American Masters: Keith Haring: Street Art Boy

(Rochester, NY) – American Masters tells the story of Keith Haring, who revolutionized the worlds of Pop Culture in Keith Haring: Street Art Boy airing Monday, December 7, 2020 at 9:30 p.m. on WXXI-TV. Between 1980-1990, Keith Haring established himself as an art world celebrity and pop culture icon with a distinctive and instantly recognizable style that came to define the decade. This new documentary film is the definitive story of the artist in his own words. Following Haring’s AIDS diagnosis, he told writer and art critic John Gruen the story of his life in intimate and candid detail in 1989 for his biography. These previously unheard interviews form the narrative of American Masters – Keith Haring: Street Art Boy.

With exclusive, unprecedented access to the Haring Foundation’s archives, the film captures the wild, creative energy behind Haring’s art and the downtown New York culture of the 1980s that inspired him. Haring’s closest friends, family and collaborators — from the sleepy Kutztown, Pennsylvania of his youth to the mythic gay nightclubs of New York City — share revealing memories. American Masters – Keith Haring: Street Art Boy features interviews with Fab 5 Freddy, Lee Quinones, Tony Shafrazi, Bill T. Jones, Kenny Scharf, Ann Magnuson, Kurt Andersen, George Condo and others. On February 16, 1990, Haring died at age 31 of AIDS-related complications, making the life-affirming artist a tragic icon of the AIDS crisis.

Photo: Keith and Juan Dubose polaroid 1982
Credit: Courtesy of The Haring Foundation