Case Study Two - Cultural comment
SYLLABUS FOCUS: Cultural Frame, Postmodern Frame, society
When we consider a culture we think of the values, beliefs and attitudes of the people who make up the society at a particular time. In contemporary society, popular culture, commercialism and the debris of society are commonly contested areas of concern. Artists' subjects often reflect these issues.
Artists are recorders and interpreters of their culture. Many contemporary artists respond to their society by questioning their cultural history to comment, for example, on issues of race, gender or violence.
Anselm Kiefer
(b. 1945, Germany)
Issues/interests: art and belief — expressive reference to the past, particularly the Old Testament, including Jewish doctrine, moral lessons; art and politics — comments on past politics as well as contemporary social issues; art and nature — expressive, textural, haunting landscapes generally with high horizons; art and its objects — objects such as hair, ashes, straw and lead aeroplanes operate as symbols; art and the built environment — buildings as symbols of the past
Forms: painting with inclusion of found objects, sculpture
Frames: Cultural in content, Postmodern in approach
Conceptual Framework: Kiefer's artworks reflect his views on German
history, the landscape and religion.
The ravished landscape of Departure from Egypt (below) is impressive not only for its huge scale and exciting textural qualities but also for the way it
evokes history and associations for the viewer. The high horizon, a distinctive feature of Kiefer's ‘landscapes’, creates a haunting quality, expressive power
and a forceful presence. The viewer is led towards the horizon along the meandering channels or ruts in the earth. The original starting point for this
work was a photograph of a desert, but Kiefer has created his own distinctive surface with the introduction of ‘foreign bodies’ into the paint, in this case
straw.
Departure from Egypt 1984 (above)
oil, straw, lacquer and lead on canvas
379.7 × 561.3 cm
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Purchased with funds provided by Douglas S. Cramer, Beatrice and Philip Gersh, Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg, Joan and Fred Nicholas, Robert A. Rowan, Pippa Scott and an anonymous donor
Issues/interests: art and belief — expressive reference to the past, particularly the Old Testament, including Jewish doctrine, moral lessons; art and politics — comments on past politics as well as contemporary social issues; art and nature — expressive, textural, haunting landscapes generally with high horizons; art and its objects — objects such as hair, ashes, straw and lead aeroplanes operate as symbols; art and the built environment — buildings as symbols of the past
Forms: painting with inclusion of found objects, sculpture
Frames: Cultural in content, Postmodern in approach
Conceptual Framework: Kiefer's artworks reflect his views on German
history, the landscape and religion.
The ravished landscape of Departure from Egypt (below) is impressive not only for its huge scale and exciting textural qualities but also for the way it
evokes history and associations for the viewer. The high horizon, a distinctive feature of Kiefer's ‘landscapes’, creates a haunting quality, expressive power
and a forceful presence. The viewer is led towards the horizon along the meandering channels or ruts in the earth. The original starting point for this
work was a photograph of a desert, but Kiefer has created his own distinctive surface with the introduction of ‘foreign bodies’ into the paint, in this case
straw.
Departure from Egypt 1984 (above)
oil, straw, lacquer and lead on canvas
379.7 × 561.3 cm
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Purchased with funds provided by Douglas S. Cramer, Beatrice and Philip Gersh, Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg, Joan and Fred Nicholas, Robert A. Rowan, Pippa Scott and an anonymous donor
We can almost feel the earth between our toes, so powerful is the image. Yet this is more than just a representation of place — Kiefer has evoked history and spirituality. After a trip to Israel in 1984, the Old Testament became an important source of inspiration for his work, adding a layer of meaning to his paintings. Thus historical and textural references are interlaced in an Abstract Expressionist approach to landscape combined with the use of collage and found objects. Bits of debris and other found objects create a narrative and add symbolic meaning. Lines curve towards us, but are suddenly interrupted by a found object seemingly out of scale with the vista in front of us. It evokes a cultural symbol of belief or power such as the rod of Moses, a shepherd's staff or a pharaoh's emblem of power. This leads
us to question just what this landscape represents — ploughed fields, a lava flow or some other destructive force.
Lilit's Töchter (The Daughters of Lilith)
1990
fabric, hair, skin, snake skin, lead on canvas
380.4 × 280 cm
Marian Goodman Gallery, New York
us to question just what this landscape represents — ploughed fields, a lava flow or some other destructive force.
