BluePrint Drawings (1) is a 1990s silkscreen print from a notable series of artworks created by the renowned American artist Keith Haring. The portfolio consists of a set of 17 screen prints that Haring produced in collaboration with the printmaking studio Styria Studio in New York City. This series is one of the last of Haring’s career before his passing in 1990 from AIDS. Over the course of his professional journey, Haring’s artistry was heavily intertwined with his devotion to social and political activism, which covered a vast range of pressing issues including but not limited to apartheid, LGBTQ+ rights, nuclear warfare, and the AIDS/HIV crisis. The BluePrint Drawings demonstrates Haring’s increased focus on the experience of the AIDS epidemic and the lack of support for the effects of the disease, particularly for the queer community, in the wake of his own diagnosis in 1987.
The BluePrint Drawings (1) appears to draw inspiration from Haring’s love of comic books, broken into two enumerated panels, a suggestion for the audience to read the visual narrative continuously. In the first panel, two gender neutral figures sprint from a cartoonish dog. The second panel depicts the cartoonish dog again, but barking at a figure that actively dives over its head and lands on the other side of the animal. Despite Haring’s characteristic playful and simplistic style, the composition holds a key to complexity in its imagery.
The multidimensionality of the artist’s works was achieved through the visual language he developed throughout his entire career, akin to the symbolism found in Egyptian hieroglyphics. This device is seen in The BluePrint Drawings (1) in one of his most recognizable symbols, the dog, which he often employed as a reference to corrupt institutions. In the spotted ground is another symbol, an allusion to the pervasive presence of the AIDS virus, but The BluePrint Drawings (1) leaves the audience to define the relationship of the composition’s individual parts. The enigmatic nature of Haring’s symbols has been cross-culturally captivating and challenging audiences for decades, leaving them with a taste of understanding and the space to contemplate the rest. The BluePrint Drawings (1) is a lasting reminder of Keith Haring’s legacy as a fierce disruptor of societal norms and promoter of social issues in the Pop cultural landscape.
