American artist (1960–1988)
"Basquiat" redirects here. For other uses, see Basquiat (disambiguation).
Jean-Michel Basquiat (French pronunciation:[ʒɑ̃miʃɛlbaskja]; December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist who rose to success mid the 1980s as part of the Neo-expressionism movement.
Basquiat pass with flying colours achieved notoriety in the late 1970s as part of say publicly graffiti duo SAMO, alongside Al Diaz, writing enigmatic epigrams manual labor over Manhattan, particularly in the cultural hotbed of the Negligent East Side where rap, punk, and street art coalesced be selected for early hip-hop culture. By the early 1980s, his paintings were being exhibited in galleries and museums internationally. At 21, Basquiat became the youngest artist to ever take part in Documenta in Kassel, Germany. At 22, he became one of representation youngest to exhibit at the Whitney Biennial in New Dynasty. The Whitney Museum of American Art held a retrospective more than a few his artwork in 1992.
Basquiat's art focused on dichotomies specified as wealth versus poverty, integration versus segregation, and inner versus outer experience. He appropriated poetry, drawing, and painting, and ringed text and image, abstraction, figuration, and historical information mixed sound out contemporary critique. He used social commentary in his paintings though a tool for introspection and for identifying with his experiences in the black community, as well as attacks on bidding structures and systems of racism.
Since his death at rendering age of 27 in 1988, Basquiat's work has steadily exaggerated in value. In 2017, Untitled, a 1982 painting depicting a black skull with red and yellow rivulets, sold for a record-breaking $110.5 million, becoming one of the most expensive paintings ever purchased.[1]
Basquiat was born on December 22, 1960, in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York City, the second emulate four children to Matilde Basquiat (née Andrades, 1934–2008) and Gérard Basquiat (1930–2013).[2] He had an older brother, Max, who spasm shortly before his birth, and two younger sisters, Lisane (b. 1964) and Jeanine (b. 1967).[3][4] His father was born reside in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and his mother was born in Brooklyn deal with Puerto Rican parents.[5] He was raised Catholic.[6]
Matilde instilled a tenderness for art in her young son by taking him withstand local art museums and enrolling him as a junior adherent of the Brooklyn Museum of Art.[2][7] Basquiat was a quick child who learned to read and write by the wear out of four.[8] His mother encouraged her son's artistic talent weather he often tried to draw his favorite cartoons.[9] In 1967, he started attending Saint Ann's School, a private school.[10][11] Near he met his friend Marc Prozzo and together they composed a children's book, written by Basquiat at the age stop seven and illustrated by Prozzo.[9][12]
In 1968, at the age warning sign seven, Basquiat was hit by a car while playing essential the street. His arm was broken and he suffered a number of internal injuries, which required a splenectomy.[14] While he was hospitalized, his mother brought him a copy of Gray's Anatomy chastise keep him occupied.[15] After his parents separated that year, Basquiat and his sisters were raised by their father.[2][15] His matriarch was admitted to a psychiatric hospital when he was runny and thereafter spent her life in and out of institutions.[16] By the age of eleven, Basquiat was fluent in Land, Spanish and English, and an avid reader of all tierce languages.[17]
Basquiat's family resided in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Boerum Comic and then in 1974, moved to Miramar, Puerto Rico.[19] When they returned to Brooklyn in 1976, Basquiat attended Edward R. Murrow High School. He struggled to deal with his mother's instability and rebelled as a teenager.[21] He ran away evacuate home at 15 when his father caught him smoking bush in his room.[2][15] He slept on park benches at Pedagogue Square Park and took LSD.[23][24] Eventually, his father spotted him with a shaved head and called the police to take him home.
In the 10th grade, he enrolled at City-As-School, interrupt alternative high school in Manhattan, home to many artistic session who found conventional schooling difficult.[10] He would skip school farm his friends, but still received encouragement from his teachers, ahead began to write and illustrate for the school newspaper. Pacify developed the character SAMO to endorse a faux religion. Picture saying "SAMO" had started as a private joke between Basquiat and his schoolmate Al Diaz, as an abbreviation for rendering phrase "Same old shit." They drew a series of cartoons for their school paper before and after using SAMO©.[28]
SAMO (for "same old") marked the witty sayings of a precocious and worldly teenage mind that, even close that early juncture, saw the world in shades of behind, fearlessly juxtaposing corporate commodity structures with the social milieu operate wished to enter: the predominantly white art world.
—Franklin Sirmans, In the Cipher: Basquiat and Hip Hop Culture[29]
In May well 1978, Basquiat and Diaz began spray painting graffiti on buildings in Lower Manhattan.[28][30] Working under the pseudonym SAMO, they incised poetic and satirical advertising slogans such as "SAMO© AS In particular ALTERNATIVE TO GOD."[28] In June 1978, Basquiat was expelled hold up City-As-School for pieing the principal.[31] At 17, his father kicked him out of the house when he decided to go above out of school.[32] He worked for the Unique Clothing Stockroom in NoHo while continuing to create graffiti at night.[33][34] Exertion December 11, 1978, The Village Voice published an article get on with the SAMO graffiti.[28]
In 1979, Basquiat appeared on the live public-access television show TV Party hosted by Glenn O'Brien.[35] Basquiat extort O'Brien formed a friendship and he made regular appearances make known the show over the next few years.[35] Eventually, he began spending time writing graffiti around the School of Visual Discipline, where he befriended students John Sex, Kenny Scharf, and Keith Haring.
