A new exhibit shows an old connection between pop artist Keith Haring and an Iowa City elementary school

Its impact on students

Through the eyes of upper elementary students in 1989, Haring did not inspire the intimidation that his fame and reputation in New York could easily cause many adults. To them he was part of the class.

Ernst said the kids took to him immediately when he mixed their work and suggestions with his own one-day mural.

“He was a famous young man, but also just a happy young lad,” Ernst said of the artist, then 31. “He had art to make and a whole world to make it in.”

Even for non-artistic students, his presence resonated throughout life. For 10-year-old Lisa Margolin, watching Haring paint her mural freestyle without graphics was a masterclass in improvisation.

“I was kind of a perfectionist. Art class really made me nervous because there was no right answer in it,” she said. “He saw it and put it where he intended to put it. That was amazing to watch.”

Today, she treasures the only autograph he gave that day, a signature embedded in a quick drawing that resembles the figures in his motifs. After graduating from theater and trying to pursue it in New York, the Iowa City resident said the lessons she learned that day are still part of her comedy routines posted on YouTube.

“Improv is a lot like that blank canvas. We don’t know what it will be,” she said. “(The autograph) was such a cool thing back then and it gets cooler as I get older. It’s art – it changes as I see it from different angles.

The mural, depicting clowns, animals and other whimsical objects, reflects not only his childlike sense of wonder, but also the children for whom it was made. Ernst remembers his call for proposals in real time.

“Paint a toaster!” suggested one student. And so with a laugh he moved his index finger across the paper, finding room for a smiling piece of toast to pop out between the duck’s head and the fish sticking out its cartoonishly long tongue.

“I had no idea what he was going to create, and as far as I could tell, neither did Keith,” Ernst said.

The power of his art

Haring often took time out of his travels to visit schools and introduce children to the power of art as he knew it.

Working until the month he died in February 1990, Haring felt he had a lot to accomplish and little time to do it. While promoting tolerance of different races and sexual orientations, the gay artist puts a lot of thought into challenging the role of art among ordinary people.

In a world where art is often reserved for high society, the man who grew up in rural Pennsylvania believes all viewers have a responsibility to participate in art.

“He was really concerned about the way art was co-opted and it occupied a very elite space, culturally,” said exhibition curator Diana Tuite. “He thinks hard about who he wants to reach and how to create a vocabulary that is both readable and ambiguous in ways that invite people to make their own interpretations.”

The kids, he says, keep him honest.

“He said sometimes that they know what the rest of us have forgotten, that their tolerance … is something so precious,” Tuite said. “To hear the stories of some of the students who met him is to hear them describe someone who came, met them on their level, and respected them as thinkers—as creative spirits worthy of his respect.”

Ernst said she just wanted her students to experience the excitement and pleasure an artist can have in their work. Keith’s last visit to Iowa City was about nine months before his death.

While driving Keith from the airport, the teacher notices a bruise on his forehead, a symptom of the diagnosis, which he made public about three months after his visit. After his visit, the school coordinated training for students with the University of Iowa’s newly established HIV clinic.

“Because he had AIDS, and because it was the 80s, I knew that Keith, ironically, would soon be another dead artist,” Ernst told The Gazette. “When he died… it was like someone in my family had died.”

The exhibit

The new exhibit, rekindling the late artist’s connection to Iowa and middle America, will give visitors a look at his life’s work through the lens of his episode at Horn Elementary, as well as the values ​​embodied by his work. Opening on Haring’s 66th birthday, it will feature artwork, photographs, letters with students and archival material contextualizing his visits during his meteoric career.

Tuite said the mural, moved to the Stanley Museum archives recently during the renovation of Horn Elementary, was a major undertaking for its time. While Haring often took time to travel to visit elementary schools, the mural he painted for Iowa City was something of a civic project.

“That’s what we want to honor in the way the project feels now. We know the exhibit looks like it belongs to a lot of people,” she said. “This show demonstrates not only what can happen when communities come together, but what it looks like to be a place that is tolerant, accepting and encouraging expression and inquiry.”

Comments: Feature reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or at elijah.decious@thegazette.com.

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