Jean-Michel Basquiat
(1960–1988)Revered for his frenetic compositions of scribbles, symbols, and diagrams, Jean-Michel Basquiat elevated graffiti into the 1980s New York art scene and inspired a generation of young Black artists.
Biography
Jean-Michel Basquiat challenged the conventions of a predominantly white art world and engendered within his work feelings of independence, rebellion, and improvisation.
Growing up in Brooklyn, he showed a penchant for drawing from an early age, regularly attending exhibitions across New York City. He found inspiration in Alfred Hitchcock films, cars, and comic books, as well as Gray’s Anatomy (1858), a reference book gifted to him by his mother. In 1974, he enrolled at City-as-School, where he met graffiti artist Al Diaz, an early collaborator of his. Together, they developed SAMO, a fictional character and pseudonym that appeared in their spray-painted works on buildings and subway trains. Upon leaving his father’s house, in 1978, he moved in with friends and became a frequent attendee at parties in Lower Manhattan, particularly the Mudd Club. To make money, he sold hand-painted T-shirts and postcards. In 1980, his work was included for the first time in a public exhibition, Times Square Show.
Basquiat quickly rose to fame in the New York art scene in the early 1980s. In 1982, he became the youngest artist ever to present work at the international art exhibition Documenta 7. That same year, James Van Der Zee, a prolific Harlem-based photographer, took a portrait of Basquiat for Interview. The photograph placed Basquiat within a visual lineage of leading Black artists of the twentieth century. In 1983, he was featured in the Whitney Biennial and leased a studio space from Andy Warhol, with whom he developed a close relationship and collaboration. In his work, Basquiat frequently incorporates commentary on systems and themes of inclusion, exclusion, and hypocrisy throughout US history. His recurring motif of crown references his Haitian and Puerto Rican heritage, pop-culture icons, and Biblical verses. His works offer myriad collisions of words and imagery, mirroring the overwhelming demand for and popularity of the work itself and suggesting the difficult position within which Basquiat found himself: celebrated for his originality and yet constantly subjected to cruel, racially-induced criticism from critics and dealers alike.
In 1988, at twenty-seven years old, Basquiat passed away from an overdose. In 2017, his work set a record as the most expensive artwork by an US artist to be sold at auction. The Studio Museum has presented his work in The Decade Show: Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s (1990); The Blues Aesthetic: Black Culture and Modernism (1990); and Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Blue Ribbon Paintings (1995).
Jean-Michel Basquiat
(1960–1988)Revered for his frenetic compositions of scribbles, symbols, and diagrams, Jean-Michel Basquiat elevated graffiti into the 1980s New York art scene and inspired a generation of young Black artists.
Bayou, 1984
Biography
Jean-Michel Basquiat challenged the conventions of a predominantly white art world and engendered within his work feelings of independence, rebellion, and improvisation.
Growing up in Brooklyn, he showed a penchant for drawing from an early age, regularly attending exhibitions across New York City. He found inspiration in Alfred Hitchcock films, cars, and comic books, as well as Gray’s Anatomy (1858), a reference book gifted to him by his mother. In 1974, he enrolled at City-as-School, where he met graffiti artist Al Diaz, an early collaborator of his. Together, they developed SAMO, a fictional character and pseudonym that appeared in their spray-painted works on buildings and subway trains. Upon leaving his father’s house, in 1978, he moved in with friends and became a frequent attendee at parties in Lower Manhattan, particularly the Mudd Club. To make money, he sold hand-painted T-shirts and postcards. In 1980, his work was included for the first time in a public exhibition, Times Square Show.
Basquiat quickly rose to fame in the New York art scene in the early 1980s. In 1982, he became the youngest artist ever to present work at the international art exhibition Documenta 7. That same year, James Van Der Zee, a prolific Harlem-based photographer, took a portrait of Basquiat for Interview. The photograph placed Basquiat within a visual lineage of leading Black artists of the twentieth century. In 1983, he was featured in the Whitney Biennial and leased a studio space from Andy Warhol, with whom he developed a close relationship and collaboration. In his work, Basquiat frequently incorporates commentary on systems and themes of inclusion, exclusion, and hypocrisy throughout US history. His recurring motif of crown references his Haitian and Puerto Rican heritage, pop-culture icons, and Biblical verses. His works offer myriad collisions of words and imagery, mirroring the overwhelming demand for and popularity of the work itself and suggesting the difficult position within which Basquiat found himself: celebrated for his originality and yet constantly subjected to cruel, racially-induced criticism from critics and dealers alike.
In 1988, at twenty-seven years old, Basquiat passed away from an overdose. In 2017, his work set a record as the most expensive artwork by an US artist to be sold at auction. The Studio Museum has presented his work in The Decade Show: Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s (1990); The Blues Aesthetic: Black Culture and Modernism (1990); and Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Blue Ribbon Paintings (1995).