Nicole Zajac General Art 8 Wednesday 9, 2016 Jean Michel Basquiat, born on December 22, 1960 in Brooklyn, NY, was one of the world’s famous neo-expressionists in the world. He is the only African American paper to have attained a mystic “superstar” position. This previous graffiti artist whose work is inextricable from the scenery of NYC streets and alleys infiltrated the world’s famous arts with a quite rapid motion. His work captivated the attention of famous art dealers including Mary Boone, Anina Nosei, and Bruno Bischofberger, and meanwhile enthralling a diverse (class-wise) audience ranging from the poor to the rich. He had first arrested the attention NYC people for his graffiti under the nickname of “SAMO”. Before his career of painting …show more content…
kindergarten- like artworks had taken off, he had generated sweatshirts and postcards that featured his artwork that were displayed on the streets and alleys of NYC. During the mid- 1980s, Jean Michel Basquiat had collaborated with Andy Warhol. Years after he decided to work solo and exhibit his artwork all around the world. He traveled to many places including Abidjan, Ivory Coast and Hanover, Germany, where he became the youngest artist to ever display his artwork there. Unfortunately on August 12, 1988, Basquiat died in NYC due to a drug overdose. At this time, he was only 27 years old he did leave a legacy for African-Americans and Latinos through his expressive paintings. In the artwork St.
Joe Louis by Jean Michel Basquiat, a halo sits atop of the head of Joe Louis akin to the artwork Per Capita where it rests above the head of an unknown combatant. In Christian/Catholic iconography the halo would symbolize faithfulness, devotion and piety but also a sanctified prominence. I am inferring that the figures that I constantly find in Basquiat’s paintings (other than the saints thought of in his head) have been destroyed due to the sins others have made. In this painting, St. Joe Louis, greed would be the sin. Those that may make the person “greedy” would have been those surrounding the boxer situated in the middle of the painting. The illustration may also signify that sometimes those that are the achievers, started from the very bottom. For example, in the weird painting, a looking- professional boxer has a halo above his head but has one foot without a shoe. This may symbolize that he has a good character and he is good at boxing even though he might be poor or shoeless. This shows how I interpreted the picture to …show more content…
be. Usually Basquiat’s paintings are compared to that of a preschoolers scribble, but in comparing his artwork in this way, it emphasizes the artworks’ tone of validity and raw innocence similar to previous artworks of Pablo Picasso, Cy Twombly and Henri Matisse.
However, the way this is seen to “non-artists” it is seen, but through the eyes of an artist there is nothing puerile about the power Basquiat’s work has to communicative different thoughts and meanings. These “childish” paintings depict themes varying from drug abuse, jazz, capitalism, bigotry, and mortality. Amongst these topics, those that are the most pervasive throughout his artwork include themes of racial and socioeconomic inequality. After thoroughly searching for key points in Basquiat’s brief but memorable career, the impact on imagery, textual and visual, within and among his paintings also helped to create a superior impact on the society. In each of Basquiat’s paintings, there is an immediate lesson shown and it provides a different view through which we can examine urban beauty and decay, and the social unfairness’s that patiently wait in the
corner. In the 1980s, impressionists made real life their central focus. Basquiat made his life the center of attention. By doing so he earned an enormous quantity of money. However, he also deserved and made a legacy for his “childish” scribbles despite his young age at death. Because of his contributions, he had made a significant impact on societies view of the world and the art community.
Within the impoverished urban streets arose a youth culture captivated by infamy and self-pride. A youth culture virtually undistinguishable from members of modern society with a passion, setting them apart from the community. The members of this underground subculture could be your next-door neighbor, your son or daughter, or the contractor repairing your roof, yet you would have no idea that they strive to “bomb” objects and surfaces found in everyday life. It is the subtle differences that distinguish a graffiti artist from the average member of society, such as their, mindset, desires, speech and active lifestyle.
In Style Wars, one sees how social marginalization affected graffiti writers in 1970s and 1980s New York. Firstly, Style Wars chronicles how the city government employed racist policing and propaganda to criminalize writers of color. Secondly, the documentary shows that newspapers and TV networks unequally privileged writers of higher socioeconomic status through front-page and prime-time coverage. Thirdly, the film depicts graffiti writers who conformed to masculine norms as disproportionately visible throughout the city. Although many writers featured in Style Wars minimized barriers against making art, legal racism, classist media coverage, and interpersonal masculinity limited recognition for certain writers.
They were living on couches, and sneaking onto trains to get from one part of the city to another. In Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child, A documentary by Tamra Davis, an ex-girlfriend of Jean-Michel’s was quoted, “If you've decided to live a certain counterculture, subversive lifestyle, its very difficult to go home” (2010). Jean-Michel lived that counterculture lifestyle; he was a graffiti artist, spray painting New York under the name of SAMO. Jean-Michel never had a real job because he claimed that it felt humiliating to have someone order him around. When he became desperate for money, he made and sold postcards on the streets of New York (Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child). Neo-expressionism also operated largely outside of the state. However, as with most art, critics were quick to claim that the art was being produced and sold as a commodity and therefore was controlled by the market. But many chose to take the side that Irving Sandler did in his book Art of the Postmodern Era, “… genuine works of art had meanings which have nothing to do with commerce or politics and are unaffected by either” (Sandler, 225). This was the mindset that drove most Neo-expressionist artists. In all “genuine” art, there is an attempt to disturb the hegemony and make people see things
Artists have a knowledge of all the artists that preceding them, creating a visual vocabulary from the art that they have seen and understand. For Jean-Michel Basquiat, that knowledge translates into his work, despite never having formal training in an art school. It is his awareness and understanding of the culture that surrounds him that brings a layer of sophistication to his painting, setting it apart from street graffiti that has been painted on canvas. Basquiat’s Untitled (Julius Caesar on Gold) (1981) is a confrontation of his own identity that is created with the visual vocabulary of artists that preceded him.
