Jean-Michel Basquiat
- Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1984.
Jean-Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist. He gained popularity first as a graffiti artist in New York City, and then as a successful 1980s-era Neo-expressionist artist. Basquiat’s paintings continue to influence modern day artists and command high prices.
Biography
Basquiat was born in Brooklyn, New York City in 1960. His mother, Matilde, was Puerto Rican and his father, Gerard Jean-Baptiste, is of Haitian origin and a former Haitian Minister of the Interior. Because of his parents’ nationalities, Basquiat was fluent in French, Spanish, and English and often read Symbolist poetry, mythology, history and medical texts, particularly Gray’s Anatomy in those languages. At an early age, Basquiat displayed an aptitude for art and was encouraged by his mother to draw, paint, and to participate in other art-related activities. In 1977, when he was 17, Basquiat and his friend Al Diaz started spray-painting graffiti art on slum buildings in lower Manhattan, adding the infamous signature of “SAMO” or “SAMO shit” (i.e., “same ol’ shit”). The graphics were pithy messages such as “Plush safe he think; SAMO” and “SAMO is an escape clause”. In December 1978, the Village Voice published an article about the writings. The SAMO project ended with the epitaph SAMO IS DEAD written on the walls of SoHo buildings.
In 1978, Basquiat dropped out of high school and left home, a year before graduating. He moved into the city and lived with friends, surviving by selling T-shirts and postcards on the street, and working in the Unique Clothing Warehouse on Broadway. By 1979, however, Basquiat had gained a certain celebrity status amidst the thriving art scene of Manhattan’s East Village through his regular appearances on Glenn O’Brien’s live public-access cable show, TV Party. In the late 1970s, Basquiat formed a band called Gray, with the then-unknown musician and actor Vincent Gallo. Gray played at clubs such as Max’s Kansas City, CBGB, Hurrahs, and the Mudd Club. Basquiat worked with Gallo again in a film Downtown 81 (a.k.a New York Beat Movie) which featured some of Gray’s rare recordings on its soundtrack. He also appeared in Blondie’s video “Rapture” as a replacement for DJ Grandmaster Flash when he was a no-show.
Basquiat first started to gain recognition as an artist in June 1980, when he participated in The Times Square Show, a multi-artist exhibition, sponsored by Collaborative Projects Incorporated (Colab). In 1981, poet, art critic and cultural provocateur Rene Ricard published “The Radiant Child” in Artforum magazine, helping to launch Basquiat’s career to an international stage. During the next few years, he continued exhibiting his works around New York alongside artists such as Keith Haring, Barbara Kruger, as well as internationally, promoted by such gallery owners and patrons as Annina Nosei, Vrej Baghoomian, Larry Gagosian, Mary Boone and Bruno Bischofberger. Read more
Filed under Artists and Groups · Tagged with al diaz, graffiti, graffiti art, Jean-Michel Basquiat, neo-expressionist, SAMO
Banksy Posters – Snapshots of Vanishing Art
Banksy wall art 'Maid'
Fans of Banksy graffiti are in a strange position. If you don’t live in London or any of the various international cities where he paints his works, you’re not likely to see them. Even if you do happen to live in the city, you have to be quick or by the time you reach a new piece of Banksy art it is more often than not covered in Plexiglas or has been chipped away and flogged on eBay.
While it’s understandable, if not mercenary, for people to be removing Banksy art, I take more exception with those who chase their fifteen seconds of fame by defacing his stencils. A recent example of this was a piece of Banksy graffiti that the he painted in New Orleans to commemorate the devastation of Hurricane Katrina (and perhaps a timely reminder of the lack of response from the government just before the national election!). One of the stencils was of a boy swinging on a lifesaver and this has now been blotted out with red paint. You could perhaps understand a kid doing this, but given the placement and height of the graffiti, it would seem to be someone more ‘mature’. I suppose by defacing a piece of art, they know it will be reported and ergo they have their little piece of infamy. The same thing happened in London earlier this year when two of the more prominent pieces were destroyed within days; part roller-painted out, with the words “All the best” painted over them. There is speculation by Banksy posters on forums that this was actually done by the artist himself, in answer to the wholesale removal of his public works that were placed on eBay at extortionate prices. Read more
Filed under Artists and Groups, Featured · Tagged with banksy, graffiti
The Art World’s Most Revered Vandal
By Michael Molyneux
Doorway angel by Banksy
There are few artists working today whose fame can be attributed as much to their ability to stir up controversy as to how talented they are. Banksy is different. Not only is his work controversial because it is essentially graffiti, but because his stenciled works of “‘art’ often fetch thousands at auction. So is Banksy, one of the world’s best known artists, a spray-can wielding charlatan or an urban, post-modern prophet?
There are few artists working today whose fame can be attributed as much to their ability to stir up controversy as to how talented they are. Banksy is different. Not only is his work controversial because it is essentially graffiti, but because his stenciled works of “art’ often fetch thousands at auction.
So is Banksy, one of the world’s best known artists, a spray-can wielding charlatan or an urban, post-modern prophet?
Although he has become one of the most eminent and collectable artists working today, he remains all but anonymous; almost no details about his life, including his name, are publically known.
In recent years the self-described “art-terrorist’ has used his art for overtly political purposes; in 2005 he painted nine images on the Israeli West Bank wall including a child digging a hole through the structure, in 2001 he travelled to Mexico to paint murals for the Zapatista Army of National Liberation and, in Bristol Zoo, he once painted the words ‘I want out. This place is too cold. Keeper smells. Boring, boring, boring’ in the elephant enclosure.
He remains best known in the UK for his stencil graffiti and for creating “subverted’ paintings; adaptations of famous masterpieces that are either redrawn or added to with satirical slogans. Read more
Filed under Artists and Groups, Featured · Tagged with artists, graffiti, raw art, stencil graffiti
