Luna Luna Drawing (C/D), 1986

"Luna Luna Drawing (C/D)" is a felt-tip pen on paper drawing by Keith Haring in 1986. The artwork is titled, dated and signed 'Luna Luna Drawings - April 1986 K. Haring' lower center, signed 'K. Haring' twice. The artwork ships framed in a contemporary black frame and has a framed size of 24 x 31".

Keith Haring’s drawings for the Luna Luna carousel are not just studies for a ride. They are the blueprint for a world.

Made in 1985 for André Heller’s Luna Luna, the artist-designed amusement park, these felt-tip pen drawings show Haring thinking through one of the most generous ideas of his career: art that people would not simply look at, but enter, circle, ride, and remember with their bodies. The carousel was never meant to behave like a museum object. It was built for motion, music, laughter, children, adults, spectacle, and shared pleasure. These drawings are where that energy first takes shape.

Across the sheets, Haring assembles a wild procession of figures: barking dogs, crawling babies, angels, dolphins, bats, hybrids, dancers, television-headed bodies, and other creatures from his visual universe. They appear in rows, like a cast of characters waiting to be released. Each one is simple enough to read instantly, but strange enough to keep changing meaning. A dog can be authority, noise, protection, or rebellion. A baby can be innocence, new life, or raw creative force. A TV-headed figure can be funny and alarming at the same time. Haring’s genius was making images that felt open to everyone without becoming empty.

The felt-tip pen is important. There is no preciousness here, no heavy academic preparation. The line is fast, direct, and alive. It has the feeling of an idea arriving in real time. These are not stiff design documents; they are Haring’s imagination in motion, already picturing how his figures might spin through space, repeat, collide, and surround the viewer.

The drawings also remind us that Haring’s art was never only about looking. It was about circulation — images moving through streets, subways, posters, bodies, clothing, clubs, books, and public spaces. Luna Luna pushed that instinct even further. The artwork became a ride. The viewer became a participant. The image became an environment.

Seen today, the drawings feel newly urgent because they recover something our screen culture often loses: wonder with a human pulse. They are connected to childhood, but they are not childish. They are full of fantasy, but not escape. They imagine a public space where art can be serious and silly, intelligent and immediate, adult and childlike, all at once.

To look at these drawings is to see Haring preparing an artwork that wanted to move. They are plans for a carousel, but also plans for a freer relationship between art and life. A line becomes a creature. A creature becomes a ride. A ride becomes a memory. And for a moment, art stops standing still.