Lilit's Töchter (The Daughters of Lilith)
1990
fabric, hair, skin, snake skin, lead on canvas
380.4 × 280 cm
Marian Goodman Gallery, New York
Lilit is mentioned in the Kabala, an ancient, mystical Jewish doctrine. Kiefer has created an atmosphere of melancholy and time past. Lilit, the wife of Saturn, represents the dark side, and both Lilit and Saturn
are commonly represented by a snake. In Kiefer's work the snake represents the possibility of attaining knowledge as it follows its course. But Lilit has other facets: the great mother, or the figure of evil who kills and gives birth to demons. Lilit represents rebellion against God; she is a counterforce against meaninglessness.
The ashen dresses envelop emptiness. Perhaps they represent the ancient Jewish ritual of mourning, their associations extending to the Jewish holocaust, since hair shorn from the victims and abandoned clothes have become symbolic of the holocaust. Similarly, the lead aeroplane has multiple levels of meaning. Lead is the base material from which alchemists believed gold and silver could be created; it therefore suggests magical powers. The aeroplane in a later work becomes a huge lead propeller symbolising German militarism during World War II.
Women of Antiquity 2002
Purchased 2005
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
© Anselm Kiefer
Myrtis (front) painted bronze, lead 144 × 133 × 128 cm
Hypatia (centre) painted bronze, glass, iron, ash 202 × 118 × 117 cm
Candidia (back) painted bronze, iron 177 × 130 × 125 cm
are commonly represented by a snake. In Kiefer's work the snake represents the possibility of attaining knowledge as it follows its course. But Lilit has other facets: the great mother, or the figure of evil who kills and gives birth to demons. Lilit represents rebellion against God; she is a counterforce against meaninglessness.
The ashen dresses envelop emptiness. Perhaps they represent the ancient Jewish ritual of mourning, their associations extending to the Jewish holocaust, since hair shorn from the victims and abandoned clothes have become symbolic of the holocaust. Similarly, the lead aeroplane has multiple levels of meaning. Lead is the base material from which alchemists believed gold and silver could be created; it therefore suggests magical powers. The aeroplane in a later work becomes a huge lead propeller symbolising German militarism during World War II.
Women of Antiquity 2002
Purchased 2005
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
© Anselm Kiefer
Myrtis (front) painted bronze, lead 144 × 133 × 128 cm
Hypatia (centre) painted bronze, glass, iron, ash 202 × 118 × 117 cm
Candidia (back) painted bronze, iron 177 × 130 × 125 cm
Kiefer created the three sculptures of Women of Antiquity 2002 to investigate his interest in strong women of the past whose intellectual capacities led them into trouble. Kiefer has used symbolism from mythology to convey their identity and downfall, each head being transformed to add meaning. Myrtis was a poet who dared compete with the ancient Greek poet Pindar and is represented with an open book where her head should be. Candidia, a Roman ‘witch’ who wove vipers through her hair, has been given a head of rusting razor wire. Hypatia, an Alexandrian poet who was brutally murdered, wears a glass cube in place of her head.
Palmsonntag (left) was part of an exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW in 2007. Like many of the works displayed in the exhibition, this work references Palm Sunday and Advent from the Catholic liturgy. The title of the exhibition was Aperiatur Terra, a reference to the Book of Isaiah and a passage that translates as ‘Let the earth be opened … and bud forth a saviour and let justice spring at the same time’. Text from Isaiah is included in several of the pieces. The symbolism of the dying palm tree and the accompanying paintings of natural growth relates to this text and to Kiefer's theme in many of his works — the contrasting forces of destruction or violent upheaval and re-creation (spiritual renewal). This installation is monumental in scale to match the symbolism of the epic journey of Christ's entry into Jerusalem, which was followed by the ascent to Calvary, death and resurrection.
Palmsonntag 2006
Mixed media
Dimensions variable
© the artist
Photo: Stephen White
Courtesy of White Cube Gallery, London
Palmsonntag (left) was part of an exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW in 2007. Like many of the works displayed in the exhibition, this work references Palm Sunday and Advent from the Catholic liturgy. The title of the exhibition was Aperiatur Terra, a reference to the Book of Isaiah and a passage that translates as ‘Let the earth be opened … and bud forth a saviour and let justice spring at the same time’. Text from Isaiah is included in several of the pieces. The symbolism of the dying palm tree and the accompanying paintings of natural growth relates to this text and to Kiefer's theme in many of his works — the contrasting forces of destruction or violent upheaval and re-creation (spiritual renewal). This installation is monumental in scale to match the symbolism of the epic journey of Christ's entry into Jerusalem, which was followed by the ascent to Calvary, death and resurrection.
