A selection of Keith Haring‘s Subway Drawings will soon be on view at The Modern Institute in Glasgow. The forthcoming exhibition will highlight the American artist’s impact on art over the past 40 years, paying special emphasis on Haring’s explorations into language and semiotics.
Haring created hundreds of subway artworks with white chalk between 1980 and 1985, scribbling his now iconic visual lexicon that commented on gender, sexuality and the flux of urban life — which in New York at the time, had just began recovering from a destructive fiscal crisis several years prior. “I remember noticing a panel in the Times Square station and immediately going aboveground and buying chalk,” Haring recalled. “After the first drawing things just fell into place. I began drawing on the subways as a hobby on my way to work. I had to ride the subways often and would do a drawing while waiting for a train.”
Despite several officers being fond of his aesthetic, Haring was arrested on multiple occasions and much of the art he created during that time was immediately destroyed or covered over by advertisements, giving added prominence to the few subway frescoes that survive today.
For those in the UK, Subway Drawings will be on view in Glasgow from June 7 to September 5, 2024.
The Modern Institute
3 Aird’s Lane
Glasgow G1 5HU
United Kingdom
