Jean Michel Basquiat

Jean Michel Basquiat was born in the Brooklyn region in New York, in 1960. He was an American artist. His mother had the descent of Puerto Rican while the father was an immigrant of Haiti. Jean Michel was the second born among the four children of Gerard Basquiat and Matilde Andrades. Due to the combination of languages spoken by his mother and father led to his fluency in English, Spanish, as well as French. The early readings of symbolist poetry in French would bring about a significant influence on the later work of Jean Michel.

Jean Michel Basquiat Artwork

Jean Michel began displaying a talent for art during his early childhood when he learnt how to draw and paint with the encouragement of his mother. They travelled together to attend

The exhibitions also made him famous across broad regions as people could comprehend whatever the paintings meant and illustrated. One of the exhibitions was in ‘The Times Square Show’, which was held in New York. He had another exhibition in Annina Nosei gallery. The exhibitions provided him with an avenue to interact with various Neo-expressionist artists. Some of his paintings were used in the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London for educational purposes. Moreover, the catalog for the exhibitions incorporated different styles hence showing groundbreaking pieces of work. From the reviews, it shows that the artist was a street-smart even though most of the artists at that time were ignorant about artistry and artwork. That made it difficult for some of the works of art to rise above the lowly artistic station. However, several people appreciated the works of Jean Michel thereby attracting the media, collectors and museums. Consequently, the museums led to marketization of the works of the artist and his name. The artist experienced a good taste of popularity and fame during the last years of his artistry as most people celebrated and embraced his artistic phenomenon. In essence, most of his works depicted superficial exoticism and had vital connections to some of the expressive precursors. All the works he did touched on attacks on racism and oppression based on ethnicity, race and skin color. Racism had a significant impact on the lives of different people hence there was the need to talk about it so that the oppressors could avoid their harmful acts (Saggese,