Palmsonntag 2006
Mixed media
Dimensions variable
© the artist
Photo: Stephen White
Courtesy of White Cube Gallery, London
Artist's practice
Influences and approach/subject/intentionKiefer's works show links with Modernism, particularly the German Expressionists, and, in paint application, the Abstract Expressionists (de Kooning and Rothko). They have even been compared to the large paintings of French Romantics such as Delacroix. But his style and working methods are unique, the imagery complex, loaded with symbolism, mythology and religious references. He appears to be equally concerned with the aesthetics of the painted surface and the conceptual strength of his meanings.
Kiefer's art exemplifies many Postmodern approaches (particularly to history) and stretches the boundaries of traditional methods of creating an artwork. His works challenge the German national conscience and reveal the confusion felt by many postwar Germans. Kiefer often begins with basic German themes, such as a forest, a field or a hall, on which he overlays his narrative and symbolism. His paintings are disturbing and full of angst. Some see them as pessimistic and questioning, while others see them as pointing towards renewed hope, but all see them as powerful.
There is no doubt that Kiefer's artworks can be appreciated purely as art objects and have their own place within Postmodernism. However, their
significance or meaning may differ, and be infinitely enriched, according to the experiences, nationality, beliefs and historical knowledge of the audience.
Working methods
Kiefer's unique, exciting, heavily encrusted surfaces are one of his expressive elements. They are the result of applications of substances such as
tar, straw, sand, epoxy, gold leaf, copper wire, paper, canvas, pieces of ceramic and molten lead. Unfortunately for curators and conservation experts,
Kiefer's unconventional methods and choice of media have often resulted in a somewhat impermanent surface. This richness of surface is enhanced by the way the materials have been manipulated, wrinkled, crumbled, stained and rubbed back to create a feeling of the devastation of time and events on surfaces, both human and natural. This layering and peeling back of the surface suggests the effects of violence, war and the neglect of land — not just in relation to
Germany in World War II, but more universally. Symbolic threads flow through his work, including toy aeroplanes, wings, pathways, bridges and his studio.
Kiefer often works in series with a unifying theme or a generic title. He is highly experimental in his use and combination of media, and generally works on
a monumental scale. For example, the two towers titled Jericho, designed for his 2007 exhibition in London, were five and six storeys high and were cast
from the inside of shipping containers, each layer sitting on huge lead books and topped by lead sculptures of warships. His studio complex in Barjac, in the
south of France, where he has worked since 1991, has had to be adapted so that he can paint canvases 15 metres high, as for his May 2007 exhibition at the
Guggenheim Bilbao Museum.
Critical practice
‘This is as good, I think, as art ever gets: mystery and matter delivered in a rush of poetic illumination.’
Simon Schama, historian, quoted in ‘Anselm Kiefer: Let the Earth Open’, Look magazine, May 2007, p. 37.
‘Kiefer is well known for generating overlapping readings by using images from mythology and mystical texts. Sometimes he associates creation
mythologies with the creative process of the artist. He has often spoken of art as a journey into uncharted territory. It is his hope that we the viewers will
gladly embark on equally uncertain journeys in our appreciation of the work, bringing our own affective and intellectual baggage to interact with the
multilayering he provides in text, image and the extraordinary material qualities of the objects he creates.’
Anthony Bond, Head Curator of Western Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, in Look magazine, May 2007, p. 37.
SHORT RESPONSE QUESTION
Look at Kiefer's painting Departure from Egypt (Anselm Kiefer) and a landscape by one artist of your choice. Explain how artists can interpret their
world from a cultural perspective.
- answer this question on the virtual classroom discussion board
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A19432578
Kiefer's art exemplifies many Postmodern approaches (particularly to history) and stretches the boundaries of traditional methods of creating an artwork. His works challenge the German national conscience and reveal the confusion felt by many postwar Germans. Kiefer often begins with basic German themes, such as a forest, a field or a hall, on which he overlays his narrative and symbolism. His paintings are disturbing and full of angst. Some see them as pessimistic and questioning, while others see them as pointing towards renewed hope, but all see them as powerful.
