Londoners quite rightly take a dim view of graffiti on the Tube network — especially since it’s become endemic in recent times.
But from mid March, a Moco Museum London exhibition will actively celebrate public transport graffiti by one particular man — the late Keith Haring. Voice of the Street: Keith Haring’s Subway Drawings displays a collection of Haring’s cartoonish vignettes of faceless figure (they always remind us of Morph), which he hastily chalked up on blacked-out advertising panels across the NYC Subway between 1980-85.
“I began drawing in the subways as a hobby on my way to work,” remembered Haring, “I had to ride the subways often and would do a drawing while waiting for a train.
“In a few weeks, I started to get responses from people who saw me doing it. After a while, my subway drawings became more of a responsibility than a hobby. So many people wished me luck and told me to ‘keep it up’ that it became difficult to stop.”
Although Haring’s subway works proved to be the headwaters of a notable career (albeit one cut tragically short), that’s not how subway staff viewed it at the time; the works were often erased within hours of appearing. Thankfully, some survived, and 30 will appear for this exhibition.
They’re presented in a mock-up 1980s subway environment — although claims this is ‘fully immersive’ may be overreach, unless they’ve somehow rerouted NYC rolling stock through the building, and generously scattered it with rats. Still, it should be thrilling enough to see the rebelliously formative — and in many ways, instinctive — work of an artist who’s long been sucked into the machine of the mass-produced.
Voice of the Street: Keith Haring’s Subway Drawings, Moco Museum London, 18 March-sometime in June 2026. Entry to the exhibition is included with your Moco ticket.
