Keith Haring Pop Shop Quad VI

Pop Shop Quad VI is a silkscreen print created by the arist in 1989 presenting a series of four pictures in grid form. Titled after Haring’s shop of the same name in New York’s SoHo district, which opened in 1986, the quad showcases the fluidity and playful nature of Haring’s line and his ‘matchstick’ figures for which he was so widely known. In the suite of four, figures bend, flex and contort to form different human shapes. 

Haring’s visual lexicon at the time of the Pop Shop prints creation was ubiquitous. Motifs such as UFOs, barking dogs and radiant babies populated Haring’s body of work, but in the Pop Shop the artist condensed previously busy scenes to their key components. In this sixth quad, Haring’s matchstick figures are symbols themselves, in the first and last plate forming a cross sign, and in the second plate resembling a hand. In the third plate outstretched hands form the shape of a television set.