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OFF THE WALL: Haring–here painting a backdrop for the Palladium Club—was the archetypal underground artist of 1980s New York.
BERNARD GOTFRYD/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY
KEITH HARING was used to making art quickly. In the early 1980s, he would ride the New York City subway, scouting out empty ad sites covered with sheets of black paper. He would then saunter up, check there were no cops around, whip out a piece of white chalk from his pocket and, as passers-by stopped to watch, populate the paper with cartoonlike fi gures. Aboveground, his work was displayed in respected galleries. Below, he was sometimes arrested.