In every culture people have attempted to depict their world as they see and feel it. Images have been drawn, scratched, sprayed, carved, baked or painted in whatever materials were available to that culture at that particular time. Man-made images have always been important and necessary elements in this ritual we call „life“. They have adorned our shelters, tools, clothing, monuments, vessels, bodys, temples and the land itself. Different cultures have attributed to them greater or lesser value and designated to them different degrees of meaning or purpose. But they are always there in one form or another. It is part of mankind´s way of reaffirming and celebrating it´s existence.
In the last 100 years we have seen the invention of telecommunications, radio automobiles, television, air and space travel, computers, genetc science satellites, lasers, and on and on. In short, our experience of life has been drastically altered. The role of the image maker cannot be seen as the same as it was 100 years ago, or even 10 years ago. The rate of change is accelerating at an increasingly rapid speed and the artist has to change with it. Contemporary artists cannot ignore the existence of media and tehnology and at the same time cannot abandon riutal and popular culture. The image maker may be more important now than at any other time in the history of man because he possesses qualities that are uniquely human. The human imagination cannot be programmed by a computer. Our imagination ist our greatest hope for survival.
Keith Haring: „Tendencias en Nueva York“, Palacio de Velazquez, Madrid, Katalog, 11. Dezember 1983