There is no doubt that Kiefer's artworks can be appreciated purely as art objects and have their own place within Postmodernism. However, their
significance or meaning may differ, and be infinitely enriched, according to the experiences, nationality, beliefs and historical knowledge of the audience.
Working methods
Kiefer's unique, exciting, heavily encrusted surfaces are one of his expressive elements. They are the result of applications of substances such as
tar, straw, sand, epoxy, gold leaf, copper wire, paper, canvas, pieces of ceramic and molten lead. Unfortunately for curators and conservation experts,
Kiefer's unconventional methods and choice of media have often resulted in a somewhat impermanent surface. This richness of surface is enhanced by the way the materials have been manipulated, wrinkled, crumbled, stained and rubbed back to create a feeling of the devastation of time and events on surfaces, both human and natural. This layering and peeling back of the surface suggests the effects of violence, war and the neglect of land — not just in relation to
Germany in World War II, but more universally. Symbolic threads flow through his work, including toy aeroplanes, wings, pathways, bridges and his studio.
Kiefer often works in series with a unifying theme or a generic title. He is highly experimental in his use and combination of media, and generally works on
a monumental scale. For example, the two towers titled Jericho, designed for his 2007 exhibition in London, were five and six storeys high and were cast
from the inside of shipping containers, each layer sitting on huge lead books and topped by lead sculptures of warships. His studio complex in Barjac, in the
south of France, where he has worked since 1991, has had to be adapted so that he can paint canvases 15 metres high, as for his May 2007 exhibition at the
Guggenheim Bilbao Museum.
Critical practice
‘This is as good, I think, as art ever gets: mystery and matter delivered in a rush of poetic illumination.’
Simon Schama, historian, quoted in ‘Anselm Kiefer: Let the Earth Open’, Look magazine, May 2007, p. 37.
‘Kiefer is well known for generating overlapping readings by using images from mythology and mystical texts. Sometimes he associates creation
mythologies with the creative process of the artist. He has often spoken of art as a journey into uncharted territory. It is his hope that we the viewers will
gladly embark on equally uncertain journeys in our appreciation of the work, bringing our own affective and intellectual baggage to interact with the
multilayering he provides in text, image and the extraordinary material qualities of the objects he creates.’
Anthony Bond, Head Curator of Western Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, in Look magazine, May 2007, p. 37.
SHORT RESPONSE QUESTION
Look at Kiefer's painting Departure from Egypt (Anselm Kiefer) and a landscape by one artist of your choice. Explain how artists can interpret their
world from a cultural perspective.
- answer this question on the virtual classroom discussion board
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A19432578
sample_extended_response_-_anslem_keifer.docx | |
File Size: | 16 kb |
File Type: | docx |
Jean-Michel Basquiat
(b. 1960 Brooklyn, died 1988, American)
Issues/interests: racial inequalities, links to street art, graffiti, fast-paced inner-city life
Form: painting
Frames: Cultural in its comments on social and racial issues;
Postmodern in its naïve technique, challenging of art traditions, codes and conventions, and links to popular culture
Conceptual Framework: a personal, rebellious response to his experiences of New York street life
Basquiat's poignant portrait Untitled (Skull) (left) evokes the angst, self-doubt and torment of Van Gogh's self-portrait, but the methods used connect it to contemporary street life in America. Here is someone in obvious confusion. We can almost race around his head, tracking the thoughts and emotions as they collide, overrun and wipe out one another. On a superficial level we can appreciate the decorative qualities and bright, pleasing combinations of blue, yellow and orange, but not for long — the heavy black areas, the hastily scribbled words and frenetic crayon markings suggest a lurking terror and anger. It has strength and emotional intensity.