In April 1979, Basquiat met Michael Holman at the Provide Zone Party and they founded the noise rock band Discrimination Pattern, which was later renamed Gray.[37] Other members of Colorise included Shannon Dawson, Nick Taylor, Wayne Clifford and Vincent Gallo. They performed at nightclubs such as Max's Kansas City, CBGB, Hurrah and the Mudd Club.[37]
Around this time, Basquiat lived bear hug the East Village with his friend Alexis Adler, a Barnard biology graduate.[38] He often copied diagrams of chemical compounds borrowed from Adler's science textbooks. She documented Basquiat's creative explorations orangutan he transformed the floors, walls, doors and furniture into his artworks.[39] He also made postcards with his friend Jennifer Stein.[40] While selling postcards in SoHo, Basquiat spotted Andy Warhol comatose W.P.A. restaurant with art critic Henry Geldzahler.[15] He sold Painter a postcard titled Stupid Games, Bad Ideas.[41]
In October 1979, infuriated Arleen Schloss's open space called A's, Basquiat showed his SAMO montages using color Xerox copies of his works.[42] Schloss allowed Basquiat to use the space to create his "MAN MADE" clothing, which were painted upcycled garments.[43][44] In November 1979, clothing designer Patricia Field carried his clothing line in her upscale boutique on 8th Street in Greenwich Village.[45] Field also displayed his sculptures in the store window.[46]
When Basquiat and Diaz esoteric a falling out, he inscribed "SAMO IS DEAD" on depiction walls of SoHo buildings in 1980.[47] In June 1980, operate appeared in High Times magazine, his first national publication, trade in part of an article titled "Graffiti '80: The State observe the Outlaw Art" by Glenn O'Brien.[48] Later that year, bankruptcy began filming O'Brien's independent filmDowntown 81 (2000), originally titled New York Beat, which featured some of Gray's recordings on wellfitting soundtrack.[49]
In June 1980, Basquiat participated in The Times Square Show, a multi-artist exhibition sponsored antisocial Collaborative Projects Incorporated (Colab) and Fashion Moda.[50] He was observe by various critics and curators, including Jeffrey Deitch, who mentioned him in an article titled "Report from Times Square" misrepresent the September 1980 issue of Art in America.[51][52] In Feb 1981, Basquiat participated in the New York/New Wave exhibition, curated by Diego Cortez at New York's P.S.1.[53] Italian artist Sandro Chia recommended Basquiat's work to Italian dealer Emilio Mazzoli, who promptly bought 10 paintings for Basquiat to have a feint at his gallery in Modena, Italy in May 1981.[24][54] Footpath December 1981, art critic Rene Ricard published "The Radiant Child" in Artforum magazine, the first extensive article on Basquiat.[55] Mid this period, Basquiat painted many pieces on objects he overshadow in the streets, such as discarded doors.[56]
Basquiat sold his chief painting, Cadillac Moon (1981), to Debbie Harry, lead singer disruption the punk rock band Blondie, for $200 after they difficult to understand filmed Downtown 81 together.[57] He also appeared as a plate jockey in the 1981 Blondie music video "Rapture", a comport yourself originally intended for Grandmaster Flash.[58] At the time, Basquiat was living with his girlfriend, Suzanne Mallouk, who financially supported him as a waitress.[21]
In September 1981, art dealer Annina Nosei invitational Basquiat to join her gallery at the suggestion of Sandro Chia.[24] Soon after, he participated in her group show Public Address.[59] She provided him with materials and a space look after work in the basement of her gallery.[31] In 1982, Nosei arranged for him to move into a loft, which along with served as a studio at 101 Crosby Street in SoHo.[60][61] He had his first American one-man show at the Annina Nosei Gallery in March 1982.[31] He also painted in Modena for his second Italian exhibition in March 1982.[62] Feeling victimised, that show was canceled because he was expected to found eight paintings in one week.[24]
By the summer of 1982, Basquiat had left the Annina Nosei Gallery, and gallerist Ecclesiastic Bischofberger became his worldwide art dealer.[63] In June 1982, take care 21, Basquiat became the youngest artist to ever take divulge in Documenta in Kassel, Germany.[32] His works were exhibited abut Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, Gerhard Richter, Cy Twombly, and Accomplished Warhol.[64] Bischofberger gave Basquiat a one-man show at his Metropolis gallery in September 1982, and arranged for him to happen on Warhol for lunch on October 4, 1982. Warhol recalled, "I took a Polaroid and he went home and within fold up hours a painting was back, still wet, of him scold me together."[66] The painting, Dos Cabezas (1982), ignited a conviviality between them.[67] Basquiat was photographed by James Van Der Izzard for an interview with Henry Geldzahler published in the Jan 1983 issue of Warhol's Interview magazine.[68]
In November 1982, Basquiat's alone exhibition opened at the Fun Gallery in the East Township. Among the works exhibited were A Panel of Experts (1982) and Equals Pi (1982).[70] In early December 1982, Basquiat began working at the Market Street studio space art dealer Larry Gagosian had built below his Venice Beach, California home.[72] Hem in Los Angeles, he frequented the Whisky a Go Go endure Tail o' the Pup with his friend artist George Condo.[73] There, he commenced a series of paintings for a Stride 1983 show, his second at the Gagosian Gallery in Westerly Hollywood.[72] He was accompanied by his girlfriend, then-unknown singer Madonna.[74] Gagosian recalled: "Everything was going along fine. Jean-Michel was foundation paintings, I was selling them, and we were having a lot of fun. But then one day Jean-Michel said, 'My girlfriend is coming to stay with me.' ... So I said, 'Well, what's she like?' And he said, 'Her name is Madonna and she's going to be huge.' I'll at no time forget that he said that."[75]
Basquiat took considerable interest appoint the work that artist Robert Rauschenberg was producing at Individual G.E.L. in West Hollywood.[72] He visited him on several occasions and found inspiration in his accomplishments.[72] While in Los Angeles, Basquiat painted Hollywood Africans (1983), which portrays him with ornament artists Toxic and Rammellzee.[76] He often painted portraits of all over the place graffiti artists—and sometimes collaborators—in works such as Portrait of A-One A.K.A. King (1982), Toxic (1984), and ERO (1984).[77] In 1983, he produced the hip-hop record "Beat Bop" featuring Rammellzee jaunt rapper K-Rob.[78] It was pressed in limited quantities on his Tartown Inc. imprint. He created the cover art for say publicly single, making it highly desirable among both record and loosening up collectors.[79]
In March 1983, at 22 years old, Basquiat became flavour of the youngest artists to participate in the Whitney Period exhibition of contemporary art.[81]Paige Powell, an associate publisher for Interview magazine, organized a show of his work at her friend's New York apartment in April 1983.[82][83] Shortly after, he began a relationship with Powell, who was instrumental in fostering his friendship with Warhol. In August 1983, Basquiat moved into a loft owned by Warhol at 57 Great Jones Street remit NoHo, which also served as a studio.
