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// Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Born in 1960 to a Puerto Rican mother and a Haitian father, Jean-Michel Basquiat loved art and design from a young age. His mother took him to all the great New York museums, and instilled in him a deep curiosity about all kinds of art.
His childhood sketch books show how he absorbed images from a wide range of sources. He would take illustrated catalogues, Gray’s Anatomy and comic books and reproduce them endlessly. He lived in a rich tri-lingual world, mixing English, French and Spanish. The family lived in Puerto Rico for a while.
In 1976, back in New York, he continued his education in a school for gifted students (Edward Murrow High). In 1978, he left the family home, striking out alone, and struggling to find his way. He hung out with his closest friend, Al Diaz, and soon their art began to appear on the city’s walls.
Jean Michel Basquiat - Painting Live, Downtown (1981)
Basquiat and Diaz used the name “SAMO” (meaning Same Old Shit) on their graffiti, and also on the Tshirts and post-cards Basquiat sold on the streets. Basquiat dipped into the scene at clubs like the Mudd Club and the 57 (crossing paths with people like Madonna, Keith Haring and Bowie…).
In 1983 Warhol and Basquiat became friends and began to collaborate. Warhol’s death in 1987 was a terrible blow to Basquiat. He took part in group exhibitions with other young artists (Francisco Clemente, David Salle, Julian Schnabel). He showed regularly and got great support from gallerists, becoming a full-time painter, triumphant like the unbeatable boxer of his dreams.
Basquiat’s work is rich in jarring symbols, fragmented graphic shapes move across his canvas, sombre and wild at the same time. Called “neo-expressionism”, the style pulls in many influences. He drew on images at the cross-roads of black and Hispanic culture, from Vodou and Santeria - cock-fighting, spiritual ceremonies, skulls, masks, skeletal figures, sacrificial rites. Later, he plunged into realism, with images peopled by suffocating silhouettes amid an endless traffic of cars, buses, trucks, menacing figures, commercial signs, police…Writing, re-assembled words, logos and letters were a crucial part of his paintings, with collage and a hectic super-imposition of images giving a dizzying visual buzz to his work.
The precision in his disorder and the clarity of his vision gave his work great power, imbued with a clear sense of history - a sense of the history of black people. In his paintings were black leaders, kings, wise-men, sorcerers….in the maelstrom spinning around false primitivism and true magic was a growing political consciousness, black pride and a rejection of alienation.
At the height of an era when the art market was over-saturated and over-priced, Basquiat shone brightest of all, thanks to his magnetism and his talent. He was celebrated by the New York art world and top international art buyers followed.
In 1988 Basquiat died of a heroin overdose, aged 27.
His lightning career, so bright and so short, his media visibility, his huge body of work and enormous impact have made him a crucial reference in art, an unforgettable artist whose influence remains absolutely vital.
Bruno Charenton
// ALSO
- The Radiant Child
- Native Sun
- Eyes Open
- Uganda, Uganda: Visual Arts Focus
- São Paulo, Reverse graffiti
- Aged 16 – 25? Fed up with the injustices around you? Shake!
- World Festival of Black Arts and Cultures 10-31 December, Dakar
- Charlie Gillett obituary
- Fania Records, Fania Records // Back to El Barrio
// LINKS
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