ARTtoHEART for Angel
Keith Haring + MAX&Co. for Save The Children

MAX&Co. T-shirts and sweatshirts for girls and women and, for the first time, also available in mini versions for babies and kids: a big shiny angel depicted on little separates – casual, fun items that go with practically anything.

MAX&Co.’s fashions are partnered with Keith Haring’s art to raise awareness, celebrate and promote the Save The Children project, devoted to the children of South Sudan, championing their right to a basic education.

The global challenge shouldered by Save the Children is nothing less than ensuring that the more than one hundred million children throughout the world who live in dire circumstances of poverty and conflict have access to a decent education in order to break out of the cycle of marginalization and discrimination.10% of the wholesale proceeds from the limited edition Art to Heart products will be earmarked by MAX&Co. to support the Save The Children project in South Sudan, with the aim of restoring a scholastic community suitable for the reinstatement of children affected by civil war through concrete actions of promotion and support of educational services.

The initiative includes the construction and rehabilitation of schools, the distribution of instructional materials, the introduction of teacher training programs, and on a general level, a widespread improvement of learning conditions with a specific focus on girls, who are particularly and deeply affected by this state of emergency.

Together with MAX&Co., every woman will have the opportunity to learn about and personally bear witness in an active way to the struggle to safeguard children’s rights, a cause long supported by Keith Haring, both personally and by means of his foundation, a cause currently supported throughout the world by Save the Children.

Wearable art that has an immediate, spontaneous appeal and is very contemporary and compelling, open to personal interpretation and applied to fashion products for adult women in the name of vulnerable children: a shiny, textured angel with plays of stripes and lurex highlights on T-shirts and sweatshirts produced on a limited edition basis and presented in unique packaging.

From October through the end of February, the ARTtoHeart for Angels

T-shirts and sweatshirts will be available in those MAX&Co. stores participating in the initiative in Italy and internationally.

T-shirt art to be shown off, not only for the sake of one’s own pleasure or vanity, but also for displaying ones’ support of a very worthwhile cause.

Signs, signals and symbols of an intelligent and personal feminine attitude, a whole different approach to shopping, focused on a unique gift – before, during and after Christmas.

With the ARTtoHeart project, MAX&Co., a brand that is sensitive and alert to today’s social concerns, is continuing to pursue a pioneering communication strategy intended to engage with its customers, encouraging them to discover and support this new charitable project by offering a meaningful contribution and commitment.

On the wings of an angel.

Linea donna         Linea per i bambini

ARTtoHeart for Angels is a new project merging art and charity,

ARTtoHeart for Angels is a new project merging art and charity, sponsored by MAX&Co. in collaboration with the Keith Haring Estate to benefit Save the Children, the largest independent international organization safeguarding and fostering the rights of children.

A picture of a happy angel, an angel baby, by Keith Haring, printed on a limited-edition collection of shiny T-shirts and sweatshirts specifically designed for girls and women and, for the first time, also available in mini versions for babies and kids.

With ARTtoHeart for Angels you have the chance to join MAX&Co. and Save the Children in supporting and promoting a project devoted to the boys and girls of South Sudan, championing their right to a basic education: 10% of the wholesale proceeds from the limited edition ARTtoHeart for Angels products will be earmarked by MAX&Co. to support of the Save the Children project in this African territory.

By wearing the ARTtoHeart for Angels T-shirts and sweatshirts, you become part of this project, an active member of the MAX&Co.’s “sensitive community”. Enjoy the special “charity link” between fashion and art. On the wings of an angel.

- From October through the end of February -

KEITH HARING THE ETERNAL ADOLESCENT

Keith Haring was born on May 4 1958 in Reading, Pennsylvania. His artistic talent and irrepressible creative energy became apparent from a very early age and were encouraged by his father, an amateur cartoonist. Early on, Haring began to develop his own artistic style, composed of essential forms, basic colors and clean, stylized lines.

Upon graduation from high school in 1976, he enrolled at the Ivy School of Professional Art in Pittsburgh, but, dissatisfied with the field of graphic design, he left to pursue studio art, video, performance and semiotics studies at New York’s School of Visual Arts. During this period he came into contact with the works of Warhol, Dubuffet and Alechinsky as well as the performance art of Christo, artistic models that would have a major impact on his own work.

In New York, he inevitably encountered the alternative artistic community, initially developing and refining his artistic style and message outside conventional museum and gallery circles. This pursuit established the democratization of his art with a focus on public projects. Whether working in chalk on expired advertisements in subway stations or in marker on the streets and walls of the city, Haring left an indelible mark with his unmistakable visual vocabulary: a graphic style based on the absolute supremacy of the line.

Between 1980 and 1985 his public projects, philanthropy and numerous groundbreaking solo exhibitions in galleries and museums worldwide earned him a position of high regard and esteem on the international artistic landscape.

Haring’s works constitute veritable social messages conveying compelling visions of life: the crawling baby with its innate energy and purity; the pyramid, a symbol of ancient power; the dog, a representation of animal spirit; and the entire body of human figures variously combined with one another in an inextricable vital tangle. Haring’s work is deceptively simple in appearance: it is actually complex in terms of its multiform messages and inventive juxtapositions, unfettered by taboos or intellectual boundaries. Haring drew on everything: paper, canvas, metal, walls, wood, plastic tarps, automobiles and terra cotta vases. Any space, material or object served him equally well as a precious support for his boundless creativity.

A Pop icon by the Eighties, hobnobbing with fellow artists Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Kenny Scharf, music celebrities such as Madonna and Grace Jones, and other iconoclasts such as William Burroughs and Timothy Leary, Haring mustered great courage and dignity when he was diagnosed with AIDS in 1988.

In 1989, a year before his death, he established the Foundation that still bears his name, with the goal of funding and promoting social initiatives in the battle against AIDS and for the benefit of children’s charities.

A privileged audience for his works, children were always a central focus of Keith Haring’s artistic production. Indeed, during the span of his all too brief career he donated his time, his money, and numerous artworks and murals to schools, hospitals and other institutions active in the areas of education and health.

«One day I’d like to make a book of photographs with pictures of me together with kids from all over the world. Kids know something that most grownups have somehow forgotten. Kids display a profound fascination with their everyday experiences, something that is very special and would be extremely helpful to adults if they could only learn to understand and respect it. I’m currently 28 years old on the outside and almost 12 on the inside. I want to stay a twelve-year-old on the inside forever.»

(July 7, 1986)