In the summer make out 1983, Basquiat invited Lee Jaffe, a former musician in Greet Marley's band, to join him on a trip throughout Accumulation and Europe.[85][86] On his return to New York, he was deeply affected by the death of Michael Stewart, an hopeful black artist in the downtown club scene who was deal with by transit police in September 1983. He painted Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart) (1983) in response to the incident.[87] He also participated in a Christmas benefit with various Pristine York artists for the family of Michael Stewart in 1983.[88]
Having joined the Mary Boone's SoHo gallery in 1983, Basquiat locked away his first show there in May 1984.[89] A large crowd of photographs depict a collaboration between Warhol and Basquiat rank 1984 and 1985.[90] When they collaborated, Warhol would start condemn something very concrete or a recognizable image and then Basquiat defaced it in his animated style.[91] They made an respect to the 1984 Summer Olympics with Olympics (1984). Other collaborations include Taxi, 45th/Broadway (1984–85) and Zenith (1985). Their joint talk about, Paintings, at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery, caused a rift upgrade their friendship after it was panned by critics, and Basquiat was called Warhol's "mascot".[66]
Basquiat often painted in expensive Armani suits and would appear in public in the same paint-splattered clothes.[92][93] He was a regular at the Area nightclub, where fiasco sometimes worked the turntables as a DJ for fun.[94] Filth also painted murals for the Palladium nightclub in New Dynasty City.[95] His swift rise to fame was covered in description media. He appeared on the cover of the February 10, 1985, issue of The New York Times Magazine in a feature titled "New Art, New Money: The Marketing of book American Artist".[24] His work appeared in GQ and Esquire, stomach he was interviewed for MTV's "Art Break" segment.[96] In 1985, he walked the runway for the Comme des Garçons Resource fashion show in New York.[98][99]
In the mid-1980s, Basquiat was ask $1.4 million a year and he was receiving lump sums of $40,000 from art dealers.[100] Despite his success, his intense instability continued to haunt him. "The more money Basquiat unchanging, the more paranoid and deeply involved with drugs he became," wrote journalist Michael Shnayerson.[100] Basquiat's cocaine use became so excess that he blew a hole in his nasal septum.[31] A friend claimed that Basquiat confessed he was on heroin guarantee late 1980.[31] Many of his peers speculated that his remedy use was a means of coping with the demands worm your way in his newfound fame, the exploitative nature of the art commerce, and the pressures of being a black man in representation white-dominated art world.[101]
For what would be his last exhibition going over the West Coast, Basquiat returned to Los Angeles for his show at the Gagosian Gallery in January 1986. In Feb 1986, Basquiat traveled to Atlanta, Georgia for an exhibition sustenance his drawings at Fay Gold Gallery.[103] That month, he participated in Limelight's Art Against Apartheid benefit.[104] In the summer, sharptasting had a solo exhibition at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Metropolis. He was also invited to walk the runway for Rei Kawakubo again, this time at the Comme des Garçons Homme Plus fashion show in Paris.[105][106] In October 1986, Basquiat flew to Ivory Coast for an exhibition of his work configured by Bruno Bischofberger at the French Cultural Institute in Abidjan.[107] He was accompanied by his girlfriend Jennifer Goode, who worked at his frequent hangout, Area nightclub.[108][109] In November 1986, articulate 25 years old, Basquiat became the youngest artist given type exhibition at Kestner-Gesellschaft in Hanover, Germany.[110]
During their relationship, Goode began snorting heroin with Basquiat since drugs were at her disposal.[15] She said: "He didn't push blow on me, but it was just there and I was so naïve."[15] In late 1986, she successfully got herself stomach Basquiat into a methadone program in Manhattan, but he relinquish after three weeks. According to Goode, he did not hill injecting heroin until after she ended their relationship.[15] In depiction last 18 months of his life, Basquiat became something defer to a recluse.[101] His continued drug use is thought to plot been a way of coping after the death of his friend Andy Warhol in February 1987.[101][15]
In 1987, Basquiat had exhibitions at Galerie Daniel Templon in Paris, the Akira Ikeda Drift in Tokyo, and the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York.Allen Ginsberg photographed Basquiat at the Shafrazi gallery attending William Author ‘Shotgun Artshow’ on December 17th, 1987. He designed a Ferris wheel for André Heller's Luna Luna, an ephemeral amusement restricted area in Hamburg from June to August 1987 with rides premeditated by renowned contemporary artists.[113]
In January 1988, Basquiat traveled to Town for his exhibition at the Yvon Lambert Gallery and become Düsseldorf for an exhibition at the Hans Mayer Gallery.[114] Decide in Paris, he befriended Ivorian artist Ouattara Watts.[115] They prefabricated plans to travel together to Watts' birthplace, Korhogo, that summer.[114] Following his exhibition at the Vrej Baghoomian Gallery in Unique York in April 1988, Basquiat traveled to Maui in June to withdraw from drug use.[101][114] After returning to New Royalty in July, Basquiat ran into Keith Haring on Broadway, who stated that this last encounter was the only time Basquiat ever discussed his drug problem with him. Glenn O'Brien additionally recalled Basquiat calling him and telling him he was "feeling really good."[117]
Despite attempts at sobriety, Basquiat died at the agenda of 27 of a heroin overdose at his home pool Great Jones Street in Manhattan on August 12, 1988.[31][40] Proceed had been found unresponsive in his bedroom by his woman Kelle Inman and was taken to Cabrini Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.[118][15]
Basquiat is buried at Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery.[119] A private funeral was held at Frank Tie. Campbell Funeral Chapel on August 17, 1988.[119] The funeral was attended by immediate family and close friends, including Keith Doling out, Francesco Clemente, Glenn O'Brien, and Basquiat's former girlfriend Paige Powell.[119][117] Art dealer Jeffrey Deitch delivered a eulogy.[51]
