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Long Live The King
Crowns. Chemicals. Critiquing.
Arguably the most influential artist of the 1980’s, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s primordial and energetic style has eclipsed his origins of tagging SAMO© on walls across New York City.
His explosive and powerful art explores complex oppositional themes such as race, power, identity and culture through almost childlike iconography weaving a rich visual lexicon that is as enthralling as it is recognisable.
Crowns, dinosaurs, chemical formulas and skulls can be found across his rich oeuvre which is often as abstract as it is expressive. His works are emblematic of a time of both great creativity and struggle and are expressions of the rise and commodification of punk, graffiti, and counter-cultural movements that exploded out of the 70's and 80's.
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Since I was seventeen I thought I might be a star. I'd think about all my heroes, Charlie Parker, Jimi Hendrix... I had a romantic feeling about how these people became famous.
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A Tapestry of Narratives
Eternal expressions
The leap from graffiti-sprayed messages to the esteemed gallery walls facilitated a keen exploration into the stratified racial tensions of the art world, which Basquiat navigated with critical acumen through his approximately 1,000 paintings and 2,000 drawings. His work, poignant with critiques and narrations of a world that paradoxically applauded and marginalised him, continues to narrate tales of the Black experience, celebrating its richness while unmasking the horrors of white supremacy.
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Relevant across the world
Basquiat, though departing prematurely at 27 in 1988, bestows upon us a legacy that interweaves a tapestry of narratives and provocations.
His works continue to set record prices at auction and at private sales and inhabits the sacred space of an artist who has not only created a movement but transcended it entirely through his own creations thus reimagning what art is.
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Explore more of the New York scene with original Keith Haring prints and Andy Warhol prints available at Andipa Editions.
For more information on any of the works featured, contact sales@andipa.com or call +44 (0)20 7589 2371.
Basquiat | Visual Codes | April Availabilities: SAMO©
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