Art Analysis: Keith Haring

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Keith Haring’s poster of Ignorance=Fear, Silence=Death has a series of three yellow colored people in several different positions. The figures are non-representational because we do not see anything that truly defines the gender, age, or possibly even race of these people. The first yellow colored figure has their hands covering to what appears to be their eyes, and has a pink x over their stomach. A series of black lines surround the figure. Some of these lines are straight and others curve around the figure’s body. The second figure is covering the sides of their head. Once again a pink x mark is covering their stomach, and there are black curved and straight lines surrounding the body. Finally, the last figure we see is covering the bottom …show more content…

This destructive disease impacted him as well as the estimated 100,000 people in the United States in the year 1989. The poster itself is symbolic of individuals during the 80’s unwilling to face the truth about AIDS. The first yellow figure is covering their eyes, and this implies people were ignorant and did not believe AIDS was a huge epidemic. The second yellow figure is covering their ears choosing not to listen about the illness. The last yellow figure is covering their mouth choosing to stay silent. What Keith Haring is trying to convey through his artwork is to educate yourself on what AIDS is and how to protect yourself from contracting this disease. We know that he created Ignorance=Fear, Silence=Death to spread awareness about AIDS because the poster itself states “fight AIDS act up.”
The images above are just a few other example of how Keith Haring used similar ideas to create different artworks about stopping the AIDS epidemic. We know that he used his fame in the art world to create a platform on stopping this deadly disease. These piece of artwork all revolve around Keith Haring’s persistence to keep the public eye open about

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