Keith Haring Pop Shop III (Large)

Pop Shop III is a  portfolio of four screenprints created by the artist in 1989, a larger and separated version of Pop Shop Quad III. Titled after Haring’s shop of the same name in New York’s SoHo district, which opened in 1986, the series exemplifies the vivid and playful style for which the artist had become synonymous with at the time.  

Haring’s idiosyncratic and colourful matchstick figures belong to a strongly interactive world in every Pop Shop example whether it be alongside dolphins and angels (Pop Shop Quad IV) or whether they dance together (Pop Shop I). Therefore every example in the series can be taken as a self-contained world or allegory. In this quad, Haring's figures socialise and play with a radio or computer: in plate one, a red figure pulls their friend outside of the radio itself. In plate two, three people cover their eyes and appear to be shocked. In plate three, human figures morph into a pair of scissors that cut a cord, and in the last plate a yellow person appears to be trying to fix the piece of technology. Movement is felt throughout the pictures, complimented by Haring’s line: bracketed lines signify energy, and his persons are always in different positions, against different coloured backgrounds.