship that went smoothly. I always seem to seek rejection and the more I am loved, the more I don’t want to accept it because I want to be hurt. I like to pity myself or something. Maybe it’s time for me to get married. I’m not sure I can live without Juan when it really comes down to it. I am really sickeningly jealous yet at the same time excited by the idea that he’s a sex object. The whole thing was too much like destiny. And you know you can’t fuck with destiny. So, he’s coming to Japan in two days and by the time we leave on October 30, I’ve got to either make a commitment or say goodbye forever. This is not the kind of thing that can be decided over the telephone.
– October 14, 1987 (pp.199*)

I’m happy, but I can’t explain why. I’m constantly reminded of “reality” by taking my AZT and Zovirax every four hours, but somehow the time in between seems totally magical. I have a really good time with Gil.
– Tuesday February 14, 1989 Valentine’s Day (p.238*)

Un engagement citoyen

Life is more valuable than human beings. It is the living force that is within human beings as well as other animals, sky, water, energy, gravity, space. It must be continued at any cost.
The destruction of this planet, this solar system, by human beings would not be an end to life. It would go on without us.
We have a choice, whether we wish to continue evolution on this planet or not.
I vote “yes.”
– October 14, 1978 (p. 56*)

Also, living under the threat of possible destruction in the form of nuclear war, etc., the most important thing to me is the present. Living day to day for each day as if it were the most important thing to think about.
– December 1978 (p. 63*)

Being born in 1958, the first generation of the Space Age, born into a world of television technology and instant gratification, a child of the atomic age. Raised in America during the sixties and learning about war from Life magazines on Vietnam. Watching riots on television in a warm living room comfortably safe in middle-class white America. I don’t believe in solutions. Things are beyond my control and beyond comprehension. I do not have dreams of changing the world. I do not have dreams of saving the world. However, I am in the world and I am a human being. In 1982, with telephones and radio, computers and airplanes, world news and video tape, satellites and automobiles, human beings are still frighteningly similar to human beings 2,000 years ago. I am scared to death.
– March 18, 1982 (pp. 100-101*)

Not everyone feels a responsibility to the world. I do not fool myself into thinking that these things I make can change the world or even make a big effect in the world.
– May 4, 1982 Brussel Airport (p. 102*)

The very idea that we are so different from other beings (animals) and things (rocks, trees, air, water) is, I think, a great misconception, but if understood is not necessarily evil. We know that “humans” determine the future of this planet. We have the power to destroy and create. We, after all is said and done, are the perpetrators of the destruction of the Earth we inhabit. No matter how slowly this destruction is occurring, no matter how “natural” this de-composition is, we are the harborers of this change.
– July 7, 1986 Montreux (p. 117*)

I am involved because of my interest in the project and the people who will benefit from it, not to help promote the financial supporters (in this case Burger King or Benetton). But the decision to participate or not is weighed against the exploitative side effects and in this case, ultimately, I think it is worth it to have the project exist and to have had the experience of a positive interaction with and lasting effect on these 1,000 students and the people who will see the painting. Even though there is a risk of being manipulated or exploited by the commercial sponsors. I realize I will receive criticism but, again, I think the project itself was much too important to worry about a little criticism.
– July 15 or 16 (I can’t tell), 1986 Delhi, India (p. 123*)

    

    

L'omniprésence de la mort

Anyway, there is one question George is asked about life and art and which is more important, and George said art is more important because it is immortal. This struck a very deep note inside me. For I am quite aware of the chance that I have or will have AIDS.
The odds are very great and, in fact, the symptoms already exist. My friends are dropping like flies and I know in my heart that it is only divine intervention that has kept me alive this long. I don’t know if I have five months or five years, but I know my days are numbered.
This is why my activities and projects are so important now. To do as much as possible as quickly as possible. I’m sure that what will live on after I die is important enough to make sacrifices of my personal luxury and leisure time now. Work is all I have and art is more important than life.
– March 28, 1987 On a plane from Düsseldorf to New York City (p. 138*)

