Pop Shop
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Industry | Retail |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1986 |
| Founder | Keith Haring |
| Defunct | 2005 |
The Pop Shop was a store owned by pop artist Keith Haring. Haring opened the first Pop Shop in New York City in 1986 and one in Tokyo in 1988. Haring viewed the Pop Shop as an extension of his work. Every area of the store was devoted to Haring's work, including floor-to-ceiling murals. It served to fulfill the artist's desire to make his iconic and beloved imagery accessible to the widest possible range of people both during his lifetime and posthumously through the Keith Haring Foundation.
"Here’s the philosophy behind the Pop Shop: I wanted to continue this same sort of communication as with the subway drawings. I wanted to attract the same wide range of people, and I wanted it to be a place where, yes, not only collectors could come, but also kids from the Bronx. The main point was that we didn’t want to produce things that would cheapen the art. In other words, this was still an art statement."[1]
First known for his chalk drawings in the New York City subway, Keith Haring gained international recognition after a solo exhibition at Tony Shafrazi Gallery in 1982. He continued to draw in the subways, but by 1984, people were stealing the pieces he made from the subways as his artwork became more expensive and more popular within the art market.[2] The increase in value of his art meant only a select few could afford to buy it, and soon people were selling imitations of his drawings.[3]
Haring stated that he opened a shop for two reasons. It was something he had wanted to do since he was 10 years old, and ''there were so many copies of my stuff around that I felt I had to do something myself so people would at least know what the real ones look like.''[4]
Haring's friend and mentor Andy Warhol was "a big supporter" of the Pop Shop.[2] Haring felt the Pop Shop was "keeping ideologically with what Andy was doing and what conceptual artists and earth artists were doing: It was all about participation on a big level."[2]