Jean-Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent. He first achieved fame as part of SAMO, an informal graffiti duo who wrote enigmatic epigrams in the cultural hotbed of the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the late 1970s. At a Sotheby’s auction in May 2017, Untitled, a 1982 painting byBasquiat depicting a black skull with red and yellow rivulets, sold for USD 110. 5 million.
About Jean-Michel Basquiat in brief
Jean-Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent. He first achieved fame as part of SAMO, an informal graffiti duo who wrote enigmatic epigrams in the cultural hotbed of the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the late 1970s. His art focused on dichotomies such as wealth versus poverty, integration versus segregation, and inner versus outer experience. Since his death at the age of 27 from a heroin overdose in 1988, his work has steadily increased in value. At a Sotheby’s auction in May 2017, Untitled, a 1982 painting byBasquiat depicting a black skull with red and yellow rivulets, sold for USD 110. 5 million, becoming one of the most expensive paintings ever purchased. It also set a new record high for anAmerican artist at auction. He was the youngest artist to ever take part in documenta in Kassel. At 22, he was also the youngest to exhibit at the Whitney Biennial in New York. His visual poetics were acutely political and direct in their criticism of colonialism and support for class struggle. He used social commentary in his paintings as a tool for introspection and for identifying with his experiences in the black community of his time, as well as attacks on power structures and systems of racism. He ran away from home at 15 and slept on park benches in Washington Square Park, and was arrested within a week.
In the Cipher: In the Name of Sirmans, S.Franklin S. S. —Franklin, Sirman, In the cipher: In The Cipher: S. Franklin, In The S.S. – Franklin S., he wrote about the relationship between art and culture. He also wrote about his experiences as a black man in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1977, he began spray painting on buildings in Lower Manhattan under the pseudonym Al Diaz. This was after he dropped out of high school to make money, and he began to sell postcards and t-shirts to survive and make money to survive. In 1979, he started painting as SAMO and working as an artist and graffiti artist under the name “Plush” He died of an overdose at age 27 in 1988. He is survived by his two sisters, Lisane and Jeanine, and his mother, Matilde, who was born in Brooklyn, New York, and who is of Puerto Rican heritage. He had two younger sisters: Lisane, born in 1964, andJeanine, born in 1967. He studied at Saint John’s School in Condado, Puerto Rico, where he met his friend Marc Prozzo; together they created a children’s book, written by Basziat at the aged of seven, and illustrated by Prozzo. He died in 1988 at age 37 in a car crash in Manhattan. He left behind a wife and two daughters.
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