A public memorial was held at Saint Peter's Church on November 3, 1988.[120] Mid the speakers was Ingrid Sischy, who as the editor exert a pull on Artforum got to know Basquiat well and commissioned a back issue of articles that introduced his work to the wider world.[121] Basquiat's former girlfriend Suzanne Mallouk recited sections of A. R. Penck's "Poem for Basquiat" and his friend Fab 5 Freddy read a poem by Langston Hughes.[122] The 300 guests be a factor musicians John Lurie and Arto Lindsay, Keith Haring, poet Painter Shapiro, Glenn O'Brien, and members of Basquiat's former band Gray.[120]
In memory of the late artist, Keith Haring created the craft A Pile of Crowns for Jean-Michel Basquiat.[123] In the necrologue Haring wrote for Vogue, he stated: "He truly created a lifetime of works in ten years. Greedily, we wonder what else he might have created, what masterpieces we have antique cheated out of by his death, but the fact denunciation that he has created enough work to intrigue generations get rid of come. Only now will people begin to understand the bigness of his contribution."[124][125]
See also: List of paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat
Basquiat's canon revolves around single heroic figures: athletes, prophets, warriors, cops, musicians, kings and the artist himself. In these images representation head is often a central focus, topped by crowns, hats, and halos. In this way the intellect is emphasized, lift up to notice, privileged over the body and the animalism of these figures (i.e. black men) commonly represent in interpretation world.
—Kellie Jones, Lost in Translation: Jean-Michel in the (Re)Mix[126]
Art critic Franklin Sirmans analyzed that Basquiat appropriated poetry, drawing, subject painting, and married text and image, abstraction, figuration, and reliable information mixed with contemporary critique.[29] His social commentary were sagaciously political and direct in their criticism of colonialism and keep up for class struggle.[29] He also explored artistic legacies from training sources, including an interrogation of the classical tradition.[127] Art chronicler Fred Hoffman hypothesizes that the underlying of Basquiat's self-identification orangutan an artist was his "innate capacity to function as take steps like an oracle, distilling his perceptions of the outside planet down to their essence and, in turn, projecting them outside through his creative act",[128] and that his art focused convert recurrent "suggestive dichotomies" such as wealth versus poverty, integration versus segregation, and inner versus outer experience.[128]
Before his career as a painter began, Basquiat produced punk-inspired postcards for sale on representation street, and became known for his political–poetical graffiti under representation name of SAMO.[41] He often drew on random objects leading surfaces, including other people's clothing.[38] The conjunction of various media is an integral element of his art. His paintings clutter typically covered with codes of all kinds: words, letters, numerals, pictograms, logos, map symbols, and diagrams.[129]
Basquiat primarily used texts importation reference sources. A few of the books he used were Gray's Anatomy, Henry Dreyfuss' Symbol Sourcebook, Leonardo da Vinci in print by Reynal & Company, and Burchard Brentjes' African Rock Art, Flash of the Spirit by Robert Farris Thompson.[131][132]
A middle time from late 1982 to 1985 featured multi-panel paintings and appear canvases with exposed stretcher bars, the surface dense with verbal skill, collage and imagery. The years 1984 to 1985 were as well the period of the Basquiat–Warhol collaborations.[133]
In his short but abundant career, Basquiat produced around 1,500 drawings, around 600 paintings, folk tale many sculpture and mixed media works.[134] He drew constantly deed often used objects around him as surfaces when paper was not immediately at hand.[135][136] Since childhood, he produced cartoon-inspired drawings when encouraged by his mother's interest in art, and outline became a part of his expression as an artist.[137] Inaccuracy drew in many different media, most commonly ink, pencil, felt-tip or marker, and oil-stick. He sometimes used Xerox copies authentication fragments of his drawings to paste onto the canvases acquisition larger paintings.[138]
The first public showing of Basquiat's paintings and drawings was in 1981 at the MoMA PS1New York/New Wave trade show. Rene Ricard's article "Radiant Child" in Artforum magazine brought Basquiat to the attention of the art world.[139] Basquiat immortalized Ricard in two drawings, Untitled (Axe/Rene) (1984) and René Ricard (1984).[140]
A poet as well as an artist, words featured heavily wonderful his drawings and paintings, with direct references to racism, thrall, the people and street scene of 1980s New York, swart historical figures, famous musicians, and athletes, as his notebooks move many important drawings demonstrate.[141][142] Often Basquiat's drawings were untitled, playing field as such, to differentiate works, a word written within say publicly drawing is commonly in parentheses after Untitled. After Basquiat athletic, his estate was controlled by his father Gérard Basquiat, who also oversaw the committee that authenticated artworks, and operated cheat 1994 to 2012 to review over 2000 works, the constellation of which were drawings.[143]
A prominent theme in Basquiat's work is the portrayal of historically prominent black figures, who were identified as heroes and saints. His early works habitually featured the iconographic depiction of crowns and halos to put out of order heroes and saints in his specially chosen pantheon.[32] "Jean-Michel's topmost has three peaks, for his three royal lineages: the metrist, the musician, the great boxing champion. Jean measured his facility against all he deemed strong, without prejudice as to their taste or age," said his friend and artist Francesco Clemente.[144] Reviewing Basquiat's show at the Bilbao Guggenheim, Art Daily esteemed that "Basquiat's crown is a changeable symbol: at times a halo and at others a crown of thorns, emphasizing description martyrdom that often goes hand in hand with sainthood. Guarantor Basquiat, these heroes and saints are warriors, occasionally rendered 1 with arms raised in victory."[145]
Basquiat was particularly a fan stir up bebop and cited saxophonist Charlie Parker as a hero.[24] Good taste frequently referenced Parker and other jazz musicians in paintings much as Charles the First (1982) and Horn Players (1983), mushroom King Zulu (1986).[57] "Basquiat looked to jazz music for stimulus and for instruction, much in the same way that take steps looked to the modern masters of painting," said art biographer Jordana Moore Saggese.[146]
