Keith Haring Pop Shop Sign - R.V. - Robin Van Arsdol Urban Art

The Keith Haring Pop Shop Sign

The Pop Shop was located at 292 Lafayette St. From 1986 to its closing by the Heith Haring Foundation, Inc. (founded by Keith Haring in 1989 prior to his death in 1990) on August 28, 2005. The 10-panel Pop Shop sign conceived and executed by Keith Haring and Andre Charles exteded across and around the building during its renovation, beginning in the winter of 1986.

Keith Haring & Andre Charles The Pop Shop Sign, 1986

Statement of provenance by Robin Van Arsdol: “In the fall of 1987, I was visiting my friend and fellow artist, James Rizzi, who lived on Lafayette St. in the building beside Keith Hariing’s Pop Shop. You could look out of his loft window and look down onto the street and see people walking into the store. I was illegally parked and asked James to see if the police were downstairs and he said, ”No police, but they’re taking down the Pop Shop Sign.” I ran downstairs and pulled my truck right next to the flatbead into which a construction crew was loading the panels. I walked up to the foreman and said, “Hey, I know the artist who painted those and I want to save them for psterity. I’ll pay you for them.” The formean looked at the panels knowing he could not resell them and said, “Load those panels onto this guy’s truck.” My friend James was right there to testify and provided me with a written statement right then and there.

Orlando Musum of Art SunTrust Auditorium Art Palm Beach

The 10-panel Pop Shop Sign conceived and executed by Keith Haring and Andre Charles extended across and around the building during its renovation beginning in the winter of 1986. The sign was executed by Haring and Charles from an original sketch drawn by Haring and served as a temporary placard accouncing the existence of the Pop Shop until it was removed from the building in the fall of 1987. At the time of its removal, artist, Robin Van Arsdlol acquired it for his private collection of 1980’s NYC Street Art where it has remained for twenty years. The ten wooden panels have been coated on polyurethane twice by Van Arsdol over the years and the piece has been included in exhibitions at the Orlando Museum of Art, X-Contemporary during Art Basel and Art Palm Beach.