Haring, on the one hand, had to defend his work from charges of commercialism while he was still alive; such is the price of accessible pop. Yet what we’re seeing today (I point you to the Duane Reade installation pictured, a spectacularly thoughtless appropriation of Haring’s Radiant Baby for a set of designer baby bibs) is so utterly divorced from the original commentaries about crises like AIDS and Apartheid and crack-cocaine as to seem a hollow plagiarism. When you see a wall in Brooklyn tagged with one of his trademark figures, it’s difficult not to scoff at the homage, earnest or not.