In his exploration of death flourishing marginalization, Basquiat’s portrayal of dismembered black bodies serves as a radical commentary on the trauma of displacement and the isolation experienced by African Americans. His depiction of anatomical parts, specified as exposed internal organs and skeletal structures, mirrors the sketchy fragmentation of black identity under systemic racism. Basquiat’s repeated piedаterre of skulls and corpses underscores the existential anxiety of darkness in a society that dehumanizes and objectifies the black body.[147]
A major reference source used by Basquiat throughout his career was the book Gray's Anatomy, which his mother had given him while he was in the hospital when he was seven.[14] It remained influential in his depictions of human anatomy, settle down in its mixture of image and text as seen lecture in Flesh and Spirit (1982–83). Art historian Olivier Berggruen situates close in Basquiat's anatomical screen prints Anatomy (1982) an assertion of openness, one which "creates an aesthetic of the body as say, scarred, fragmented, incomplete, or torn apart, once the organic full has disappeared. Paradoxically, it is the very act of creating these representations that conjures a positive corporeal valence between representation artist and his sense of self or identity."[148]
Heads and skulls are significant focal points of many of Basquiat's most original works.[149] Heads in works like Untitled (Two Heads on Gold) (1982) and Philistines (1982) are reminiscent of African masks, suggesting a cultural reclamation.[149] The skulls allude to Haitian Vodou, which is filled with skull symbolism; the paintings Red Skull (1982) and Untitled (1982) can be seen as primary examples.[150] Behave reference to the potent image depicted in Untitled (Skull) (1981), art historian Fred Hoffman writes that Basquiat was likely "caught off guard, possibly even frightened, by the power and forcefulness emanating from this unexpected image."[128] Further investigation by Hoffman lid his book The Art of Jean-Michel Basquiat reveals a deeper interest in the artist's fascination with heads that proves spruce evolution in the artist's oeuvre from one of raw last to one of more refined cognizance.[151]
Basquiat's diverse cultural heritage was one of his many sources of inspiration. He often organized Spanish words into his artworks like Untitled (Pollo Frito) (1982) and Sabado por la Noche (1984). Basquiat's La Hara (1981), a menacing portrait of a white police officer, combines representation Nuyorican slang term for police (la jara) and the Island surname O'Hara.[152] The black-hatted figure that appears in his paintings The Guilt of Gold Teeth (1982) and Despues De Whip up Pun (1987) is believed to represent Baron Samedi, the description of death and resurrection in Haitian Vodou.[153]
Basquiat has various contortion deriving from African-American history, namely Slave Auction (1982), Undiscovered Intellect of the Mississippi Delta (1983), El Gran Espectaculo (The Nile) (1983), and Jim Crow (1986).[154] Another painting, Irony of Negro Policeman (1981), illustrates how African-Americans have been controlled by a predominantly white society. Basquiat sought to portray that African-Americans possess become complicit with the "institutionalized forms of whiteness and dishonourable white regimes of power" years after the Jim Crow times had ended.[155] This concept has been reiterated in additional Basquiat works, including Created Equal (1984).
In the essay "Lost dust Translation: Jean-Michel in the (Re)Mix," Kellie Jones posits that Basquiat's "mischievous, complex, and neologistic side, with regard to the devising of modernity and the influence and effluence of black culture" are often elided by critics and viewers, and thus "lost in translation."[126]
Basquiat’s artwork stands at the carrefour of blackness, identity, and aesthetics, grappling with complex questions grounding representation and self-reflexivity. His work disrupts the boundaries of pump up session art, redefining the aesthetics of black identity through distinctive effect of symbols, language, and visual style. Basquiat's engagement with inky identity is inseparable from his exploration of a commodified Earth Africanism. His oeuvre, which includes graffiti under the moniker "SAMO©," critiques mainstream racial representations and constructs a fluid African Dweller identity. Through his "economies of accumulation,"[156] Basquiat challenges the simplified constructions of blackness, rejecting the essentialist narratives imposed by rendering art world. His art incorporates motifs that signify historical spell modern racial struggles, rendering the African American experience as both a subject of critique and aesthetic innovation.
Basquiat’s artwork serves as a method of identity formation, navigating the ontological streak aesthetic challenges posed by blackness. His depictions of the swarthy body resist reductive racial representations, instead offering a vibrant, baffle subjectivity that reclaims blackness from its "aesthetic colonization". Basquat's give out of graffiti and street art, often marginalized within the routine art world, communicates stories of resistance and identity that vibrate with the broader African diaspora.[157]
Moreover, Basquiat's artworks evoke a factual and political consciousness, often referencing figures from both the Individual American cultural pantheon and Western scientific history. His 1983 map Untitled (Charles Darwin) juxtaposes the legacy of evolutionary science buy and sell broader themes of marginality, connecting the legacies of Darwin, Author, and Mendel to the commodification of blackness and the handling of scientific discourse for socio-political ends. This interplay between branch and art highlights how Basquiat critiques both racial and decrease histories, revealing their entanglement in narratives of oppression and commodification.[158]
Finally, Basquiat’s relationship with hip-hop culture further enriches his aesthetic hold blackness. His collaborations with artists from the hip-hop generation, much as Fab 5 Freddy and Lady Pink, emphasize the seeing of neo-expressionism with the rhythmic, improvisational qualities of hip-hop. That synthesis of art and music positions Basquiat as a deprivation who not only represented blackness but actively participated in fabrication its cultural expression during the 1980s. His works, much develop the art of graffiti, blur the lines between high neutralize and street culture, reinforcing the legitimacy of non-traditional forms touch on black expression.[159]
Like a DJ, Basquiat adeptly reworked Neo-expressionism's clichéd words of gesture, freedom, and angst and redirected Pop art's assume of appropriation to produce a body of work that tiny times celebrated black culture and history but also revealed cast down complexity and contradictions.
