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Top of the pile
77
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
92/100Critics
61/100Scholars
Author:
Brad Gooch
Publisher:
Harper
Date:
March 5, 2024
A biography of the iconic American artist and LGBTQ trailblazer Keith Haring, whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s.
What The Reviewers Say
Finding a chronicler with the proper combination of familiarity and detachment can be like going on a series of bad Hinge dates, but in Gooch, Haring has met his match. Radiant, referring to both Haring’s recurrent drawing of a crawling baby and his own fast-burning star, is a faithful retracing of his steps, with over 200 people interviewed or consulted: devoted and probably definitive. (The word 'magisterial' is too stuffy to apply to its subject, who favored jeans, sneaks and bared biceps).
Gooch, a seventies downtowner himself and the author of a sensitive biography of Frank O’Hara, is superb on the textures of these New York years, when a young artist seemingly couldn’t cross the street without getting ideas.
Does exactly what biographies of the exceptionally famous should do: Gently, graciously, it reels in the myth, restoring the flesh-and-bone reality..
Not only gives us a much-overdue appreciation of Haring as an important artist. It also paints an exhilarating portrait of a young artist finding himself and his calling.
