Flowers 1990

Keith Haring created 'Flowers' using screen printing, sometime before his death in 1990. Haring's work emerged from the vibrant counterculture of 1980s New York City, where he blurred the lines between street art and gallery art. The image, with its bold lines and bright colors, is instantly recognizable as Haring's. But let's think about how that style developed, and what it meant. Haring began by drawing in chalk in the subway, creating a public dialogue through accessible imagery. His style was influenced by the Pop Art of Warhol, and the cartoonish energy of artists like Jean Dubuffet, but Haring used those influences to confront social issues, particularly the AIDS crisis. We can see the institutional critique in his subversion of the art world's norms, bringing art to the people in unconventional spaces. To understand Haring fully, we have to look at the wider context of the 1980s, consulting sources from sociological studies to queer theory, in order to understand how art reflects and shapes society.