Keith Haring had a peculiar habit.
“Even at the height of his fame, (Haring) would often introduce himself as Keith from Kutztown,” said Dr. Brendan Strasser, an archivist with the Kutztown Area Historical Society. “You can’t help that (Haring) was being a little bit ironic about it. But he was also pointing very deliberately to the fact that, here was this small-town kid who found his fame and fortune in the big city.”
Despite having a complicated relationship with his hometown in an era where being openly gay was far less accepted, Strasser said the neo-pop artist was proud of where he came from.
“He was still grounded in some of these hometown values,” said Strasser.
Now, Kutztown has physically cemented the legacy of one of its most well-known natives with a Pennsylvania historical marker commemorating Haring’s life, works, and impact.
Strasser and a handful of historians, government officials and activists spoke at a dedication ceremony for the new marker Friday.
The proceedings also featured a special temporary exhibit of Haring’s art, books, and artifacts.
The ceremony, attended by about 200, saw Haring’s sisters, Kay Haring and Karen Haring-Delong, lift the veil on the marker for the first time.
“This is a perpetual recognition of the talents and contribution that this gentleman made to our commonwealth and our word,” Dr. William B. Lewis Jr., a commissioner with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. “50, 100 years from now (the marker) will spark intrigue in somebody to look into what (Haring) did.”
What Haring did was convey a striking visual message in a way that no artist had before or since, said Liz Bradbury, an activist and co-founder of the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown.
“His iconic, accessible work…literally symbolizes vital struggles against homophobia, racism, poverty, apartheid and AIDS,” Bradbury said. “Even if you do not know Keith Haring’s name, you know his work, especially if you’re part of the LGBTQ+ community.”
Haring died of AIDS in 1990, at the height of the AIDS epidemic.
“(Haring) dedicated a lot of his work to hospitals, and combatting the AIDS crisis,” said Ashleigh Strange, executive director of the Pennsylvania governor’s advisory commission on LGBTQ affairs.
Bradbury said Keith Haring’s identity as a gay man was as important to his art as Martin Luther King’s race, Anne Frank’s heritage, and Frida Kahlo’s indigenous background and disabilities, were to their work.
“As all of these people are, Keith Haring is an inspiration not in spite of his minority status, but in honor of it,” Bradbury said.
Bradbury thanked Dr. Mary Foltz, a Lehigh University faculty member, and the Kutztown Area Historical Society for their work in creating a physical representation of Haring’s legacy.
Foltz applied for the marker in 2022 along with Robert Tuerk, an LGBTQ equality activist.
“Too frequently, LGTBQ+ history is left out of curriculum, left out of narratives of our nation (and) regional communities,” Folz said. “From Haring, (we learned that) artists and their art need not be disengaged from the major issues of their time.”
Strasser, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on Haring, ended the ceremony with a story about Haring.
He said students and faculty members were asking Strasser for Haring pins and memorabilia in 1990, at a time when the Haring craze was growing around the campus where Strasser worked.
Strasser said he sent Haring a note and a check for $100 asking to mail him pins he could hand out.
“Four days (after I learned he’d died), I opened up my mailbox, and there was a package from (Haring),” Strasser said. “It had been mailed eight days before he died. It contained about 200 of these little pins, and my check, which wasn’t cashed.”
Strasser said Haring’s final days saw him confined to his apartment, too weak to hold a marker to draw.
“Yet there he was, still taking the time to respond to another hometown kid,” Strasser said. “Still being at the very end, Keith from Kutztown.”
Source: Berkshire mont
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