USA 19-82 is an original lithograph by Keith Haring from 1982. By the early 1980s, the AIDS epidemic had evolved into a global crisis that affected millions of people. Much of Haring’s work in the 1980s brought attention to the AIDS/HIV crisis in addition to other social and political concerns, both in the US and the global community. Repetitive icons were a trademark of Haring’s artistic style, which he purposefully used to develop a pictorial language of symbols and signs that run throughout his catalog. Haring often used barking dogs to symbolically depict oppression, struggle, and abuses of power in the contemporary world.

In USA-182, a snake-like creature forges a hole through the body of a red, cross legged figure. The creature has a smiling canine-like quality that is reminiscent of Disney’s animation style, yet it still seems to reference Haring’s barking dog motif. The lithograph is monochromatic, except for the eye-catching vermillion red that fills out the central figure that sits comfortably with their arms rigidly extended. As the two heads bark towards the center, the red silhouette’s head seems to absorb and radiate whatever is being communicated. The figure is physically and verbally permeated by the unnatural creature that wears a gleeful face, but perhaps only to hide darker intentions. Haring was working in a time in which the media’s importance and influence on culture was rapidly expanding and infiltrating people’s lives on a daily basis. The yapping dog-like creatures here could represent the media’s constant rhetoric of violence to consumers.