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Jean-Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist and is cited by Graham Thompson as the first painter of African descent to become an international art star.^[1] He started as a graffiti artist in New York City, and in the 1980s produced Neo-expressionist painting. Basquiat died of a heroin overdose on August 12, 1988.^[2]

Biography

Basquiat was born in Brooklyn, New York to Matilde and Gerard Basquiat.^[3] His mother was Puerto Rican and his father is an accountant of Haitian origin. Because of his parents' nationalities, Basquiat was fluent in French, Spanish, and English before the age of eleven. He read in these languages, including Symbolist poetry, mythology, and history.^[4] At an early age, Basquiat displayed an aptitude for art and was encouraged by his mother to draw, paint, and to participate in other art-related activities. In late 1977, when he was seventeen, Basquiat and his friend Al Diaz started spray-painting graffiti art on buildings in lower Manhattan, adding the signature of "SAMO". The graphics were messages such as "Plush safe he think.. SAMO" and "SAMO as an escape clause". In December 1978, the Village Voice published an article about the writings.^[5] The SAMO project ended with the epitaph "SAMO IS DEAD" written on the walls of SoHo buildings.

Basquiat dropped out of Edward R. Murrow High School in September 1978, at the beginning of his senior year. He decided to leave his home and began living with friends, earning money by selling T-shirts and postcards on Brooklyn streets, and working in the Unique Clothing Warehouse on Broadway Avenue. By 1979, Basquiat had appeared on Glenn O'Brien's live public-access cable show TV Party. In the late 1970s, Basquiat formed a band called Gray with Shannon Dawson, Michael Holman, Nick Taylor, Wayne Clifford. Gray performed at nightclubs such as Max's Kansas City, CBGB, Hurrahs, and the Mudd Club. Basquiat worked in a film Downtown 81 which featured some of Gray's recordings on its soundtrack.^[6] He also appeared in Blondie's video "Rapture" as a club disc jockey.

In June 1980, Basquiat participated in The Times Square Show, a multi-artist exhibition, sponsored by Collaborative Projects Incorporated (Colab) and Fashion Moda. In 1981, Rene Ricard published "The Radiant Child" in Artforum magazine^[7] about Basquiat. During the following few years, he continued exhibiting his works around New York as well as internationally (alongside other street artists) now in the galleries, such as Now Gallery, later promoted by Bruno Bischofberger and other gallery owners and dealers. He later showed at the galleries of Larry Gagosian and Mary Boone.

By 1982, Basquiat was showing regularly, and alongside Julian Schnabel, David Salle, Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi, became part of what was called the Neo-expressionist movement. He started dating then-aspiring performer Madonna in autumn 1982. That same year, Basquiat met Andy Warhol, with whom he collaborated in 1984-1986. He was also briefly involved with artist David Bowes. Basquiat worked on his paintings in Armani suits and often appeared in public in these same paint-splattered $1000 suits.^[8][9]

By the mid 1980s, his work was often grouped with Barbara Kruger, whose neon works included slogans like "I shop therefore I am". On February 10, 1985, Basquiat appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in a feature entitled "New Art, New Money: The Marketing of an American Artist".^[10] Phoebe Hoban, in her 1998 biography about the artist, speculates that Warhol's death was a turning point for Basquiat, and that afterward his drug addiction and depression began to spiral.^[8]

Basquiat died of a heroin overdose on August 22, 1988, at the age of 27.^[11]

Artistic activities

"untitled (skull)," 1984

Basquiat incorporated words into his paintings.

Before his career as a painter began he produced punk-inspired postcards for sale on the street, and become known for the political–poetical graffiti under the name of SAMO. On one occasion Basquiat painted his girlfriend's dress, with the words a "Little Shit Brown".

The untitled head ("untitled (skull)," 1984) is an example of his early 80's work.

A middle period from late 1982 to 1985 featured multi-panel paintings and individual canvases with exposed stretcher bars, the surface dense with writing, collage and imagery. 1984-85 was also the main period of the Basquiat–Warhol collaborations.

A major reference source used by Basquiat throughout his career was the book Gray's Anatomy which he was given in the hospital as a child. It remained influential in his depictions of internal human anatomy, and in its mixture of image and text. Other major sources were Dreyfuss' Symbol Sourcebook, Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks, and Brentjes African Rock Art.

Representing his heritage in his art

Basquiat’s 1983 painting "Untitled (History of the Black People)", according to Andrea Frohne, "reclaims Egyptians as African and subverts the concept of ancient Egypt as the cradle of Western Civilization".^[12] At the center of the painting he depicts an Egyptian boat being guided down the Nile by Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead ^[13]. On the right panel of the painting appear the words “Esclave, Slave, Esclave”. Two letters of the word "Nile" are crossed out and Frohne suggests that, "The letters that are wiped out and scribbled over perhaps reflect the acts of historians who have conveniently forgotten that Egyptians were black and blacks were enslaved."^[13] On the left panel of the painting Basquiat has illustrated two Nubian style masks. Historically, the Nubians that were darker in skin color were considered to be slaves by the Egyptian people ^[14].

Throughout the rest of the painting, images of the Atlantic slave trade are juxtaposed with images of the Egyptian slave trade centuries before. The sickle in the center panel is a direct reference to the slave trade in the United States and slave labor under the plantation system. The word “salt” that appears on the right panel of the work refers to the Atlantic Slave Trade, as salt was another important commodity to be traded at this time ^[14].

