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The famous artist was a product of his environment and both its glories and shortcomings were apparent in his art
Published : 22 Dec 2022, 08:58 PM
Dec 22 is the birthday of celebrated American artist Jean Michel-Basquiat, who was part of the 1980s Neo-expressionist movement.
The uniqueness of Basquiat’s work is apparent at first glance. The child-like drawing of figures and objects, the usage of vibrant, saturated colours, and what appears, at first, like a careless effort to depict abstract concepts, are hallmarks of his work. In his paintings, the multi-coloured hues articulate the collective identity of the black community in the US. The reality, thoughts, and perspectives embedded within the colours of Basquiat’s art show both his conscious and unconscious understanding of his society.
Basquiat has a reputation for criticising society in his work, but this is not true in all cases. Paintings like Aboriginal and Slave Auction explore resistance against colonial violence, but, in most of his paintings, Basquiat presents the reality of the situation instead of making an overt call to protest. Perhaps the mere depiction of certain ideas can be considered a form of protest. But can you protest something that you actively engage in? Is Basquiat protesting against drugs? Does the line blur if he spent thousands of dollars on cocaine and marijuana and died of a heroin overdose?
Apart from this dark side of African-American society, Basquiat’s more prominent topics were “royalty, heroism, and the streets”, as he said. The explicit subjects of his paintings are the African and Caribbean cultures. Through his work, he heightened his native identity and glorified it in his expression. This highlights another important perspective of the group Basquiat belonged to. Images of crowns on skulls or heads are recurring motifs in his work. The skull or the head-like figure is often drawn in the style of early African art. The crown is a sign of royalty, while the style of the skull connotes the cultural background it draws from. Through these images, Basquiat expressed how the black community, as a group, perceives their own cultural identity.
This aspect is something Basquait consciously considers. In fact, in an interview, he said, “I don't think about art when I'm working. I try to think about life.” It means all his art is a conscious effort to project what the whole world is to him as an individual whose intrinsic ideologies contain the essential thinking of the society he belongs to. This is why Basquait’s painting is not only reflective of his personal experience but the experiences of his whole neglected, tortured and marginalised community.
Sometimes Basquiat’s paintings also mirror some of the more negative unconscious views in the community, such as gender essentialism.
In Basquiat’s painting, Big Joy, we see a tall, black woman with a dominant pose and a confident expression. She has her hands in her pocket and is staring forward with hollow eyes. Interestingly, she is wearing a shirt and pants, which is somewhat unusual in his paintings.
In several of Basquiat’s other paintings that include female figures, they are either naked or in their native feminine attire. In fact, most of her female characters are identifiable mainly because of the portrayal of nudity. Robotman and woman, Call girl, and Rice and chicken include nude female figures whose gender is largely identifiable because of their nudity. It is noteworthy that in all these paintings women are either expressionless, melancholic (as in Call girl), or in a child-like vulnerable situation (as in Robotman and woman). But, the one time a female figure is wearing a masculine-coded outfit, she appears to be confident, bold, and strong. This shows how Basquiat reflects society’s collective association of confidence, strength, and vigour with masculinity, while the feminine gender role is linked with vulnerability.
Basquait’s surroundings, the environment he belonged to, and the people he grew up with influenced his thoughts and perspective on reality. The way everyone in his community perceived women as the people who do the household chores, are vulnerable, and are dependent on men shaped Basquiat’s perspective and manifested it in his paintings. Likely, Basquiat didn’t intend to include such messages in his work, but the interpretation is apparent.
Despite his spontaneous style, Basquiat’s paintings and graffiti are clear illustrations, on canvas or concrete, about the ideas and thought processes that went into his art. A closer look at that art reveals how his identity was carved out of the dynamics of his society and how they became integral to his expression. It is essential to how he saw and depicted the world, whether consciously or unconsciously.
This article is a preview of arts coverage at Stripe, bdnews24.com's page on culture and society from a youth perspective. The page is set to launch on Dec 26.