Untitled (Skull) 1981
acrylic and oil on canvas
207 × 175.9 cm
Los Angeles, The Eli and Edyth L. Broad Collection
Courtesy of Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York
© Jean-Michel Basquiat/ADAGP
Licensed by Viscopy, 2010
Issues/interests: racial inequalities, links to street art, graffiti, fast-paced inner-city life
Form: painting
Frames: Cultural in its comments on social and racial issues;
Postmodern in its naïve technique, challenging of art traditions, codes and conventions, and links to popular culture
Conceptual Framework: a personal, rebellious response to his experiences of New York street life
Basquiat's poignant portrait Untitled (Skull) (left) evokes the angst, self-doubt and torment of Van Gogh's self-portrait, but the methods used connect it to contemporary street life in America. Here is someone in obvious confusion. We can almost race around his head, tracking the thoughts and emotions as they collide, overrun and wipe out one another. On a superficial level we can appreciate the decorative qualities and bright, pleasing combinations of blue, yellow and orange, but not for long — the heavy black areas, the hastily scribbled words and frenetic crayon markings suggest a lurking terror and anger. It has strength and emotional intensity.
Untitled (Skull) 1981
acrylic and oil on canvas
207 × 175.9 cm
Los Angeles, The Eli and Edyth L. Broad Collection
Courtesy of Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York
© Jean-Michel Basquiat/ADAGP
Licensed by Viscopy, 2010
Notary 1983
acrylic, oilstick and collaged paper on canvas, wooden mount
180.5 × 401.5 cm
BI, ADAGP, Paris/Scala, Florence © 2009
© Jean-Michel Basquiat/ADAGP
Licensed by Viscopy, 2010
The painting Notary (above) is full of symbolic, text and figurative elements that create a sense of rhythm and frenetic patterning, working on various levels of meaning. Flouting conventions, popular American symbolism and street jargon are blended with references to history. There is an evident confidence in the seemingly random overlays and the expressive, spontaneous yet naïve quality of the line work. He seems to be trying to engage us in word games. The word ‘salt’ (a necessity of life) on the left is counterbalanced by the word ‘dehydrated’ on the right. A snarling white face appears on the left while a decorated black torso is depicted on the right. Words such as ‘parasite’, ‘debt’ and ‘fleas’ point to Basquiat's interpretation, and probably his personal experience, of big-city life. The copyright symbol links back to his graffiti days.
There is a feeling of rebellion, also a hint of aggression or anger, an ugly edge to the artwork not just in the words and symbols but also in the heavy
brushstrokes, discordant colours and scratching out. Although it appears to have been painted in a spontaneous fury, careful compositional decisions have been made and the layering has been created over time.
Historical background
The artworld of the 1970s and 1980s
The 1970s had been dominated by pop art, minimalism and conceptual art. The 1980s saw a shift from the ‘cold’ intellectualism of this art to new, emotionally charged works. In Europe it was Baselitz and Clemente; in London gallery owners such as Charles Saatchi began to openly promote emerging artists. The art market boomed, with art rivalling the sharemarket as an investment option. Buying art was considered chic among wealthy socialites. Likewise in the
United States, new galleries like that of Mary Boone used the media to help elevate prices for the artists they represented. Posters and photos of the
artists were used as promotional tools. Mary Boone represented Basquiat for two years. Zurich-based collector and dealer Bruno Bischofberger helped push the prices up by buying new works and reselling them on a large scale.
Influences
Jean-Michel Basquiat was the son of a middle-class Haitian father and a Puerto Rican mother. He was brought up speaking French and Spanish but reading
English-language comics, watching American TV and occasionally being taken to art museums by his mother. When he was 14, the family moved to Puerto Rico. Jean ran away, living with a disc jockey who worked for a local radio station. Two years later the family moved back to Brooklyn but Basquiat left home for good, joining the New York underground, sleeping on park benches or on friends' couches and working part time as a pub-club musician. He took some art courses but more or less taught himself to paint. He was a rebel and high-school dropout who was strongly influenced by the violence of
street life, multiculturalism and the emerging hip-hop culture. He initially planned to be a cartoonist, his favourite imagery being cars, weapons of war,
political figures such as Nixon, and J. Edgar Hoover, and Hitchcock.
While still a teenager Basquiat became known as a graffiti artist in SoHo and the Bowery, signing himself ‘SAMO’. On the streets of New York, he became the
‘king’ of graffiti art, his crowns, cryptograms and copyright signs instantly recognisable. Leaving the graffiti scene in 1979, he was soon drawn into the
artworld. In 1980 he participated in his first large group show, The Times Square Show, which exhibited a mix of feminist political artists, emerging
new artists and the graffiti artist Keith Haring. In 1981 Basquiat received a very favourable review in Artforum in which his work was linked to Cy Twombly and Jean Dubuffet.