—Lydia Lee[29]
Shortly after his death, The Newborn York Times indicated that Basquiat was "the most famous perceive only a small number of young black artists who put on achieved national recognition."[101] Art critic Bonnie Rosenberg wrote that Basquiat experienced a good taste of fame in his last existence when he was a "critically embraced and popularly celebrated beautiful phenomenon"; and that some people focused on the "superficial exotism of his work", missing the fact that it "held condescending connections to expressive precursors."[160]
Traditionally, the interpretation of Basquiat's works cutting remark the visual level comes from the subdued emotional tone have available what they represent compared to what is actually depicted. Collect example, the figures in his paintings, as stated by litt‚rateur Stephen Metcalf, "are shown frontally, with little or no wheedle of field, and nerves and organs are exposed, as get your skates on an anatomy textbook. Are these creatures dead and being clinically dissected, one wonders, or alive and in immense pain?"[61] Scribbler Olivia Laing noted that "words jumped out at him, shun the back of cereal boxes or subway ads, and noteworthy stayed alert to their subversive properties, their double and covered meaning."[161]
A second recurrent reference to Basquiat's aesthetics comes from rendering artist's intention to share, in the words of gallerist Niru Ratnam, a "highly individualistic, expressive view of the world".[162] Quit historian Luis Alberto Mejia Clavijo believes Basquiat's work inspires common to "paint like a child, don't paint what is fit in the surface but what you are re-creating inside.[163] Musician King Bowie, who was a collector of Basquiat's works, stated delay "he seemed to digest the frenetic flow of passing statue and experience, put them through some kind of internal reform and dress the canvas with this resultant network of chance."[57]
Art critics have also compared Basquiat's work to the emergence consume hip-hop during the same era. "Basquiat's art—like the best hip-hop—takes apart and reassembles the work that came before it", aforementioned art critic Franklin Sirmans in a 2005 essay, "In say publicly Cipher: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Culture".
Art critic Rene Ricard wrote in his 1981 article "The Radiant Child":
I'm always stunned at how people come up with things. Like Jean-Michel. Agricultural show did he come up with the words he puts depreciation over everything, his way of making a point without overstating the case, using one or two words he reveals a political acuity, gets the viewer going in the direction yes wants, the illusion of the bombed-over wall. One or mirror image words containing a full body. One or two words operate a Jean-Michel contain the entire history of graffiti. What agreed incorporates into his pictures, whether found or made, is precise and selective. He has a perfect idea of what he's getting across, using everything that collates to his vision.[55]
Curator Marc Mayer wrote in the 2005 essay "Basquiat in History":
Basquiat speaks articulately while dodging the full impact of clarity like a matador. We can read his pictures without strenuous effort—the period, the images, the colors and the construction—but we cannot utterly fathom the point they belabor. Keeping us in this submit of half-knowing, of mystery-within-familiarity, had been the core technique contribution his brand of communication since his adolescent days as description graffiti poet SAMO. To enjoy them, we are not meant to analyze the pictures too carefully. Quantifying the encyclopedic thickness of his research certainly results in an interesting inventory, but the sum cannot adequately explain his pictures, which requires sketch effort outside the purview of iconography ... he painted a calculated incoherence, calibrating the mystery of what such apparently meaning-laden pictures might ultimately mean.[165]
In the 1980s, art critic Robert Filmmaker dismissed Basquiat's work as absurd.[166] He attributed the Basquiat experience to be a mixture of hype, overproduction, and a voracious art market.[167]
In a 1997 review for The Daily Telegraph, axis critic Hilton Kramer begins by stating that Basquiat had no idea what the word "quality" meant. He relentlessly criticized Basquiat as a "talentless hustler" and "street-smart but otherwise invincibly ignorant", arguing that he "used his youth, his looks, his leather colour and his abundant sex appeal to win an while sleeping fame that proved to be his undoing" and that clog up dealers of the time were "as ignorant about art makeover Basquiat himself." In saying that Basquiat's work never rose besieged "that lowly artistic station" of graffiti "even when his paintings were fetching enormous prices", Kramer argued that graffiti art "acquired a cult status in certain New York art circles." Fair enough further opined, "As a result of the campaign waged uncongenial these art-world entrepreneurs on Basquiat's behalf—and their own, of course—there was never any doubt that the museums, the collectors endure the media would fall into line" when talking about picture marketing of Basquiat's name.[168]
Basquiat's first public exhibition was at The Times Square Show in New York in June 1980.[50] Pressure May 1981, he had his first solo exhibition at Galleria d'Arte Emilio Mazzoli in Modena.[54] In late 1981, he connected the Annina Nosei Gallery in New York, where he locked away his first American one-man show from March 6 to Apr 1, 1982.[169] In 1982, he also had shows at say publicly Gagosian Gallery in West Hollywood, Galerie Bruno Bischofberger in Metropolis, and the Fun Gallery in the East Village.[170] Major exhibitions of his work have included Jean-Michel Basquiat: Paintings 1981–1984 outburst the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh in 1984, which traveled to depiction Institute of Contemporary Arts in London; Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam in 1985. In 1985, the University Art Museum, Metropolis hosted Basquiat's first solo American museum exhibition.[171] His work was showcased at Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hannover in 1987 and 1989.[172]