Another of Basquiat’s pieces, "Irony of Negro Policeman" (1981), illustrates how, unknowingly, African Americans have been controlled by white society. After years of prejudice and unequal rights, Basquiat sought to portray how complicit the African American community had become with the “institutionalized forms of whiteness and corrupt white regimes of power”. The idea of a “Negro policeman” intrigued Basquiat because it seemed so utterly ironic. Although it would seem to the black community that this policeman sympathized with his black friends, family and ancestors, he was there to enforce the rules designed by white men. The Negro policeman had “black skin but wore a white mask”. In the painting, Basquiat has depicted the policeman as quite large in order to suggest an “excessive and totalizing power” ^[15], but the body is also fragmented and broken.

The hat that frames the head of the Negro policeman resembles a cage and represents how constrained the independent thoughts of African American’s were at the time and how constrained the policeman’s own thoughts were within white society. Basquiat also drew upon his Haitian heritage by painting a hat for the policeman that resembles the top hat that was associated with the Haitian trickster lwa, leader of the Gede family of lwas and also guardian of death and the dead in the practice of vodou ^[15].

Legacy

Untitled acrylic, oilstick and spray paint on canvas painting by Basquiat, 1981

Several major museum retrospective exhibitions of Basquiat's works have been held since his death, in the US and internationally. The first was the "Jean-Michel Basquiat" exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art from October 1992 to February 1993 (this subsequently traveled to museums in Houston, Iowa, and Alabama through 1993 - 1994). The catalog for this exhibition^[16], edited by Richard Marshall and including several essays of differing styles, was a groundbreaking piece of scholarship into his work, and still a major source. Another major and influential exhibition (and catalog^[17]) was the "Basquiat" exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum March-June 2005 (which subsequently traveled to Los Angeles and Houston in 2005-2006).

Until 2002, the highest money paid for an original work of Basquiat's was US$3,302,500, set on 12 November 1998 at Christie's. On 14 May 2002, Basquiat's Profit I (a large piece measuring 86.5"/220 cm by 157.5"/400 cm), owned by drummer Lars Ulrich of the heavy metal band Metallica, was put up for auction, again at Christie's. It sold for US$5,509,500.^[18] The proceedings of the auction are documented in the film Some Kind of Monster. In another Christie's auction, on November 12, 2008, Ulrich sold a 1982 Basquiat piece, Untitled (Boxer), for US$13,522,500 to an anonymous telephone bidder.^[19] The record price for a Basquiat painting was made on 15 May 2007, when an untitled Basquiat work from 1981 had sold at Sotheby's in New York for US$14.6 million.^[20]

In 1996, seven years after his death, a film biography titled Basquiat was released, directed by Julian Schnabel, with actor Jeffrey Wright playing Basquiat. In 1991 Poet Kevin Young produced a book, To Repel Ghosts, of 117 poems relating to Basquiat’s life, individual paintings, and social themes found in Basquiat’s work. He also published a “remix” of the book in 2005.^[21] In 2005, poet M.K. Asante, Jr. published the poem "SAMO," dedicated to Basquiat, in his book Beautiful. And Ugly Too. A 2009 documentary film, "Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child", directed by Tamra Davis, was first screened as part of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.

Further reading

• Deitch J, Cortez D, and O’Brien, Glen. Jean-Michel Basquiat: 1981: the Studio of the Street, Charta, 2007.
• Fretz, Eric. Jean-Michel Basquiat: A Biography. Greenwood Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0313380563
• Hoban, Phoebe. Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art (2nd ed.), Penguin Books, 2004.
• Marshall, Richard. Jean-Michel Basquiat, Abrams / Whitney Museum of American Art. Hardcover 1992, paperback 1995. (Catalog for 1992 Whitney retrospective, out of print).
• Marshall, Richard. Jean-Michel Basquiat: In World Only. Cheim & Read, 2005.
• Marenzi, Luca. Jean-Michel Basquiat. Charta, 1999.
• Mayer, Marc, Hoffman Fred, et al. Basquiat, Merrell Publishers / Brooklyn Museum, 2005.
• Tate, Greg. Flyboy in the Buttermilk. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. ISBN 978-0671729653
• Thompson, Margot. American Graffiti, Parkstone Press, 2009 ISBN 9781844845613

References

External links

• Brooklyn Museum Website of the 2005 Basquiat retrospective exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. Includes images of the artist and his work.
• Basquiat Biography (Website including chronology of life, selected bibliography, details of paintings, updated blog, and further links www.BasquiatBiography.com).
• Basquiat at Artfacts (Comercial site giving listing of Basquiat exhibitions, and works currently on sale. Some links may need subscription.)
• Emmerling, Leonhard. Jean-Michel Basquiat 1960-1988. Köln: Taschen Art Album, 2003.
• Hoban, Phoebe. “SAMO IS DEAD: The Fall of Jean-Michel Basquiat”. New York Magazine. Sept. 26, 1988. pp 36–44.
• hooks, bell. "Altars of sacrifice: re-membering Basquiat" Art in America June 1, 1993.
• Pearlman, Alison. Unpackaging Art of the 1980s.
• Powers, Nicholas. The Radiant Death, a review of the Brooklyn Museum's Basquiat exhibit
• Ricard, Rene. “The Radiant Child,” Artforum, Volume XX No. 4, December 1981. p. 35-43.
• Jean-Michel Basquiat at Find a Grave
• Basquiat-inspired fashion by Haitian-American designer Hassan Nicholas
• [1] Basquiat Documentary Film, as screened at Sundance Film Festival 2010