Key Takeaways
We take a closer look at Keith Haring’s Pop Shop series, one of the clearest expressions of his belief that art should be accessible to everyone. Created between 1987 and 1990, the screenprints take their name from the Pop Shop Haring opened in downtown Manhattan in 1986, where visitors could buy T-shirts, badges, magnets and posters featuring his imagery for as little as 50 cents.
The series draws directly from the visual language Haring developed in his chalk drawings across the New York subway. The barking dog, the radiant baby, winged figures and dancing bodies all appear throughout, rendered in bold black outlines and saturated block colour. We look at how his interest in semiotics shaped a vocabulary designed to be understood regardless of age, language or culture, how the prints echo the advertising aesthetics of 1980s New York, and how the Pop Shop itself, inspired by Warhol’s Factory, became a total artwork, with profits supporting children’s charities, educational organisations and AIDS research.
