PHILADELPHIA — The fate of a Keith Haring mural in Philadelphia may be sealed this week in a decision that could also set a precedent for how to protect public art in the City of Brotherly Love.
At the height of his career in the 1980s, Keith Haring joined up with 14 high school students to paint a mural in a quiet pocket of South Philadelphia. The artist intentionally passed over better-trafficked areas of the city, instead selecting a wall on a residential building in the historically Black neighborhood of Point Breeze. A year after painting his legendary “Crack is Wack” mural in New York City, and three years before he died from AIDS-related complications, Haring drew bold, black outlines of his signature dancing figures that students filled in with bright colors and patterns.
Today, after being restored twice over its 39-year lifespan, “We The Youth” (1987) is the only one of his collaborative murals that remains in its original location.
At a public meeting scheduled for this Wednesday, September 16, the Philadelphia Historical Commission will entertain public comments and discuss whether to add “We The Youth” to the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places. If approved, it would be the first time an outdoor mural in the “Mural Capital of the World” would receive the commission’s protection.
The wall the mural is painted on is co-owned by the Neighborhood Gardens Trust (NGT), an organization that preserves Philadelphia community gardens, and OCF Realty, a controversial real estate company often held responsible for the rapid gentrification of the Point Breeze neighborhood. Almost every key stakeholder has publicly supported the mural’s designation, including the Keith Haring Foundation, which told Hyperallergic in a statement that the move would be “preserving it as a unique cultural icon and providing the necessary legal protections against its loss.”
