An Interview with Basquiat
Cover: Bird on Money, 1981
An Interview With Basquiat
By Daniel Pipolo
Your work is very abstract and has a hand drawn style to it, what is the meaning behind this choice? I come from a graffiti background, my influences were always street art, punk and hip hop, all of these art forms were loose, and they had a chidllike freedom to them which I really admired. A lot of people don’t realise that I can really draw, and my style is a form of expression, a statement really.
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Untitled. 1981 Page 2
In your artwork you make use of a crudely drawn crown, what does this represent? I believe that the crown is a symbol that represents royalty, or the king. In one of my paintings ‘Pez Dispenser’ I have a T-rex, with a crown above his head, signifying that he is the king of the dinosaurs. I also used the crown a lot with my SAMO street art, tagging it under my name to show that as an artist I am the king of the underground art society.
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Pez Dispenser. 1984 Page 4
In your paintings, you make use of freeform words scribbled onto the canvas, what inspires these word choices? I like to do a lot of reading. When I’m reading a book I might come across a word or phrase that I like and sometimes those words might capture the essence of my artworks. I like to add these words on top of the paintings because it helps the viewer feel how I felt when I painted it. It also gives the aesthetic of a defaced wall or bathroom stall, tying in to my graffiti past.
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Irony of the Negro Policeman, 1981 Page 6
How do you use colour and composition? I like to make the viewer feel unease, or feel an emotion they haven’t felt before. I like to overlap bright colours and lines in a chaotic way to create textures that is reminiscent of a child’s painting. That way there is a lot to unpack, and a viewer would take a moment to distinguish all the little elements that make up the artwork, rather than focusing on a central image.
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Untitled. 1982 Page 8
Finally, What are your biggest Inspirations? When I was young my mother bought me the book ‘Gray’s Anatomy’. Ever since then I have been obsessed with things like the human body and body parts, which you can really see in my work. I like how the body has a type of architecture to it, and drawing it helps me to understand how our bodies work.
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Grillo. 1984 Page 10
About Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in Brooklyn in 1960. In 1968 he was hit by a car, and while recovering his mother gave him a copy of ‘Gray’s Anatomy’. 20 years later Basquiat was known for his street art work with SAMO and soon began delving into the canvas art world, creating abstract works inspired by the human body he read about in ‘Grey’s Anatomy’. Basquiat is forever known as one of the greatest artists whose work continues to inspire generations of creative individuals today.
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Bibliography TED-Ed, ‘The chaotic brilliance of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat - Jordana Moore Saggese’ Video recording, Youtube, Viewed 4th May < https://youtu.be/JX02QQXfb_o> Public Delivery, ‘What does the crown in Basquiat paintings mean?’, website, viewed 5th May <https:// publicdelivery.org/basquiat-crown> GREATS, ‘Jean-Michel Basquiat, Street Prodigy, Art Outsider, and One of the Greats’, wesbite, viewed 5th May, < https://www.greats.com/blogs/the-playbook/b1-jean-michel-basquiat-street-prodigyart-outsider-and-one-of-the-greats> Public Delivery, ‘What does the crown in Basquiat paintings mean?’, website, viewed 5th May <https:// publicdelivery.org/basquiat-crown> Alux.com, ‘15 Things You Didn’t Know About Jean Michel Basquiat’,Youtube, viewed 4th may, <https:// youtu.be/fjdKQ2TpWvo> The Guardian, ‘Is this Basquiat worth $110m? Yes – his art of American violence is priceless’, wesbite, Viwed 5th May, < https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/may/19/jean-michel-basquiat-110m-sothebys>
Art.com, ‘Pez Dispenser, 1984’, wesbite, viewed 6th May, < https://www.art.com/products/p15084734599-sa-i6876274/jean-michel-basquiat-pez-dispenser-1984.htm> wikiart.org, ‘Irony of the Negro Policeman’, website, viewed 6th May, < https://www. wikiart.org/en/jean-michel-basquiat/ironew-york-of-the-negro-policeman> The Observer, ‘Ram Jams: ‘The New Abnormal’ Is New but Not Abnormal’, website, Viewed 6th May, < https://fordhamobserver.com/45592/arts-and-culture/ram-jamsthe-new-abnormal-is-new-but-not-abnormal/>