Description

Ask your students to make a collaborative mural drawing to music, using their invented sign language, their imagination, and their responses to the music.

Objective

To experiment with making a mural to music.

It is often said that everything about Keith Haring was musical, even the way he walked. Rap, hip-hop, dance, pop, and Latin music blared from a boom box wherever he worked. Music was a universal language that he embraced. Whenever he could, Haring worked with children. He showed them his way of working, drawing, and making art on site.

In the August 1989 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, Haring publicly revealed that he had AIDS. Although troubled by the possibility of a conspiracy against gays and blacks, and worried that he would be prevented from working with children, Haring's convictions about life and work remained undefeated, and he accelerated his schedule of projects.

Keith Haring was committed to making art that addressed contemporary social concerns that were important to him. He made murals and posters to help educate people about issues such as AIDS, racism, illiteracy, and drug use.

Resources

Haring's Public Art

341A | Drawing The Line - A Portrait of Keith Haring Video
142a | Whitney Exhibition Catalog | Paperback
554a | Keith Haring, Authorized Biography | Paperback
-Call Pop Shop, 212.219.2784

"I roll out this big roll of paper. All the children sit around it. I do some drawing on the paper. Then they start to make drawings with markers or pens. I have music going and, as in "musical chairs", when the music stops, everyone moves to another part of the paper. When the music starts, everyone continues to draw."
-Keith Haring, John Gruen, Keith Haring, the Authorized Biography, p. 114

Materials

Roll of white bulletin board paper
Crayons
Markers
Masking tape
Pushpins

Procedure

Ask your students to make a collaborative mural drawing to music, using their invented sign language, their imagination, and their responses to the music.

Select some music with a variety of rhythms and moods. Play the music while students are drawing.

Stop the music and ask students to move around the mural to a different place.

When the music begins, students can start drawing and adding to the existing drawings.

Extensions

The Whitney's web site