Basquiat was a creative, self-taught artist who thought outside of the box when it came to painting. Most of the pieces he made were a collaboration of different ideas and constructed them together into a collage. During the 1980’s, Basquiat’s art used the human figure to portray Minimalism and Conceptualism. His target market that was in many of his pieces was on suggestive dichotomies that focused on the lower class versus the higher class. Even though Basquiat's work was remarkable, he was criticized and faced some challenges during his journey because of the symbols and words that were used in his paintings.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, or LACMA as it is commonly known, is among the world’s largest art collections in North America, and to be specific enough the most prevalent artwork in the western United States (Compton 165). This massive art museum has a collection of over 100,000 artworks, which extends from the ancient times to present days (Gilbert and Mills 174). These collections, which are mainly from Asia, Africa, Europe, Latin-America and America itself, are grouped into several departments within the museums buildings, depending on the region, culture, media, and time period. This paper analyzes the different genres of art and explains the main features that make the Islamic artworks distinguish themselves as historic masterpieces, by using stylistic and interpretive analysis methods.
The color variation of this piece embraces a bit of pop art, which indicates the huge influence that Andy Warhol had on Basquiat at the time. A Lot of the clippings are bold but their color schemes are different such as the President Kennedy picture contrast with the superhero clippings contrast within dark red and light red with Kennedy’s picture. The mood of the painting expresses sadness and despair, but eagerness for hope.
Jean-Michel Basquiat, of both Puerto Rican and Haitian descent, grew up in Brooklyn and at the age of 17, ran away from his home to live in Manhattan and pursue his art career. He began as a homeless graffiti artist under the name SAMO. Throughout Manhattan, he would tag poetic phrases onto walls. An expression he used repeatedly was “Boom For Real.” It meant that he would rupture a coherent object or idea (Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child). The end result would be a galaxy of reality made up of incoherent yet equal parts. He believed that he could do this to the art industry. He pioneered a new art form that puzzled the preceding artists. It was, essentially, graffiti that had been put on a canvas. To many Americans, graffiti was an art form for those who held little impact in the chaos of the art world, such as the average African American male. So by having his work bought and valued by people who actually had impact in the art realm, he detonated such realm. When pop star Madonna was inquired about him, she acknowledge...
Throughout the 1980’s, the graffiti scene was very familiar with the name “Basquiat.” Jean-Michel Basquiat is an American graffiti artist who was born in Brooklyn, New York. His artwork is mostly defined as neo-expressionism with a bit of primitivism. His medium was usually a combination of oils, acrylics and spray cans. One could look at Basquiat’s pieces and say they are as if a child scribbled on a canvas, but to me, there is more than that. I admire Basquiat not for what he is, but for what he is not. I believe it requires a lot of bravery to showcase your art that is less than perfect as in the social standards for fine art. Basquiat did just that and was still well respected for it. I feel as if he conquered in keeping his childhood creativity
Art is a very important part of humanity’s history, and it can be found anywhere from the walls of caves to the halls of museums. The artists that created these works of art were influenced by a multitude of factors including personal issues, politics, and other art movements. Frida Kahlo and Vincent van Gogh, two wildly popular artists, have left behind artwork, that to this day, influences and fascinates people around the world. Their painting styles and personal lives are vastly different, but both artists managed to capture the emotions that they were feeling and used them to create artwork.
When first approaching this work, one feels immediately attracted to its sense of wonder and awe. The bright colors used in the sun draws a viewer in, but the astonishment, fascination, and emotion depicted in the expression on the young woman keeps them intrigued in the painting. It reaches out to those who have worked hard in their life and who look forward to a better future. Even a small event such as a song of a lark gives them hope that there will be a better tomorrow, a thought that can be seen though the countenance by this girl. Although just a collection of oils on a canvas, she is someone who reaches out to people and inspires them to appreciate the small things that, even if only for a short moment, can make the road ahead seem brighter.
The film Basquiat explores the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, a Haitian-Puerto Rican painting in New York City during the 1980s. Working closely with Andy Warhol, Basquiat was exploited for his unique “urban ghetto” graffiti and crude style of representation. Schnabel’s film further exploits this image of the painter, depicting him in various scenes of poverty and drug addiction, dirty poor love and desperation. Our understanding of the artist is framed by excerpts from essays by art critic Rene Ricard, depicted as a flaming homosexual who leeches off of his artistic friends. Ricard observes the hypocrisy and self-indulgence of the art scene that is vital to...
Graffiti has been on the rise in popularity since its beginnings fifty years ago. Danielle Crinnion provides a brief history of graffiti arguing that “Philadelphia
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Graffiti today is developing into one of the finest and one of the most successful voices of modern art. Graffiti has been alive since the time people used to paint in caves. Modern graffiti actually made an impact in the late 1960s. This art has been struggling for a very extensive time to be considered as such, even though government regarded it as a criminal act. The fact of the matter is that in the past it has been an interpretation of anger against the establishment. Most people haven’t acted on writing graffiti in obedience of the law, while others take it into action to show discontent by making more graffiti. This practice has become more of a symbol that can express better the feelings of the practitioner. As graffiti started taking