Jean-Michel Basquiat

Andy Warhol, artist

1928–1987

Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1983

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: Polaroid™ print (Polacolor ER)

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 9.5 x 7.3 cm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 3 3/4 x 2 7/8 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 10.8 x 8.6 cm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 4 1/4 x 3 3/8 in

Credit line: Gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

Accession number: 2008.0104

Not on display

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Label texts

Brosseau Center for Learning: In Conversation with the 2018–19 KU Common Book

“The art historian Marc Miller asks the twenty-one-year-old graffiti artist, painter, musician, and one-time film star Jean-Michel Basquiat about his roots.
‘You’re what?’ demands Miller. ‘Haitian–Puerto Rican?’
‘I was born here,’ answers Basquiat, ‘but my mother’s fourth-generation Puerto Rican. My father comes from Haiti.’
‘Do you feel that’s in your art?’ continues Miller.
‘Genetically?’ Basquiat interrupts.
‘Yeah,’ replies Miller. ‘Genetically or culturally?’
‘Culturally?’ Basquiat wonders aloud, almost as if speaking to himself. ‘I guess so…’” (p. 127)

Exhibition Label:
“Big Shots: Andy Warhol, Celebrity Culture and the 1980s,” Aug-2009, Susan Earle
In a meteoric rise orchestrated by art dealers, Jean-Michel Basquiat became a big-shot artist at the apex of artists becoming celebrities in the celebrity-obsessed 1980s. His infamy as a celebrity may have exceeded his reputation as an artist. Known for a graffiti style of painting, Basquiat was a key figure in the art world, and in Warhol’s re-emergent success, in the 1980s. The two artists collaborated on 50+ works before Basquiat’s early death at age 27 from a drug overdose. The iconic, bare-shouldered portrait seen here was one of the Polaroids that was later pieced together to create a full-length painting of Basquiat. On a separate occasion, Warhol also shot Polaroid portraits of Basquiat’s father, mother, and sister, seen elsewhere on this wall.