Keith Haring once said: “Art is nothing if you don’t reach every segment of the people.” Experience the joyous, all-over pattern of his Pop Shop ceiling, the only surviving portion of the original black-and-white mural that once adorned the SoHo space.
Keith Haring once said: “Art is nothing if you don’t reach every segment of the people.” Experience the joyous, all-over pattern of his Pop Shop ceiling, the only surviving portion of the original black-and-white mural that once adorned the SoHo space.
1st floor, Robert H. and Clarice Smith New York Gallery of American History
Keith Haring once said: “Art is nothing if you don’t reach every segment of the people.” In that spirit, he opened the Pop Shop at 292 Lafayette Street in SoHo in 1986, in which he sold modestly priced items printed with his best-known symbols to visitors little interested in gallery-going. Haring covered the shop's ceiling, walls, even the floor with a single continuous mural in his signature graffiti-inflected style, boldly executed in black and white with a joyous, all-over pattern. After his death from AIDS in 1990, the Keith Haring Foundation continued to run the Pop Shop until 2005, when rent increases forced it to close. During its 19 years in operation, the floor and walls of the shop required extensive repainting, making the ceiling—now in place above our Museum's admission desk—the only original portion of the mural in existence.
Exhibitions at The New York Historical are made possible by Dr. Agnes Hsu-Tang and Oscar Tang, the Saunders Trust for American History, the Evelyn & Seymour Neuman Fund, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature. WNET is the media sponsor.
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