‘The Community Creates the Art’: A$AP Ferg Talks Keith Haring 

Growing up in Harlem, rapper A$AP Ferg found creativity all around him. “The community creates the art,” he said, “without the community there would be no A$AP Ferg.” An art student turned rapper, Ferg joined the A$AP Mob, a collective known for their heighted sense art, fashion and creative expression. (Another member, A$AP Rocky, unveiled his performance art piece Lab Rat at Sotheby’s in 2018.) Besides the honored modern masters - Rothko, Bacon, Goya, Picasso - and more contemporary artists like Kara Walker, Renell Medrano and KAWS, Ferg looks to the singular dynamism of Keith Haring. “He was so multidimensional,” says Ferg, “and I feel like that’s what I represent as well.” To coincide with Keith Haring’s Greatest Hits: The Pop Shop Drawings, an online auction from 5-15 March of 12 drawings that formed the basis for Haring’s radically accessible Pop Shop, Ferg meets with Sotheby’s specialist Harrison Tenzer to discuss influences, upbringings and walking on water.
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