Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist born on the 22nd of December 1960, and he died on the 12th of August 1988. Basquiat was a significant African-American artist who rose to fame during the 1980s (Debord 67). His artworks made significant contributions to uplifting graffiti artists into the realm of the gallery scene in New York. Basquiat’s spray-painted scribbled words and crowns symbolized most things from his Puerto Rican and Haitian heritage, as well as various events relating to politics, Biblical accounts, and pop-culture icons (Debord 67). Basquiat never completed his high school studies. However, as a youth, he received great appreciation for art from his several visits with his mother to the Brooklyn Museum of Art (Connolly 2). Basquiat's early work majorly involved spray-painting trains and buildings in downtown New York together with Al Diaz, his friend. His tag became the currently infamous pseudonym SAMO (Connolly 3). Soon after rising to fame during the 1980s, Basquiat became a friend to several artists and celebrities, and he made several collaborative artworks with some of his friends, such as Andy Warhol (Debord 68). However, at the age of 27, Basquiat's troubles with fame and various problems relating to drug addiction led to his untimely and tragic death. He died from drug overdose, and his first retrospective was held from October 1992 to February of 1993 by the Whitney Museum of American Art (Debord 68). This paper explores Basquiat’s artworks, with the focus on two images, the 1981’s “Untitled (Skull)” and the 1982’s “Flexible.”
Image 1: Untitled (Skull) (1981)
Untitled (Skull) (1981)
This Basquiat’s artwork is of great aesthetic value due to the important role it plays in revealing the constrained independent views of African-Americans during the 1980s. The artwork features or portrays a patchwork skull that symbolizes the “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelly. The skull resembles a contemporary graffitist's riff, and Basquiat used it to reveal his past life as a gritty curbside hawker, almost a homeless floater, and irregular or infrequent nightclub intruder (Bush 195). The image, therefore, depicts Basquiat as a Haitian immigrant and a displaced or lost Puerto-Rican, who successfully navigated the 1980s' newly gentrified streets. Additionally, the aesthetic value of the image or artwork is evident in its revelation or representation of Basquiat’s deeper fascination with heads, which indicates an evolution in Basquiat’s work from the use of raw power to the use of refined cognizance (Connolly 5). Also, the image (Untitled (Skull)) is of great importance since it depicts how the perceptions of police officers got constrained within white society during the 1980s (Bush 196).
On the other hand, the image (Untitled (Skull)) has a great societal value since it made significant contributions to the environment in which Basquiat lived. First, the artwork (Untitled (Skull)) forms one of the examples of American Punk, or counter-cultural and graffiti-based practice in the early 1980s became a critically embraced, an entirely recognized, and publicly celebrated artistical phenomenon in the United States (Colorusso 884). Additionally, in his work (Untitled (Skull)), Basquiat purposefully and skillfully brought or incorporated a host of practices, diverse traditions, and different styles that created a unique form of visual collage, derived from his urban origins in one part, and from African-Caribbean heritage in another part (Debord 69). Also, Basquiat’s artwork (Untitled (Skull)) forms a crucial component of the Neo-Expressionist movement, which was an art movement characterized by a great deliberation with intense color, expressive brushwork, subjectivity, and rough handling of materials (Connolly 7). The image depicts Basquiat’s brutal, raw representation of themes and subjects, as well as his unrelenting commitment to using his artistic skills to set a new art world standard. The "Untitled (Skull)" piece takes a raw, but a personal theme of the skull (Colorusso 885). The thick paint, frantic, and the sprawling lines portray the Basquiat's intense energy in artistically representing the observations within his surrounding (the environment). Finally, the "Untitled (Skull)" piece held significant connections to various expressive antecedents, such as Cy Twombly and Jean Dubuffet (Bush 198).
Image 2: Flexible (1982)
Flexible (1982)
This image by Basquiat is of great importance as it features two of the most famous and critical Basquiat’s motifs, which include the old crown and the griot. The image shows a single back picture, half living entity, half corpse, which stares blindly are the viewer, with its arms forming a closed circuit, which tends to symbolize spiritualized power (Debord 69). The subject of the image takes on the appearance of the Everyman. Also, the image is not just any picture, but an artwork of African race used by Basquiat to represent his own identity. The diagrammatic representation of the abdomen and the lungs in the image indicate Basquiat’s captivation or love for Gray's Anatomy drawings and sketches (Debord 69). Additionally, since the griot was historically a form or type of a street performer, wandering philosopher, and social commentator, Basquiat probably viewed himself in such roles or personalities within New York's art world (Connolly 10).
Similarly, the image made great contributions to the ethnic environment in which Basquiat lived. First, through the use of the crown motif in the artwork, Basquiat honored the magnificence or dignity of his heroes, such as African-American musicians, Black athletes, and the African-American writers (Bush 201). Additionally, the expressive nature of the image and Basquiat’s use of gestural marks on the image aligned him with the artworks of Kenny Scharf and Keith Haring, as well as Neo-Expressionists David Salle and Julian Schnabel (Bush 201). The Basquiat’s “Flexible” piece also contributed to his ethnic environment by giving people a window into Basquiat’s mine as he questioned his surroundings. In other words, the image vacuumed up various cultural fall-outs and contributed to creating a transformed and cohesive multi-cultural society (Colorusso 887). Besides, the image also addressed various societal elements, such as segregation versus integration, poverty versus wealth, as well as outer versus inner experiences (Colorusso 887). Basquiat also used his “Flexible” artwork to reveal the truth about the life of an African-American, as well as criticize the leadership structure and racism systems in the American society (Connolly 12).
Personally, I like Basquiat’s art, particularly the 1981’s “Untitled (Skull)” and the 1982’s “Flexible” artworks. That is because Basquiat’s artworks revolved around various heroic figures, who had great influence in the society. In his artworks, Basquiat’s central focus was the head, which helped in emphasizing and lifting up his intellect to recognition. Besides, his images or artworks majorly aimed at fighting for the rights of African-Americans in the United States, New York in particular. Therefore, studying the artist (Jean-Michel Basquiat) and his art has positively affected my view of African-Americans by speaking on the African-Americans’ stereotypes in the United States’ entertainment industry. Basquiat's art reveals the professionalism limitations that African-Americans got subjected to in the American society. His artworks also show how he used his artistic pieces to aid the transformation of the American society from a culture that considered African-Americans as gangsters and criminals to one that embraced them and gave them space and opportunity to explore their talents and skills.
Works Cited
Bush, Elizabeth. "Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat By Javaka Steptoe." Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books 70.4 (2016): 195-206. Web.
Colarusso, Andrew E. "Tabac: After Jean-Michel Basquiat." Callaloo 37.4 (2014): 844-892. Web.
Connolly, Serena. "Jean-Michel Basquiat And Antiquity." Classical Receptions Journal 10.1 (2017): 1-20. Web.
DeBord, M. "JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: WORKS IN BLACK AND WHITE." Nka Journal of Contemporary African Art 1995.2 (1995): 67-75. Web.