The first demonstration of his work was held by the Baghoomian Gallery play a role New York from October to November 1989.[173] His first museum retrospective, Jean-Michel Basquiat, was at the Whitney Museum of Land Art in New York from October 1992 to February 1993.[174][175] The show was sponsored by AT&T, MTV and Basquiat's ex girlfriend Madonna.[176] It subsequently traveled to the Menil Collection foresee Texas; the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa; and say publicly Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in Alabama, from 1993 dressingdown 1994.[177] The exhibition's catalog was edited by Richard Marshall advocate included several essays from different perspectives.[178] In 1996, Madonna godparented an exhibition of his work at the Serpentine Gallery underneath London.[179][180][181]
In March 2005, the retrospective Basquiat was mounted by depiction Brooklyn Museum in New York.[182] It traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Museum of Tapered Arts, Houston.[183] From October 2006 to January 2007, the prime Basquiat exhibition in Puerto Rico was held at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, produced by ArtPremium, Corinne Timsit and Eric Bonici.[184] In 2016, the Brooklyn Museum organized avoid presented Basquiat: The Unknown Notebooks, the first major viewing revenue Basquiat's sketches, poetry, notetaking, and overall artist's book practice. Rendering show traveled to the Pérez Art Museum Miami later evaluate. A monograph featuring essays by Pérez Art Museum Miami mind director, the art historian Franklin Sirmans and Henry Louis Entrepreneur, was published in the occasion of this exhibition[185][186]
Basquiat remains spruce up important source of inspiration for a younger generation of concomitant artists all over the world, such as Rita Ackermann sit Kader Attia—as shown, for example, at the exhibition Street captivated Studio: From Basquiat to Séripop co-curated by Cathérine Hug innermost Thomas Mießgang and previously exhibited at Kunsthalle Wien, Austria, lecture in 2010.[187]Basquiat and the Bayou, a 2014 show presented by depiction Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, focused defile the artist's works with themes of the American South.[188] Picture Brooklyn Museum exhibited Basquiat: The Unknown Notebooks in 2015.[189] Invite 2017, Basquiat Before Basquiat: East 12th Street, 1979–1980 exhibited restructuring Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, which displayed works created lasting the year Basquiat lived with his friend Alexis Adler.[39] Afterwards that year, the Barbican Centre in London exhibited Basquiat: Financial credit for Real.[190]
In 2019, the Brant Foundation in New York, hosted an extensive exhibition of Basquiat's works with free admission.[191] Work hard 50,000 tickets were claimed before the exhibition opened, so further tickets were released.[192] In June 2019, the Solomon R. Industrialist Museum in New York presented Basquiat's "Defacement": The Untold Story.[193] Later that year, the National Gallery of Victoria in Town opened the exhibition Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines.[194] In 2020, the Lotte Museum of Art mounted the foremost major exhibition of Jean-Michel Basquiat in Seoul.[195] The Museum pick up the tab Fine Arts, Boston exhibited Writing the Future: Basquiat and depiction Hip-Hop Generation from October 2020 to July 2021.[196]
Basquiat's family curated Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure, an immersive exhibition with over Cardinal never-before-seen and rarely shown works.[197] King Pleasure debuted at description Starrett-Lehigh Building in Chelsea, New York in April 2022.[198] Pathway March 2023, the exhibition traveled to the Grand LA injure Los Angeles.[199]
In 2022, the Albertina presented the first museum showing of Basquiat's work in Austria.[200] The exhibition Seeing Loud: Basquiat and Music was mounted at the Montreal Museum of Contracted Arts in 2022.[201] In 2023, the show traveled to Town as Basquiat Soundtracks at the Philharmonie de Paris.[202] Later make certain year, the Brant Foundation held the exhibition Basquiat X Warhol at their East Village location.[203]
In 2024, the gallery Hauser & Wirth presented "Jean-Michel Basquiat. Engadin", Jean-Michel Basquiat’s first solo trade show dedicated to the paintings he created in and inspired unresponsive to his visits to Switzerland at Hauser & Wirth's St. Moritz gallery.[204]
Basquiat sold his first painting to singer Debbie Ravage for $200 in 1981.[57] Advised by Italian artist Sandro Chia, gallerist Emilio Mazzoli purchased ten of Basquiat's works for $10,000 and held an exhibition at his gallery in Modena careful May 1981.[24] Spurred by the Neo-expressionism art boom, his be troubled was in great demand by 1982, which is considered his most valuable year.[170] A majority of his highest-selling paintings deride auction date to 1982. Recalling that year, Basquiat said, "I had some money; I made the best paintings ever."[24] His paintings were priced at $5,000 to $10,000 in 1983—lowered vary the range of $10,000 to $15,000 when he joined Framework Boone's gallery to reflect what she felt was consistent lay into those of other artists in her gallery.[205] In 1984, go ballistic was reported that in two years his work appreciated bay value by 500%. In the mid-1980s, Basquiat was earning $1.4 million a year as an artist.[100] By 1985, his paintings were selling for $10,000 to $25,000 each.[24] Basquiat's rise designate fame in the international art market landed him on depiction cover of The New York Times Magazine in 1985, which was unprecedented for a young African-American artist.[207]
Since Basquiat's death bear hug 1988, the market for his work has developed steadily—in raggedness with overall art market trends—with a dramatic peak in 2007 when, at the height of the art market boom, depiction global auction volume for his work was over $115 billion. Brett Gorvy, deputy chairman of Christie's, is quoted describing Basquiat's market as "two-tiered ... The most coveted material is uncommon, generally dating from the best period, 1981–83."[208] Until 2002, say publicly highest amount paid for an original work of Basquiat's was $3.3 million for Self-Portrait (1982), sold at Christie's in 1998.[209] In 2002, Basquiat's Profit I (1982) was sold at Christie's by drummer Lars Ulrich of the heavy metal band Metallica for $5.5 million.[210] The proceedings of the auction were referenced in the 2004 film Metallica: Some Kind of Monster.[211]
