Keith Haring Journals (37 page)

I got up at 8:30 again this morning to go to the studio to finish all the color specifications for the things I designed here. Finished just in time to rush to the train station with Juan, Sato, Kaz and the man from the Nagoya ceramics manufacturer, to catch the bullet train to Nagoya, a two-hour ride. Most of the ride I spent reading
Time
magazine. The cover story was about life in the Soviet Union. I’m not sure how anxious I am to go there, now. Maybe they don’t need to have an “outsider” come and make them feel more like “outsiders” themselves. After reading the article I have a different image of the real situation of being a Soviet citizen or a Soviet artist. Maybe me going there would only make their limited means seem even more limited to them. (A kind of tease. And nobody likes a cock-teaser!)

We got to the ceramic manufacturer’s studio around six o’clock. We were supposed to take two hours to choose the shapes of rice bowls I wanted to do and paint some samples. I ended up taking about four hours, but I painted four small rice bowls and two large ones (with kids). Some I did with figurative patterns that made the rice bowls look more African or Indian than Japanese, and some I did with real simple fish paintings. The more I painted, the more I learned how to control the glaze pigment on the clay surface, the more “into it” I got, the less I wanted to leave. We left just in time to reach the local train station (the train left 30 seconds after we ran through the doors). Now we have just enough time to get to the Nagoya station, where we can catch the last train to Kyoto at 11:00 PM.

I really love to work. I swear it is one of the things that makes me most happy and it seems to have a similar effect on everyone who is around me while I work. Now Juan and Kaz and Sato and I are all joking and talking and really sort of “weird.”

I would love to be able to spend a month or two in a small town in Italy or Spain just working on ceramics, painting them and building things with them.

Since we were in the neighborhood, we went to try to find Mr. Chow’s, where my painting is hanging. It turned out to be right aside of “Tinguely,” the restaurant/café Jean did all of the light sculptures and tables and chairs for. I first went inside Tinguely and took pictures and bought a catalogue. It was really cool, but much more chic than I expected; maybe
too
chic. After we were politely “let out,” I walked back toward Mr. Chow’s, down the hall. It was closed. Why it was closed on a Wednesday night I don’t know.

Back to the hotel.

We showered and Juan went out to buy socks. (We didn’t have any clean ones and we were going to dinner in a geisha house and, of course, we’d have to remove our shoes.)

This was the highlight of the trip to Kyoto. The geisha house was really cool. It is difficult for people (even Japanese) to get a chance to visit a geisha house. It’s kind of like a Jewish country club, I guess. Very exclusive. But Kaz knows some of the women who run the house, and one of them arranged our dinner.

Today we left Kyoto at 9:00 AM and took a train to Osaka. We visited the company that makes eyeglasses and sporting helmets (ski, cycle, motocross). They are very interested in doing glasses with me and it seems like they are capable of doing great stuff. We met the president and he was impressed and gave his seal of approval. Now we have to negotiate exact details and terms. They are also interested in skateboards and motorcycle gear and outfits. It was a productive meeting and seems very promising. It is still very unclear exactly what I will do and how much they are willing to pay. The whole thing could theoretically go down the drain when we begin to negotiate.

We went to lunch with people from the company and ate shabu shabu.

Next we went to see National’s showroom in Osaka. It was really boring and we mostly just played with their “toys.” I don’t actually like Panasonic radios and probably wouldn’t buy one myself. I want to go very slow on this one. Since they approached me first we are talking to them, but I would rather be talking to Sony. Sony didn’t come to me, though, so we have to open the shop first and see what happens.

So now it’s back to New York. I have so much work waiting for me I can’t believe it. I’ve got about a month before I return to Tokyo in December to open the shop. I’ve got to do some more work on the animation for Switzerland, reorganize the studio and my new storage space, go over a lot of stuff with Tony (especially about Hans Mayer’s sculpture project), do more design work for Tokyo (the fans and the kimono print), hang the art in my house, work on the print project for Marty Blinder, the print project with Bill Burroughs, organize the show of my collaborations with Brion Gysin, which is opening at Tony’s gallery December 15, etc., etc., etc.