Basquiat began mixing with artists such as Warhol and Clemente. He quickly found international recognition, fuelled by the art boom of the 1980s when
artists gained the status of celebrities and were promoted by individual commercial galleries such as Patti Astor's Fun Gallery in Manhattan's Lower East
Side, where exhibitions were accompanied by rap music and break-dancing. Basquiat, however, was unique. Unlike Keith Haring, he had had no traditional
artistic training and yet his work was quickly accepted and exhibited in prestigious galleries in Europe. As evidence of his rapid rise to fame (or notoriety) as an artist, he was the subject of a special feature in the New York Times.
Basquiat had a deep desire for acceptance, recognition, fame and the money that came with it, yet he was shy and plagued with self-doubt, turning to drugs
to support his ego and finally succumbing to an overdose at the age of just 27.
Artist's practice — intention/technique
Basquiat's paintings reflect his links with graffiti art, the underground, multi-ethnic world of hip-hop culture and fast-paced New
York street life. His multi-layered imagery includes crudely drawn figures, diagrams, vagrant (hobo) symbols and scientific formulae and text, often with a
fierce, personal social message. There is an originality and compositional strength that add to the emotional depth of his artworks.
Colour is applied boldly and spontaneously, the brushstrokes creating a feeling of emotional energy. Colour washes partly obscuring imagery at times and
elsewhere the paint applied more thickly, emphasising and connecting the somewhat jumbled imagery. The emotive power of the paint and the artist's
gestural quality and smearing technique have similarities to the Abstract Expressionist work of de Kooning and Franz Kline.
Basquiat's motifs are drawn not only from the hectic metropolis, children's drawings, comic book figures, graffiti-like scrawlings and advertising slogans
but from African traditions. His paintings may combine such disjointed imagery as African masks, trucks, crocodiles, cats, elephants and totemic sculptures
intermixed with slogans, symbols and text, often in white on large areas of black. His artworks have personal meaning apart from the multi-layered comments
on racial issues and contemporary city life. His interest in using skeletons and anatomy as imagery can be traced back to his early childhood, when he was given a copy of the classic nineteenth-century medical text Gray's Anatomy as he lay in hospital after being hit by a car at age seven (colliding cars in his works could also be a reference back to this accident). We appreciate their rich surface of colour and pattern, created by the symbols and text, yet strive to find a narrative or relevance beneath the mark making applied with such intensity and emotion. Often he applied brighter colours of blue and yellow in the background before overpainting a large proportion of the canvas in black, sometimes then scratching through the layers (a technique he learned from
Twombly) or even painting yet another layer, often white, in areas on top.
Basquiat's early work has a naïve quality, with aeroplanes and cars (both symbols of urban life) similar to children's drawings, but there is a growing
confidence in the way he structures the works, dividing them into fields of different sizes and adding tension and meaning with text. He loved toys and
comic books, which were a great inspiration to him. He began to add sports heroes (mainly baseball stars and boxers), such as the African-American Hank
Aaron, to his bank of imagery and text, while the ‘crown’ he was bestowed as the king of graffiti art also appears. In 1982 and 1984 he dedicated paintings to
Picasso. In his work during 1983, Basquiat also honoured black musicians such as Miles Davis and Charlie Parker.
The people Basquiat most admired were generally tragic figures, victims of prejudice and social oppression or of their own self-destructive lifestyles or
feelings of inadequacy. These heroes included Jimi Hendrix, James Dean, Charlie Parker, Joe Louis, Billie Holiday and Janis Joplin — all iconically famous, most meeting an early death. His underlying themes of martyrdom (the crown of thorns, halos) and heroism are mixed in with representations of the artist (Basquiat is identifiable by his dreadlocks) and white oppression. Basquiat himself referred to his themes as ‘kings, heroes and the street’.
In 1983 and 1984 he collaborated with first Warhol and Clemente and then just Warhol, who was inspired by the younger Basquiat to paint again, but the
friendship didn't last.
As Basquiat's career skyrocketed he became less able to cope with or control his life. Symbols of death (skeletons, the use of black) occur throughout his
work but feature more frequently in later work, with titles such as To Repel Ghosts and Riding with Death suggesting a premonition of death.
Despite his early death, Jean-Michel Basquiat left behind more than 100 paintings and some 2000 drawings. He has been credited with being one of the
finest American Neo-expressionists of his era. He was the first black to be seen as a legitimate artist in the white artworld.