27 years of Jean-Michel Basquiat went a long way! Yes, yes, we could say that he is in the 27 club, no? In today’s post we want to explain who this great artist was, are you ready to discover a great reference?
Basquiat received an important art education. His mother took him to museums and enrolled him at the age of 6 as a junior member of the Brooklyn Museum. She also introduced him to poetry and encouraged him to write his own poetic literature.
At age 6 he was hit by a car and, during his recovery, an anatomy book accompanied him. Basquiat said that books influenced him in his art. In addition, his artistic training was completed at the School of Visual Arts, where he attended as a listener and met graffiti artist Keith Haring.
His artistic career is divided into three periods and, as he himself said, he was closer to abstract painting and post-pop figuration than to graffiti: “My work has nothing to do with graffiti. I have always painted.” We’ve divided his three stages in art:
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At the age of 17, Basquiat was introduced to the city’s subculture. He began painting graffiti on subway cars and in the streets of New York’s SoHo neighborhood. His graffiti was philosophical, poetic, and, above all, satirical. At that time he signed his works with SAMO (Same Old shit the same old shit).
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At the age of 18, Basquiat dropped out of school a year before graduating to live for two years on the streets, either in abandoned buildings or in southern Manhattan. During that time he survived by selling T-shirts and postcards that he painted himself. Undoubtedly, those who bought him now can make a great profit if they decide to sell them!
At the age of 19, Basquiat wrote on the walls of SoHo: SAMO is dead. That was how he abandoned graffiti to create a musical group (Gray) where he played the synthesizer and clarinet. They toured several trendy pubs where artists gathered but he also abandoned his musical career. It was in this context that artists created hip hop and shared his taste for break dancing and rap.
His love for music leads him to produce rap music and perform as a DJ in Manhattan clubs. His favorite artists begin to appear in his works, such as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday or Dizzy Gillespie.
The influences on Basquiat’s work were many. The artist was very attracted to popular culture and abstract expressionism. He was influenced by Franz Kline, the early works of Jackson Pollock, the figures of De Kooning, the calligraphy of Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg, the Art Brut of Jean Dubuffet.
Basquiat’s first exhibition was at the age of 20 at the Times Square Show where a number of graffiti artists exhibited. Graffiti was no longer something marginal to the street. A year later (1981), the artist exhibited at the Institute of Art and Urban Resources in New York, in a show entitled New York/New Wave. Here he met Andy Warhol and began a long professional collaboration!
In 1982, his exhibitions multiplied and he began to make a successful name for himself. A year later he participated in the Whitney Museum Biennial in New York alongside emerging artists of the appropriationist style and new expressionists.
In 1985, he appeared in the Sunday magazine The New York Times, becoming the first African-American visual artist to appear on the cover with the headline: “New art, new money: The marketing of American artists”.
Jean-Michel Basquiat dies at the age of 27 from a heroin overdose. His figure goes down in history as the most successful African-American visual artist in the history of art.
In his short artistic career he exhibited in 40 solo shows and more than 100 group exhibitions. The neo-expressionism with which he played wasn’t understood at times by critics who saw this art as something vulgar and meaningless. But the support of collectors and galleries has made his work to be transcended over time.
The life of Jean-Michel Basquiat was made into a film in 1996 (Basquiat) by screenwriter and director Julian Schnabel. Actor Jeffrey Wright plays Basquiat, while David Bowie plays Andy Warhol. The film also features actors such as Dennis Hopper, Benicio del Toro, Courtney Love, Gary Oldman and Willem Dafoe. The film is about Andy Warhol’s discovery of his figure, his success and his fall into drugs that ended his life.
When any auction house puts a Basquiat work up for sale they know things will go well. In 2017, Japanese businessman Yusaku Maezawa bought a 1982 work of his for $110.5 million at Sotheby’s that you can now see at the Contemporary Art Foundation. Precisely, Maezawa has announced that he will be going on a space trip to the Moon but he won’t be going alone. Maezawa says he will invite 6 or 7 international artists to create works in space.
27 years of Jean-Michel Basquiat went a long way! Yes, yes, we could say that he is in the 27 club, no? In today’s post we want to explain who this great artist was, are you ready to discover a great reference?
Basquiat received an important art education. His mother took him to museums and enrolled him at the age of 6 as a junior member of the Brooklyn Museum. She also introduced him to poetry and encouraged him to write his own poetic literature.
At age 6 he was hit by a car and, during his recovery, an anatomy book accompanied him. Basquiat said that book influenced him in his art. In addition, his artistic training was completed at the School of Visual Arts where he attended as a listener and met graffiti artist Keith Haring.
His artistic career is divided into three periods and, as he himself said, he was closer to abstract painting and post-pop figuration than to graffiti: “My work has nothing to do with graffiti. I have always painted.” We’ve divided his three stages in art:
Font: Pinterest
At the age of 17, Basquiat was introduced to the city’s subculture. He began painting graffiti on subway cars and in the streets of New York’s SoHo neighborhood. His graffiti was philosophical, poetic and, above all, satirical. At that time he signed his works with SAMO (SAMe Old shit the same old shit).
Font: Pinterest
At the age of 18, Basquiat dropped out of school a year before graduating to live for two years on the streets, either in abandoned buildings or in southern Manhattan. During that time he survived by selling T-shirts and postcards that he painted himself. Undoubtedly, those who bought him now can make a great profit if they decide to sell them!
At the age of 19, Basquiat wrote on the walls of SoHo: SAMO is dead. That was how he abandoned graffiti to create a musical group (Gray) where he played the synthesizer and clarinet. They toured several trendy pubs where artists gathered but he also abandoned his musical career. It was in this context that artists created hip hop and shared his taste for break dancing and rap.
His love for music leads him to produce rap music and perform as a DJ in Manhattan clubs. His favorite artists begin to appear in his works, such as Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday or Dizzy Gillespie.
The influences on Basquiat’s work were many. The artist was very attracted to popular culture and abstract expressionism. He was influenced by Franz Kline, the early works of Jackson Pollock, the figures of De Kooning, the calligraphy of Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg, the Art Brut of Jean Dubuffet.
Basquiat’s first exhibition was at the age of 20 at the Times Square Show where a number of graffiti artists exhibited. Graffiti was no longer something marginal to the street. A year later (1981), the artist exhibited at the Institute of Art and Urban Resources in New York, in a show entitled New York/New Wave. Here he met Andy Warhol and began a long professional collaboration!
In 1982, his exhibitions multiplied and he began to make a successful name for himself. A year later he participated in the Whitney Museum Biennial in New York alongside emerging artists of the appropriationist style and new expressionists.
In 1985, he appeared in the Sunday magazine The New York Times, becoming the first African-American visual artist to appear on the cover with the headline: “New art, new money: The marketing of American artists”.
Jean-Michel Basquiat dies at the age of 27 from a heroin overdose. His figure goes down in history as the most successful African-American visual artist in the history of art.
In his short artistic career he exhibited in 40 solo shows and more than 100 group exhibitions. The neo-expressionism with which he played wasn’t understood at times by critics who saw this art as something vulgar and meaningless. But the support of collectors and galleries has made his work to be transcended over time.
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