PRINCETON, N.J. – Set for publication on September 29, Haring-isms is a collection of essential quotations from creative thinker and legendary artist Keith Haring. Gathered from Haring’s journals and interviews, the lively quotes included in the book reveal his influences and thoughts on a variety of topics, including birth and death, possibility and uncertainty, and difference and conformity. They demonstrate Haring’s deep engagement with subjects outside of the art world and his outspoken commitment to activism. Taken together, this selection reflects Haring’s distinctive voice and reminds us why his work continues to resonate with fans around the globe.

Select quotations from the book:

• “Art lives through the imaginations of the people who are seeing it. Without that contact, there is no art.”
• “It’s a huge world. There are lots and lots and lots of people that I haven’t reached yet that I’d like to reach.”
• “Art is one of the last areas that is totally within the realm of the human individual and can’t be copied or done better by a machine.”
• “The artist, if he is a vessel, is also a performer.”
• “No matter how long you work, it’s always going to end sometime. And there’s always going to be things left undone.”
• “I decided to make a major break. New York was the only place to go.”
• “I came to believe there was no such thing as chance. If you accept that there are no coincidences, you use whatever comes along.”
• “There was a migration of artists from all over America to New York. It was completely wild. And we controlled it ourselves.”
• “I couldn’t go back to the abstract drawings; it had to have some connection to the real world.”

Haring-isms by Keith Haring (Princeton Press), edited by Larry Warsh, contains 168 pages and is a small-format hardcover book that retails for $12.95. It is the latest in a series that includes Weiwei-isms, Basquiat-isms, and others. It will be available for purchase on September 29, 2020, or pre-order, either through Amazon or from the publisher.

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About the Author: Keith Haring (1958–1990) was an American artist. He has been the subject of retrospectives at the Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, among other venues, and his work is in the permanent collections of major museums around the world.

About the Editor: Larry Warsh is the editor of Basquiat-isms, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s The Notebooks, and two books by Ai Weiwei, Humanity and Weiwei-isms (all Princeton).  He is also the publisher of Keith Haring: 31 Subway Drawings. Active in the art world for more than thirty years, Warsh has served on the board of the Getty Museum Photographs Council and was a founding member of the Basquiat Authentication Committee until its dissolution in 2012.

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