Basquiat
Context is key: great art is inseparable from its times
Black male from Brooklyn born in 1960
Product of a broken home
High school dropout
Self-taught artist
Overdosed on heroin when he was 27
The odds of achieving ANYTHING were 100% against Basquiat, but his raw talent and force of personality allowed him to soar to unimaginable heights when he was discovered on the streets of New York.
New York City, 1978 = bankrupt
Basquiat is 18... He’s kicked out of his house, writes graffiti as “SAMO” (for same old, same old) and sells his xeroxed drawings to survive. He hangs at the Mudd Club. Tall, with dreads, he stands out. In 1981 he’s invited to show at PS1, an independent museum in Queens, along with Keith Haring and Andy Warhol, who are also on the scene. This show is a watershed moment that announces a new kind of painting and launches Basquiat’s career.
Photographed by Tseng Kwong Chi, 1987
The 80s pick up steam. Wall Street’s booming, galleries are selling, money, art, downtown, drugs and disco! Basquiat paints, feeding the insane demand of a new generation of collectors - 200 paintings in 1982 alone! The excesses of the 80s are memorialized in the novel, Bonfire of the Vanities, published in 1987; one year later, burnt out and strung out, Basquiat ODs. Same old…
Basquiat is a unicorn. From the minute he emerged, people bought and re-sold his paintings for a profit. Collectors recognized a new vision and new voice that emerged at a pivotal moment - the 80s.The first 3 years of his career, 1981-1983, are the priciest paintings. Why? Fame and success hadn’t ruined him yet. The record was set in 2017 when Yusaku Maezawa bought Untitled (Skull), 1982 for $110,500,000 (pictured below).
Untitled (Skull), 1982 Achieved record price of $110.5 million at auction in 2017
What makes a great Basquiat?
Face, torso or full figure with gripping expression
Symbols of Black excellence (jazz greats like Charlie Parker, boxing heroes like Jack Johnson)
Heavily painted background with strong contrasting colors (full color is appealing to the eye and helps the main subject to stand out)