Does it ever stop?

I hope not.

Back in New York. But had to write this down. It’s almost a full moon.

Today Claude and Sydney and Jasmine Picasso stopped in to visit.

Tina Chow called to say hello.

Called George Condo about Julian Schnabel’s opening at the Whitney tomorrow.

I bought a piece of mine at auction for $10,000.

Stephen Sprouse fashion show is tomorrow, but I can’t even bring a date.

Allen Ginsberg called to invite me to be his date to a dinner at the American Academy of Arts & Letters but I can’t go because I already promised to go see my friend Molissa Fenley dance at Dia Foundation.

Yves and Debbie Arman are in New York and tried to buy my piece at auction, but stopped at $8,000.

Grace Jones invited me to dinner.

Larry Levan stopped in to see me.

What a day! Is this New York on a full moon in 1987, or what?

I am on a flight from Frankfurt to New York about to land. I came to Düsseldorf with Tony yesterday to go to the Cologne Art Fair and to see the sculpture that has been made out of cor-ten steel from my maquette. This was the first one blown up to this scale (8 feet) and the next one will be about 25 feet. The sculpture looked great. Hans also had one of my new paintings at his booth. By coincidence it was directly across from a Penck painting at the adjacent booth. I blew him away. I love hanging aside of Penck, it makes the difference so obvious. Anyway, we flew to Germany at last minute’s notice. (Tony called me about 1:00 and the car had to pick me up to go to the airport at 3:30. But, since this was really important, I decided to go.) The trip there went very smoothly and we spent all day Wednesday at the fair in Cologne, seeing the other small maquettes at Hans’s warehouse, going to see the Ludwig museum (a disappointment) and seeing lots of art world people and generally being the center of attention. I ran into lots of people from New York and Belgium and Paris, etc. Keith Sonnier is the only artist I ran into.

The real reason I wanted to write this down is because of the amazing things that happened on Tuesday before the impromptu trip to Germany. I went to see Bill T. Jones and Arnie’s company dance at a performance for children at Manhattan Community College. It was at 10:00 in the morning. I woke up at 9:00 and took the train downtown. When I entered the auditorium, eating an apple, I went to the front row to a vacant row of seats. After a few minutes a class of students came and the teacher told me I had to move. I got up and looked around for another seat near the front. Suddenly a teacher was asking me, “Are you Keith Haring?” I said yes, and she said she had a seat available here in the middle of her group of students. They were all junior-high-school age. The only available seat happened to be between her and a beautiful Puerto Rican boy with a black-and-blue eye. I sat down and the teacher explained, “He was the one who recognized you.” All the kids started asking for autographs on their programs. I talked to the kid. After a while he started describing the “last time” he saw me, “painting Carmine pool.” I suddenly realized that he was the “mystery boy” who I hadn’t met (because I was too busy painting) but who I had watched from afar the whole day. I have a Polaroid Kwong took of him that I have stared at many times. I even used it as a source for a painting I did that’s in the studio right now. I always thought I’d never get a chance to meet him or even see him again. He said he’s from the Lower East Side and has known “of me” for a long time but never met me. What an incredible coincidence. A gift from God. Things like this make me think destiny outweighs chance very often. He agreed to come to visit me after school. But a few hours later I ended up on a plane to Germany.

Second coincidence: At the airport (ten minutes before the plane was scheduled to leave) I went to buy batteries. At the gift shop I ran into this kid who I had stared at across the room during a dinner with Grace Jones at her restaurant a week ago. We never met at the restaurant, but now he came up to talk. He was on his way to Germany, also. Except he was going to Frankfurt and me to Düsseldorf. In minutes, we had exchanged numbers and said hellos and goodbyes. Coincidence (?). What kind of day is this?