How does New York influence the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat

Born in 1960 into an affluent Haitian and Puerto Rican family in Brooklyn, New York, Jean-Michel Basquiat was fluent in Spanish, French and English by age four. Basquiat displayed a talent for art almost immediately, his mother encouraged this by taking him to art museums and at only six years old he was enrolled as a junior member of the Brooklyn Museum of Art. At seven years old he was hit by a car which resulted in him having his spleen removed. Whilst in hospital recovering, his mother gifted him a copy of Grey’s Anatomy in order to better understand his injured state. This book sparked his fascination with the human form and inspired most of his works, including his Untitled piece created in 1981 which sold at auction in 2017 for $110 billion, the highest price ever paid for a work by an American artist at auction. After dropping out of school at seventeen he found himself homeless. Basquiat began selling hand-painted t-shirts and postcards just to get by, which later lead to him to befriending Andy Warhol who purchased, ‘Stupid Games/ Bad Ideas’ that featured the naughts and crosses seen in his Untitled piece. Basquiat engrossed himself in the booming graffiti world of New York alongside high school friend Al Diaz they developed a character, SAMO© (an acronym for same old shit) a man who tried to sell a fake religion to audiences. The pair would spray paint satirical words or phrases around downtown Manhattan which had become a hub for creativity, using the copyright symbol as an ironic attack on the art market, a sign of reclaiming authorship and as a play on the graffiti laws.

Basquiat’s work demonstrated well thought out aspects, he took inspiration from artists such as Twombly and Dubuffet. Human skulls would feature frequently in his practice, reflecting his fascination with anatomy alongside the representation of his heritage, voodoo skulls of Haiti and primitive African masks. His work featuring drawings of the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building incorporated course spiked lines which could be interpreted as either metro lines or barbed wire, a common sight in the rundown New York of the 80’s. His career coincided with the neo-expressionist movement and the reemergence of the human figure, displayed in an abstract, emotional manner using vivid colours. He became a leading artist in this movement despite his short life. Works would feature lots of writing, a nod to his SAMO© roots, crossed out in an old master’s technique known as ‘pentimento’ stating, “The fact that they are obscured makes you want to read them”.

Basquiat frequently used his art as a voice for the minorities, his 1983 piece ‘Defacement’ was a response to the racism and police brutality of the time. Featuring a black figure being attacked by two pink skinned police with batons. Basquiat would often challenge the notions of ‘race’ and ‘power’ and the lack of black artists in art history, his work crowned black heroes, for him the three-pointed crown he used represented athletes, musicians and writers. His raw and brutal works an attempt to highlight the problems faced by African Americans in the US.

After his debut solo show success at the Annina Nosei Gallery in 1982, Basquiat found himself in demand painting in California and Europe, living with Madonna and befriending Andy Warhol. He sold his first painting to Debbie Harry of Blondie for $200 and within a year his paintings were selling for $20,000. Warhol was said to love Basquiat like a son, yet their relationship was symbiotic. Basquiat breathed life into Warhol’s deteriorating career and Basquiat used Warhol to access the art world elite. Despite success Basquiat would still be referred to as a ‘graffiti artist’, a term he deemed tied his work with the uneducated and unsophisticated which he found simplistic and racist.

Basquiat struggled with drugs tied into his fame, after a failed collaboration with Warhol that received a high level of criticism the pair cut ties. In 1987, Warhol died from complications in surgery, this sent Basquiat spiralling into depression and drug abuse, a year later Basquiat was found dead of a heroin overdose in his studio after a short 7-year career.

Basquiat’s life, work and death mirrored New York’s own growth and destruction so much so that his reputation is almost as notorious as the city itself. His career was brief and spectacular but continues to cast a long shadow over the art world. Even though only a handful of his works are displayed in galleries today.