Thursday, April 10, 2014

One of my favorite artists is Jean-Michel Basquiat. His work was inspired by primitivism and neo-expressionism. His work dealt with many issues such as racism and social commentary. He worked a lot with Andy Warhol, the two became close friends and inspired each other's work. He died when he was 27 from a drug overdoes ( so he was inducted into the 27s club....)


6 comments:

Unknown said...

Fun fact about Andy Warhol. He managed The Velvet Underground. If you are not familiar with the band, they were very famous in the 60s and Lou Reed was in the band.

msking said...

Megan, You should watch the movie about Basquiat if you haven't already: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115632/. Also, I have a really awesome poster of Warhol and Basquiat in boxing gloves. (You may have seen the image before.) My friend who used to work at the Tony Shafrazi (his name's on the poster) gallery in NYC gave it to me. Another fun fact is that Tony Shafrazi is the art dealer who vandalized Picasso's Guernica in what he called an antiwar protest (Vietnam). Here's a link to an article about him: http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20087449,00.html

Unknown said...

I love Basquiat. I know Caleb really likes him, too. I like how his work is messy! I find that when I make pieces I tend to get scarred I'm going to mess them up the farther I get into them. Lately, I try to let go of those fears and work on impulse. I feel Basquiat has no trouble doing just that; most of his pieces seem to be impulsive as opposed to premeditated. Well... maybe premeditated is the wrong word... I'm not trying to say he didn't think about what he was going to paint, I just don't think he feared messing up. He did what he felt in the moment.

Unknown said...

I love Basquiat for the same reasons, Samantha. When I'm painting I also fear that I will mess something up.I like how he seems to embrace imperfection and looses himself in his paintings. I can see how Caleb's art resembles Basquiat's. I have seen parts of the movie but I haven't seen the whole thing. I need to finish it! Thanks for the article Ms. King!

Kincy GIbson said...

I definetely see the similarities between Caleb's work and Basquiat's. They are both very abstract, loose, and colorful. In the last image megan posted he uses a lot of complimentary colors and loose strokes with textured paint. The piece has a dark and eerie feel like a lot of Caleb's pieces.

Unknown said...

To me those pictures look pretty trippy, but they are interesting. I see what you meant about it looking like Caleb's work, but I think I like Caleb's stuff better. It's sad that someone so talented died at only 27; he could have produced so much more.