Jean-Michel Basquiat

Jean-Michel Basquiat (Brooklyn, New York, December 22nd, 1960 - August 12th, 1988) was an American artist .

His/her mother was Oporto-ricaine and her father of origin Haiti enne.

He started as painting artist of street of the Graffiti S, and became then a very popular artist of avant-garde and pioneer of mobility known as " underground".

Its style was very original, nervous, violent and energetic.

Biography

Basquiat is made known initially as graffor in New York and then like an artist neo-expressionnist crowned success on the international scene of the Art of the years 1980. Many are those which recognize Basquiat like an important character of the contemporary art, its paintings continue to exchange itself at a price very high on the market.

His/her mother, Matilde, were a Porto Rican and his/her father, Gerald, were of Haitian origin. As of more the young age, Basquiat shows an artistic aptitude. His/her mother, sensitive to art, frequently takes it along to visit MOMA, the Museum off Modern Art and encourages it to develop its artistic talents.

Towards the seven years age, Basquiat is hospitalized following wounds related to a road accident. He saw himself offering by his mother to spend time a book of anatomy entitled Gray' S Anatomy . This work will strongly influence the artist who was inspired some later in work by the first part of his work and the name of his group of music: Gray.

In 1977, 17 years old, Basquiat and its friend Al Diaz began the art of the graffiti while painting on the slums of Manhattan and in the neighborhoods of the galleries, adding the pejorative signature of SAMO, for (what can result in the “same old woman shit”.)

In 1978, Basquiat gives up Edouard R. Murrow High School and leaves the house, one year before being graduate. It settles with friends, surviving by selling Tee-shirts and postcards in the street.

Before 1979, however, Basquiat gains a certain statute of celebrity within the thriving scene of art of Manhattan East Village, for its regular appearances televised on the cable in the emissions of Glenn O' Brian.

In June 1980, it is made known while taking part in the Times Square Show, an exposure of artists, sponsored by Collaborative Projects Incorporated (Colab).

In 1981, the poet, the critic art and cultural agitator Rene Ricard publishes the Radiant Child in the magazine Artforum, thus helping Basquiat to launch its career on the international scene.

During the few following years, it continued to expose its work around New York beside artists such as Keith Haring, Barbara Kruger.

Before 1982, Basquiat was shown regularly at the sides of Julian Schnabel, David Salle, Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi, becoming thus recipient of a movement which one would call soon the neo-expressionnism. It started to leave with a named rising artist Madonna in autumn 82. In 1983, Basquiat meets Andy Warhol, with which it collaborated intensively, forging a strong friendship finally.

In 1985, Basquiat does the one of the The NewYork Times Magazine in a number entitled “New Art, New Money: The Marketing off year American Artist”. (“Art nouveau, new money, the marketing of an American artist”)

In 1988, dependant in heroin since many years, it dies tragically of one overdose at the 27 years age, a few days before the second voyage which it would have achieved in Ivory Coast.

Work

Its work remains impressed graffiti of its beginnings, where it mixes bright colors and texts with topics. At the time of a convalescence during her childhood, his/her mother offers a book of anatomy to him, which will influence most of its work, where the bodies are painted in “transparency”. One also feels primitive accents where Basquiat is proud of its remote origins of Africa.

The career of Basquiat is divided into three great periods, which overlap:

During the first, of 1980 at end 1982, Basquiat made painting on fabric, generally representing skeletal characters and faces resembling masks. This showing its obsession of the mortality of the Man. He painted also elements drawn from his life in the street: cars, buildings, police officers, sets of children, graffiti…
One period intermediate of end 1982 with 1985 presents paintings on multiple panels, and of the individual tables with visible intermediate cross-pieces, a dense surface with writings, joinings, and representations without apparent relation. This work reveals a strong interest for the black and Hispanic identity of Basquiat, and its identification with the historical or contemporary black characters, and the events which theirs are dependant.
the last period, which begin towards 1986 and extend until its death in 1988, watch a new kind of figurative painting, in a different style with sources, symbols and contrasting contents of its other paintings.

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