Why is Jean-Michel Basquiat art so expensive?
Even during Basquiat’s lifetime, he was a market star, making $1.4 million a year. However, prices for the artist’s work have only truly taken off in recent years, driven primarily by demand from a small group of billionaires.
What popular artist befriended Jean Michel?
Andy Warhol
The young artist was befriended by the Pop artist Andy Warhol in 1983, and the two began to collaborate occasionally. In 1985 Basquiat appeared on the cover of the weekly New York Times Magazine as a representative of the contemporary art-marketing trend.
What artwork did Jay Z buy?
The Brooklyn-born rapper purchased the Basquiat painting Mecca (1982) in 2013 at Sotheby’s for $4.2 million. That work depicts a New York landscape with the word “Empire” scrawled across the top, underneath the artist’s signature crown.
Why are Jean Michel Basquiat paintings so important?
Jean-Michel Basquiat is iconic for two reasons which amount to the same thing: he was a black artist and he painted in a way that recognised and popularised black heritage in art. Part of the 1970s-80s Neo-Expressionist art movement, Basquiat’s paintings are full of frenetic but also very directed energy and vivid simple colours.
Why was Jean Michel Basquiat pigeon holed as a black artist?
Basquiat’s use of imagery and motifs suggestive of African art made it easy to stereotype him as a black artist but he was keen to be known simply as an artist. This antagonism between how he wanted to present himself and how he was pigeon-holed by others is documented through his work.
How old was Jeffery Basquiat when he died?
Whilst Basquiat died at only 27 of a heroin overdose, he has now become indelibly associated with the surge in interest in downtown artists in New York during the 1980s.
Who are the main characters in Jean Michel Basquiat?
Basquiat’s canon revolves around single heroic figures: athletes, prophets, warriors, cops, musicians, kings and the artist himself. In these images the head is often a central focus, topped by crowns, hats, and halos.
