Jean-Michel Basquiat

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT

In 1988, when the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat died in his New York apartment of his drug abuse just 27 years old, he was a world-famous artist. He was the first black artist to have an international breakthrough. Basquiat’s meteoric rise to the peaks of the art world was due to a unique talent as a painter that was spotted at the right time and place by the right people – and a close friendship and collaboration with Andy Warhol, the American Pop icon par excellence.

From street to gallery
Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in 1960 to Haitian and Puerto Rican parents in New York. His first works from the late 1970s were poetic graffiti slogans on the walls of New York in the SoHo gallery district under the pseudonym SAMO © (‘Same old shit’).

In the early 1980s, just 20 years old, Basquiat moved into the galleries. He was sought after by several central galleries, who sold his works internationally. In record time Basquiat became a star. He became one of the most important artists in a new wave of expressionist painting that distanced itself from both conceptual art and minimalism, which had dominated the art scene for a couple of decades.

The dancing hand
Basquiat worked with many materials and techniques, including oil paint, ink, pencil, collage and spray paint. His works are teeming with figures, symbols and written words, which he often crosses out to make us read them with even closer attention.

Basquiat was inspired by among other things jazz, boxing and anatomy. Also he had a large number of African-American heroes – from Charlie Parker and Martin Luther King to Jimi Hendrix. He said himself that his works were about “kings, heroes and the street”.

Basquiat became well known for the tracery of his dancing hand across the canvas, which recalled improvisations and riffs in jazz. He often painted while watching TV or listening to music, and surrounded by people. The paintings are almost like flypapers covered with impulses, notes and ideas.

Links
Watch the trailer Radiant Child
The documentary will be shown at ARKEN daily at 11 am and 1 and 3 pm, Wednesdays also at 5 pm.

Watch Downtown 81 

Watch an interview with Samo on TV PARTY 

Watch Basquiat as a DJ in the music video Rapture with Blondie