The life and untimely death of Keith Haring, whose work burst with vitality and warmth
Madonna is on the road with her Celebration tour. The show-stopping moment is her song Live to Tell, in which she pays tribute to friends – and the multitudes she didn’t know – who died from Aids. Keith Haring’s bespectacled and adorably geeky face is one of those displayed on a huge screen. He was only 31 when he died in 1990, Madonna having called him on his deathbed. One of the most harrowing sections in Radiant, a compelling biography of the artist by Brad Gooch, describes Haring’s friend Bruno Schmidt encouraging him to take off his T-shirt on the beach on one of the artist’s final holidays, then being appalled by what was revealed: a back completely blackened by Kaposi’s sarcoma, the skin cancer Aids patients often developed.
Haring’s cruel fate still seems outrageous. How can a man whose work bursts with such warmth and vitality have died so young? Gooch’s meticulous retelling of his story underlines the loss. Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, and brought up in nearby Kutztown, Haring went though several teen identities – evangelical Christian, Grateful Dead fan – until he found himself in New York in 1978. Galvanised by emerging hip-hop culture, of which graffiti was a pillar, Haring realised that his drawings should not be confined to gallery walls. One day, he noticed that the matt black paper exposed when advertising hoardings on the subway were left vacant was ideal for making quick artworks in chalk.