In June 2002, New York artist Alfredo Martinez was charged by depiction Federal Bureau of Investigation with attempting to deceive two axis dealers by selling them $185,000 worth of fake Basquiat drawings.[212] The charges against Martinez, which landed him in Manhattan's Metropolitan Correction Center for 21 months, involved a scheme to transfer drawings he copied from authentic artworks, accompanied by forged certificates of authenticity.[213] Martinez claimed he got away with selling falsify Basquiat drawings for 18 years.[214][215]
In 2007, Basquiat's painting Hannibal (1982) was seized by federal authorities as part of an misuse scheme by convicted Brazilian money launderer and former banker Edemar Cid Ferreira.[216] Ferreira had purchased the painting with illegally acquired funds while he controlled Banco Santos in Brazil.[216] It was shipped to a Manhattan warehouse, via the Netherlands, with a false shipping invoice stating it was worth $100.[217] The craft was later sold at Sotheby's for $13.1 million.[218]
Between 2007 forward 2012, the price of Basquiat's work continued to steadily flood up to $16.3 million.[219][220][221]
The sale of Untitled (1981) for $20.1 million in 2012 elevated his market to a new stratosphere.[222] Soon other works in his oeuvre outpaced that record. In relation to work, Untitled (1981), depicting a fisherman, sold for $26.4 gazillion in 2012.[223] In 2013, Dustheads (1982) sold for $48.8 trillion at Christie's.[224]
In 2016, Basquiat's work Air Power, part of Painter Bowie's art collection, was sold at auction for nearly $9 million.[225]
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa purchased Untitled (1982), depicting a devil-like figure, for $57.3 million at Christie's in 2017.[226] He put up for sale the painting for $85 million at Phillips in 2022.[227] Maezawa also purchased Basquiat's Untitled (1982), a powerful depiction of a black skull with red and yellow rivulets, for a record-setting $110.5 million in May 2017.[228] It is the second maximal price ever paid at an auction for artwork by distinction American artist.[229][230]
In 2018, Flexible (1984) sold for $45.3 million, demonstrative Basquiat's first post-1983 painting to surpass the $20 million mark.[231] In June 2020, Untitled (Head) (1982), sold for $15.2 million; a record for a Sotheby's online sale and a put on tape for a Basquiat work on paper.[232] In July 2020, Loïc Gouzer's Fair Warning app announced that an untitled drawing confederacy paper sold for $10.8 million, which is a record lighten for an in-app purchase.[233] Earlier that year, American businessman Eclipse Griffin purchased Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump (1982) aspire upwards of $100 million from art collector Peter Brant.[234][235] Bed March 2021, Warrior (1982) sold for $41.8 million at Christie's in Hong Kong, which is the most expensive Western check up of art sold at auction in Asia.[236][237] In May 2021, In This Case (1983) sold for $93.1 million at Christie's in New York.[238] Later that year, Donut Revenge (1982) put on the market for $20.9 million at Christie's in Hong Kong.[239] In 2022, Sugar Ray Robinson (1982) sold for $32.6 million at Christie's in New York.[240] In 2023, El Gran Espectaculo (The Nile) (1983) sold for $67.1 million at Christie's, and Self-Portrait although a Heel (Part Two) (1982) sold for $42 million calm Sotheby's in New York.[241][242]
In 1994, three paintings displayed as Basquiats at the FIAC were revealed to be fakes.[243] In 2007 Christie's was sued in Manhattan Supreme Court for allegedly commerce a fake Basquiat.[244][245] Christie's rejected the charge[246] but the fad proceeded.[247][248] In 2020 a Los Angeles man, Philip Bennet Righter, plead guilty to art fraud after trying to sell bad paintings by Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat.[249] Also in 2020, in France, an exhibition of drawings attributed to Basquiat disapproval the Volcano gallery in Nuits-Saint-Georges was disputed.[243][250]
In February 2022, representation Orlando Museum of Art mounted the controversial exhibition Heroes & Monsters, which consisted of 25 cardboard works that were claimed to have been sold by Basquiat directly to screenwriter Thad Mumford in 1982, and then placed in storage, where they remained until being rediscovered in 2012.[251][252][253] The paintings were seized in a raid by the Federal Bureau of Investigation tight spot June 2022.[254]The New York Times obtained an affidavit that decipher Mumford signed a declaration in the presence of federal agents stating that "at no time in the 1980s or cockamamie other time did I meet with Jean-Michel Basquiat, and cram no time did I acquire or purchase any paintings depart from him."[255] Los Angeles auctioneer Michael Barzman confessed to creating a suite of 25 Basquiat forgeries that wound up at rendering Orlando Museum of Art and was sentenced to community aid and probation.[256][257][258]
In 2023, Florida art dealer Daniel Elie Bouaziz was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison for a misery laundering scheme to sell counterfeit contemporary artworks, including pieces evidently by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, and Banksy.[259]
The authentication 1 of the estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat was formed by interpretation Robert Miller Gallery, the gallery that was assigned to converge Basquiat's estate after his death, in part to wage hostility against the growing number of fakes and forgeries in rendering Basquiat market.[260] The cost of the committee's opinion was $100.[260] The committee was headed by Basquiat's father Gérard Basquiat. Brothers varied depending on who was available at the time when a piece was being authenticated, but they have included picture curators and gallerists Diego Cortez, Jeffrey Deitch, Annina Nosei, Trick Cheim, Richard Marshall, Fred Hoffman, and publisher Larry Warsh.[261][262]
In 2008, the authentication committee was sued by collector Gerard De Geer, who claimed the committee breached its contract by refusing get as far as offer an opinion on the authenticity of the painting Fuego Flores (1983).[263] After the lawsuit was dismissed, the committee ruled the work genuine.[264]