Jean Michel Basquiat

A man nicknamed “SAMO” becomes one of the greatest artists of all time! However, there is always a back story to people. His actual name was Jean-Michel Basquiat. Born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 22, 1960, into a diverse family. Basquiat’s parents were Puerto Rican and Haitian-American, and per an article from biography.com, they said that this diversity contributed to Basquiat’s inspiration. Another inspiration was his mother, being the one who motivated him as a child to continually pursue his artistic side as he was being self-taught in his early years. However, Basquiat’s parents became separated, this caused Basquiat and his two younger sisters to stay in Brooklyn with their father until 1974 when they moved to Puerto Rico to live

He was making art to make it “spontaneous, meaningful, and extremely passionate” (Stencil Revolution). These factors played an important role because “Basquiat was, to an extent, anti-establishment” (Stencil Revolution) making him fit perfectly into his art movement, neo-expressionism. Andy Warhol later, in 1983 to be specific, collaborated with Basquiat on a series of paintings, however, the collaboration ended in 1985 due to reviews. It was also during this time when Basquiat’s friends worried about his drug usage. They noticed Basquiat changing in his mood, character, appearance, and paranoia. The paranoia was over his place in the art world; would he fade, would he become huge, or could his art be stolen. Unfortunately, this paranoia would overrule him, in fact, he once told an interviewer “I am not a black artist, I am an artist” (Stencil Revolution); this was due to Basquiat being one of the only black artists of his time and did not want to be looked at as a black artist, rather, the same as everyone else. Although, there was other factors that contributed to his drug usage this was one of the main factors. Sadly, the drugs would go on to take Basquiat’s life on August 12,

At the center of the painting, he depicts an Egyptian boat being guided down the Nile by Osiris. 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" (448). On the left panel of the painting, Basquiat has illustrated two Nubian style masks. Throughout the rest of the painting, images of the Atlantic slave trade are compared with images of the Egyptian slave trade centuries before (439-449). 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 (439-449). Through all this content Basquiat managed to create this balance throughout the painting, the three panes containing roughly the same amount of art. Meanwhile, the paintings contain gesture lines as if he had he was trying to release all of his emotions into the painting. The painting also