I always knew, since I was young, that I would die young. But I thought it would be fast (an accident, not a disease). In fact, a man-made disease like AIDS. Time will tell, but I am not scared. I live every day as if it were the last. I love life. I love babies and children and some people, most people—well, maybe not most but a lot of people!
I’ve been very lucky so far; luckier than many. I don’t take it for granted, I assure you. I appreciate everything that has happened, especially the gift of life I was given that has created a silent bond between me and children.
– March 28, 1987 On a plane from Düsseldorf to New York City (p. 139*)

The politics are “outside” of my politics for this painting. I painted it for the enjoyment of the sick children in this hospital, now and in the future. Inevitably the mural will outlive the complications of the moment. I don’t think art is always “outside” of politics, but in this case my mural certainly has no bearing on supporting the politics of either side.
– May 8, 1987 (p. 148*)

I think it’s really disgusting that people have nothing better to do than wait for the next victim, like vultures. Maybe they’re concerned. I don’t know, in a way I’ve gotten over it. I really don’t care anymore. Life and death are inevitable. I think I’ve had a great life and every day is a surprise. I’m happy to be alive today.
– Tuesday May 26, 1987 (p. 157*)

Also, during the day the doctor from Antwerp has visited and told me all blood, X-rays, etc., were normal. So I was O.K. till the phone rang and it was a “lady” from New York Newsday asking me to comment on the rumor that I have AIDS. I can’t believe this could have gotten so out of hand just from being out of New York for two months! I was nervous because I was tired from painting and stoned and I didn’t want to sound unsure of myself. I assured her I was fine and also assured her it was obnoxious of her to ask me in the first place. She kept persisting till I finally told her I had given her more than enough of my time and resumed my dinner.
– Wednesday June 24, 1987 (p. 167*)

It’s not an easy time to be alive, and maybe an even more difficult time to die.
– Monday July 25, 1988 (p.225*)

Une perception aiguë de la postérité

I am constantly being bombarded with influences from my environment. I only wish to throw some of them back. To create energies/influences that will affect others, as theirs affect me. My paintings, themselves, are not as important as the interaction between people who see them and the ideas that they take with them after they leave the presence of my painting—the thoughts and feelings I have evoked from their consciousness as a result of their contact with my thoughts and feelings as seen through the physical reality of images/objects.
– December 18, 1978 (p. 65*)

I am aware that I cannot hope to fully understand what I am doing at the present because I am still in the present. Things make sense in time.
– January 12, 1979 21 First Avenue Apt.18, New York City (p. 67*)

Today I am 24 years old. Twenty-four years is not a very long time, and then again it is enough time. I have added many things to the world. The world is this thing around me that I made for myself and I see for myself. The world will, however, go on without me being there to see it, it just won’t be “my” world then. That is what interests me most about the situation that I am in now. I am making things in the world that won’t go away when I do. If this “success” had not happened, then maybe the world would not know these things after I go away. But now I know, as I am making these things, that they are “real” things, maybe more “real” than me, because they will stay here when I go. In the situation I am in now, I am a vehicle for these “things” I’m bringing into the world.
– May 4, 1982 Brussel Airport (pp. 103-104*)

It has been moving so quickly that the only record is airplane tickets and articles in magazines from the various trips and exhibitions. Someday I suppose these will constitute my biography.
– July 7, 1986 Montreux (p. 116*)

I will never forget some of the adults who touched my life through my childhood. Sometimes very brief encounters have made an impact that is very lasting and very real. If it is possible for me to have that kind of effect on any children, I think that would be the most important and useful thing I could do.
Touching people’s lives in a positive way is as close as I can get to an idea of religion.
– July 7, 1986 Montreux (pp. 119-120*)

I am sure that in time mine will be understood to have been a very clear, selective, hopefully intelligent, politically sound, humanistic and imaginative approach to the “role” of Contemporary Artists.
– July 15 or 16 (I can’t tell), 1986 Delhi, India (p. 123*)
* sur ma liseuse

Annie Leibovitz - Keith Haring, New York, 1986

 Keith Haring - Journals (Viking, 1996)