Pop Shop III 1989

Keith Haring made this screenprint, Pop Shop III, using bold outlines, a limited color palette and simple forms. Imagine Haring in his studio, working out the composition, maybe starting with a sketch, then carefully laying down each color, one by one. There’s something both playful and urgent in the way Haring simplifies form. I wonder if he thought about how to make it accessible and immediate. The flat planes of color – the bright yellow figure, the minty green background – they give the work an energy, a vibrancy. Look at that crouching figure, how its dynamic pose is communicating a sense of both tension and dynamism. Haring had a real gift for distilling complex ideas into these iconic images. It’s like he’s plugged into the same circuit as Warhol and the other pop artists. They were all talking to each other, riffing off each other’s ideas, pushing the boundaries of what art could be.