ICM Final–Keith Haring

Keith Haring Digital Exhibition

Keith Haring is a very well known American artist, whom is currently on display at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Haring’s exhibition is a retrospective of his time in NYC between 1978-1982, when he studied Fine Art at the School of Visual Arts. Through this exhibition you can see several political, social, and economic themes in his works because he was inspired by the world around him.

In the exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, there are several videos, pictures, and journals that show the type of lifestyle that Haring lived. He would party hard, fight for social justice, and then party some more. Haring also tried to fight for gay rights. He created a whole series of drawings (not shown in my online exhibition, but are on display at the Brooklyn), titled Manhattan Penis Drawings for Ken Hicks, which morphs NYC’s famous skyline by having penis shaped buildings.

My online exhibition is to supplement the full version at the Museum. I feel that through digital media, Haring’s works take on a different life and tell a different narrative that cannot be seen in person. Many of his paintings and sketches are in  series, which creates  narrative arches, that I try to exploit by adding animations to the art.

In each section there is different information that I learned both online, through my own research, and from my visit at the museum. I really focused on making the works as easy to understand as possible. Haring often made art based on his environment and what was happening in the world at that time but with the intention for the entire world to see it. He never wanted to “sell out” or charge anyone to see his creations, which is why I also created this online exhibition.

Haring wanted to use his skills to entertain and educate the public, which is the same thing I want to do. I hope you enjoy the digital exhibition and feel free to contact me with any additional information or questions. I also want to say thank you to the Brooklyn Museum for showcasing Haring’s work and to my Intro to Computational Media professor, Liesje Hodgson for all the patience and help to get this site done.

I have also included some music from the time to help set the mood for a retro throwback.

Enjoy

Final Project

Currently, I am working towards making art more interactive and engaging for the public. I was originally going to expand on my midterm project, but I feel that I should try to explore integrating my professional goals with my final class. I feel that most people do not connect with art because they don’t take time to really look at it or they do not get enough information about the works.

I researched a prior exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art titled Split Second: Indian Paintings. This exhibition looked at the choices people make while going through a gallery. It showed how some pieces of art attract the eye and hold peoples attention. It also showed how with more information the audience had, they enjoyed the art more than if they had your typical museum tags.

I am taking this information and building on the interactivity of the Split Second. I am going to use the Keith Haring retrospective that is currently on display at the Brooklyn Art Museum and play with some of the images. Haring’s works are fun and often build on each other. I feel that by taking these images, breaking them down into smaller jpegs, and then the works will change in accordance to how much motion goes by the camera. I am going to try and build some way to include more information about the works as well but I have not decided how I am going to do that yet.

I know I need to work on how to use classes and I am going to use and store most of my images in tabs. I am also going to work on storing the images in an array and maybe manipulate them some.

For those who do not know who Keith Haring is, these are some of his works:

Exhibition Opening