Basquiat: The 5 Artworks You Can't Miss

The title might be an overexaggeration... You can definitely miss them. You have free will, remember? But in defense of this article:

You might learn something about this giant of the industry and how he keeps filling up museums and art school's itineraries alike, to this day!

Hyped to Death

Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in New York in 1960. 27 years later, he dies of a heroin overdose, being the most successful visual artist in the history of Afro-descendant art.

In the meantime he was a gifted but rebellious student in high school, after being expeled he graffitied around Soho, Brooklyn under his pseudonym "SAMO" (meaning: "SAMe Old Shit").

Then Andy Warhol met Basquiat, and although it is disputed how and what the nature of their relationship was, it is known that Warhol became his landlord at some point... But most importantly Basquiat suddenly gained unprecedented fame through his newly formed acquientance. He also was Madonna's boyfriend!

And for how the story ends, I already spoiled it...

1. Untitled ("Skull")

Unlike most of his pieces, which were completed within a few days, Untitled or "Skull" as it's also referred to as, remained unfinished for several months, as Basquiat halted its completion. Fred Hoffman, the art historian no one knows or cares for (understandably), gave an explanation to this unexpected halt:

"One can only speculate about the reasons for this hesitation, but several individuals close to the artist—including myself and Annina Nosei, the artist’s dealer at the time—suspect that this young, unseasoned artist hesitated to complete the work because he was caught off guard, possibly even frightened, by the power and energy emanating from this unexpected image." - Fred Hoffman

My speculation has more to do with how he became famous a year prior painting this piece in 1981 and his drug use skyrocketed...! I'm no art historian, though...

2. Hollywood Africans (1983)

Basquiat painted Hollywood Africans, which recounts a day when he and his friends "had their pictures taken in a photo booth and looked at movie stars' footprints." before his show in West Hollywood.

Across the canvas are phrases such as "HOLLYWOOD AFRICANS FROM THE NINETEEN FORTIES" and "WHAT IS BWANA?". Bwana is the Swahili word for master or boss. The date 1940, written at the top of the painting, may refer to the year actress Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Oscar for playing "Mammy" in Gone With The Wind (1939)... He didn't get the year wrong, as you might be thinking. Of course he fact-checked it before he wrote it down, right...?

3. Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump (1982)

The artwork, which depicts a boy with a dog, was purchased for over $100 million in 2020, becoming Basquiat's second most expensive painting following Untitled (1982), which was sold for $110.5 million in 2017.

Before you go running to buy one, remember that you can get it printed for 10 bucks, too... I know it is a tough decision, but your parents with whom you'll live for the rest of their lives, might thank you for it!

4. Irony of Negro Policeman (1981)

Race was one of the most important, if not only theme in Basquiat's oeuvre. He consistently placed the black figure at the center of his artwork because as he stated: "Black people are never really portrayed realistically in...I mean, not even portrayed in modern art enough". I just hope this quote is accurate and he actually said "I mean" in the middle of it... I mean, couldn't you leave the "I mean" out of the quote?

Author Jana Evans Braziel, who is now teaching at Miami University, as her students (and only her students) might know, noted: "The elided vowels in the word "policeman" (painted onto the wood panel as "PLCEMN") suggest that the "Negro Policeman" is merely a placement: a position or cog within the machine; as a placement, there can also be a replacement: to the system, he is expendable..." Just like Jana is expendable from her position at Miami University... If she doesn't pay me the agreed amount, for my inclusion of her quote in my article...!

5. Dos Cabezas ("Two Heads") (1982)

This is the famous panting depicting the third meeting between Basquiat and Andy Warhol. And here is Andy Warhol's recollection of that day:

"Down to meet Bruno Bischofberger (cab $7.50). He brought Jean-Michel Basquiat with him. He's the kid who used the name "Samo" when he used to sit on the sidewalk in Greenwich Village and paint T-shirts, and I'd give him $10 here and there… He was just one of those kids who drove me crazy. He's black but some people say he's Puerto Rican so I don't know. And then Bruno discovered him and now he’s on Easy Street. He's got a great loft on Christie Street. He was a middle-class Brooklyn kid—I mean, he went to college and things—and he was trying to be like that, painting in the Greenwich Village. And so had lunch for them and then I took a Polaroid and he went home and within two hours a painting was back, still wet, of him and me together. And I mean, just getting to Christie Street must have taken an hour. He told me his assistant painted it." - Taken from Andy Warhol Diaries (1989)

That polaroid Warhol took also became popular, as part of his collection of "Piss paintings". And yes it is what it sounds like: Warhol invited friends and acquaintances to urinate onto a canvas covered in metallic paint to cause oxidation. Basquiat, didn't have a chance, he was also peed on...!

And as always, we end on a good note! Domestika doesn't have courses on the "advanced" techniques Warhol used yet, but there are other ways to create art that don't involve urine, I promise!

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