ART 1001 Chapter : Basquiat
Document Summary
Jean-michel basquiat (december 22, 1960 august 12, 1988) was an american artist. [1] he began as an obscure graffiti artist in new york city in the late 1970s and evolved into an acclaimed neo-expressionist and primitivist painter by the 1980s. Throughout his career basquiat focused on "suggestive dichotomies," such as wealth versus poverty, integration versus segregation, and inner versus outer experience. [2] basquiat"s art utilized a synergy of appropriation, poetry, drawing and painting, which married text and image, abstraction and figuration, and historical information mixed with contemporary critique. Utilizing social commentary as a "springboard to deeper truths about the individual",[2] Basquiat"s paintings also attacked power structures and systems of racism, while his poetics were acutely political and direct in their criticism of colonialism and support for class struggle.
