Jean Michel Basquiat
| Jean-Michel Basquiat | |
| Activity (s) | Painting , graffiti , drawing |
|---|---|
| Birth | 22 December 1960 New York |
| Deaths | 12 August 1988 New York |
| Movement (s) | Neo-Expressionism |
Jean-Michel Basquiat, born in Brooklyn on 22 December 1960 and died on 12 August 1988 in SoHo , is a painter American Original Haitian and Puerto Rican. It starts as a street artist painting graffiti , and then became an artist of avant-garde and popular movement known as the pioneer in "underground". His style is very original, nervous, violent and aggressive.
Summary |
Biography
Basquiat's parents belong to the middle class. Her mother, Matilde, was Puerto Rican and his father, Gerard, is of Haitian origin. Her mother is sensitive to art, frequently takes the young Basquiat visit MoMA , and encourages him to develop his artistic talents.
In 1967 , when he was 7 years old, his parents separated. He went to live with her father with his two younger sisters. He has a passion for comics and draws a lot.
A year later, Basquiat is hospitalized with injuries to a traffic accident. The injuries sustained require removal of the spleen. During his convalescence, his mother gives him, to pass the time, a book entitled Anatomy Henry Gray's Anatomy of the Human Body (or more commonly Gray's Anatomy). This book will strongly influence the artist that it later inspired the work in the first part of his work and the name of his band Gray.
In 1976 , he began to spray paint on the walls of Manhattan.
In 1977 , Basquiat and his friend Al Diaz paint graffiti on the slums of Manhattan and close to galleries, adding the signature SAMO pejorative for "Same Old Shit" (which can be translated as "always the same shit") often accompanied by a signature crown. In a fugue, he wanders a fortnight in Greenwich Village and discovered drugs.
One day, he spotted the critic Henry Geldzahler in a restaurant and looks to show his work. When asked by Henry Geldzahler to know what its about, Basquiat answers: "Royalty, Heroism and the Streets. "
In 1978 , Basquiat dropped the Edward R. Murrow High School (in) and leaves the parental home, a year before graduating. He moved with friends, surviving by selling T-shirts and postcards on the street.
Before 1979 , Basquiat gained a certain celebrity status within the art scene thriving East Village , for his regular appearances on cable television in broadcasts of Glenn O'Brien (en).
In 1979 , an article dedicated to him in The Village Voice. The New Yorker art circles became interested in him. But Basquiat began to write "SAMO is dead" in SoHo.
In June 1980 , he became known by participating in the Times Square Show, an exhibition of artists, sponsored by Colab (en).
In 1981 , poet, art critic and cultural provocateur Rene Ricard published "The Radiant Child" in the magazine Artforum , helping to launch Basquiat's career internationally.
That year, the gallery Annina Nosei his first solo exhibition in New York, which will be followed by many others.
During the next few years, he continued exhibiting his works around New York alongside artists such as Keith Haring and Barbara Kruger.
Before 1982 , Basquiat was showing regularly alongside Julian Schnabel , David Salle , Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi (fr) , becoming involved in a movement that will soon be called neo-expressionism. He leaves with a rising young artist named Madonna , in autumn 1982.
In 1983 , Basquiat met Andy Warhol , with whom he collaborated extensively, eventually forging a close friendship. That year he became the youngest artist (23 years) to be invited to the Whitney Museum of American Art.
In 1985 , Basquiat appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in an issue entitled "New Art, New Money: The Marketing of an American Artist" ("Art Nouveau, new money, the marketing of an American artist").
In 1988 , he died following an overdose of a mixture of heroin and cocaine ( speedball ) in the age of 27, just days before the trip he would have done in Ivory Coast. His funeral took place at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.
Work
His work remains fraught graffiti from its beginnings, where he mixes colors and themes to texts. During convalescence during his childhood, his mother gives him a book of anatomy, which will influence much of his inspiration. His body is painted in "transparency". One also feels primitive accents showing that Basquiat is proud of its ancient origins in Africa.
Basquiat's career is divided into three major periods:
- In the first period of 1980 to late 1982 , he was painting on canvas, representing mostly skeletal figures and faces like masks. This showed his obsession with mortality of man. He also painted elements from his life on the streets: cars, buildings, police, children's games, graffiti ...
- A middle period from late 1982 to 1985 shows paintings on panels and any material in any form, and individual canvases with exposed stretcher bars, a surface dense with writing, collage and seemingly unrelated imagery with each others. These works reveal a strong interest in Hispanic and black identity Basquiat, his identification with historical and contemporary black figures and events associated with them.
- The last period began around 1986 and lasted until his death in 1988. It shows a new kind of figurative painting in a different style with sources, symbols and content that contrasts with his other paintings.
Basquiat and Andy Warhol
The meeting in Basquiat with Andy Warhol in 1983 was notable as the artistic staff. The two men meet and appreciate very much. Basquiat is his friend as a banana in a famous portrait, Brown Spots (Portrait of Andy Warhol as a Banana). Then the two men do together several paintings for an exhibition in Zurich in 1985, which are very poorly received by critics who accuse the press of exploiting his friend Warhol to find an inspiration that he lost, which leads separation of two friends Posterity Exhibitions
References
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