“Crack is Wack” Comes Back

Keith Haring’s iconic mural in East Harlem has been restored to its 1986 glory.

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By Anya Schultz

As cars exited the FDR Drive and headed into East Harlem on Second Avenue, they passed the hard to miss, newly restored Keith Haring mural, “Crack is Wack.” Over the past two months, New York artist Louise Hunnicutt worked to restore the bright 1986 mural; she finished yesterday.

One driver stopped at the traffic light and honked to get the artist’s attention. “Looks just like the old one,” he shouted from his car.

After several restoration attempts and the completion of massive construction on the adjacent roadway, the Keith Haring Foundation felt it was time to fully restore the anti-drug mural, painted by the late New York artist and activist.

Artist Louise Hunnicutt repaints the “Crack is Wack” mural.

The foundation funded the project and hired Hunnicutt. In August, when she began working on the mural, in a playground on East 128th Street, it was in poor condition. “It was peeling off and water had infiltrated between the wall and the paint,” said Hunnicutt. “Big chunks of it were coming off.”

So she and her assistant, William Tibbals, scraped layers of paint off the wall and found remnants of Haring’s original mural underneath. For weeks, they meticulously replicated Haring’s work, based on tracings and original photographs. Hunnicutt, who has restored other Haring works, is confident that with strong base and eight layers of paint, this time the mural will last.

“I want it to look like his work,” said Hunnicutt. “I’m not putting me in it, I’m putting him in it.”

Every day, people in the neighborhood drive by and thank her for restoring the mural, Hunnicutt said.

The “Crack is Wack” mural before restoration

“It is one of our treasures,” said Gil Vazquez, acting director of the Haring Foundation. The foundation and parks department officials came to the playground yesterday to see the restoration. “People protect it. People really care about it.”

Haring, who came to public attention painting in subway stations, painted “Crack is Wack” on both sides of a handball court wall when he was 28.

“It surely took longer to restore the mural than to paint it in the first place.” said Jonathan Kuhn, director of art and antiquities for the parks department.

Indeed, Haring found the abandoned handball court next to the FDR Drive and painted the mural within a day. He was arrested for disorderly conduct and pleaded guilty, paying a $25 fine. Soon after, the mural was covered up, but the parks department invited Haring back and asked him to repaint it.

“He was always an artist of the public,” said Alex Fialho, an art historian and curator, and the former programs director of Visual AIDS. Before the recent construction, the mural was visible from the roadway like a billboard.

“It evokes a lot of the apocalyptic energy and the dystopian energy of that moment,” said Fialho, referring to the AIDS epidemic, the crack epidemic, and violence against marginalized communities. Haring channeled his anger in the mural.

Haring painted both sides of the abandoned handball court wall.

“For Keith it was very personal,” said Vazquez. “The crack epidemic hit really close to home. He had a very dear friend who was his studio assistant who really struggled with crack.”

Haring died of AIDS-related complications in 1990. Although the piece was painted in the eighties, it still holds relevance.

“The opioid crisis is what Keith would be painting murals about today,” said Vazquez.

(Photo of the mural pre-restoration by Louise Hunnicutt. Other photos by Anya Schultz.)

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