Basquiat
Video:https://www.ted.com/talks/jordana_moore_saggese_the_chaotic_brilliance_of_artist_jean_michel_basquiat?language=en
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Chronology
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Per Capita
Per Capita (page 31-31) is Basquiat’s third major painting from 1981. It depicts a single male figure wearing Everlast boxing shorts, positioned halfway between a vaguely defined cityscape and a surrounding pictorial field of abstract atmospheric effects. The work evolved out of an earlier group of untitled works that I refer to as Cityscapes, which were the first artworks Basquiat executed in a strictly studio context.14 Each of the Cityscapes contains aspects of the pictorial techniques and imagery previously used in his graffiti works executed under the SAMO tag in 1979 and 1980. Unleashed at the moment of his initial public recognition (first in Diego Cortez’s Times Square Show, then through Basquiat’s lead role in Glenn O’Brien’s film New York Beat), Per Capita initiates the iconography of male boxers, red and black warriors, and other male figures evincing heroic, even exalted, gestures that characterize some of his most recognized paintings, including Untitled (Self-Portrait),15 Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump (1982), Untitled (Boxer) (1982), and Profit I (1982), (pages 74, 75, 78, 98).
The iconographic breakthroughs of Per Capita were a result of the artist’s pursuit of specific pictorial strategies. As part and parcel of this newfound concern for thematic content, Basquiat implemented two new devices, both of which would become mainstays of his pictorial vocabulary. In addition to exploring the integration of image and text, Basquiat discovered more complex and elaborate means of “layering” the distinct planes of illusionistic space created by form, color, line, and atmospheric effects into a unified composition. These strategies became especially pronounced through the artist’s practice of collaging both original and photocopied drawings directly onto the canvas. While there are no collaged drawings in Per Capita, this work signaled to the artist the possibility of introducing new source material in his quest for the unification of text and image. The subsequent introduction of a collaged ground not only facilitated the union of image and text but enabled a more seamless integration of an “exterior” world into the fictive pictorial realm. Basquiat also reaffirmed what he had initially resolved in Acque Pericolose—that by applying thin, subtly modulated hues, he could build up rich atmospheric effects, thereby creating an arena in which his figures could breathe and interact. Thus text-image integration and pictorial layering went hand in hand. Enhanced by the artist’s experience as a graffiti tagger, where he reveled in the pictorial qualities of walls overlaid with layers of history (including the words Basquiat himself might apply), these new artistic discoveries reached their first phase of resolution in Per Capita.
Having synthesized his means of expression, Basquiat felt comfortable adapting a number of well recognized, even populist symbols for his personal iconography.16 In Per Capita, the Latin words E PLURIBUS—part of the motto “E pluribus unum,” meaning “out of many, one”—are inscribed in the topmost portion of the painting. These words are often associated with the image of a hand holding a bouquet of flowers and are found on the Great Seal of the United States, where they refer to the historical unification of the thirteen original American colonies into one Union, and they also appear on U.S. currency. By including E PLURIBUS along with, in the upper left, a partial alphabetical listing of states in the Union and the respective per capita income of their citizens, Basquiat points to the inequities of monetary distribution that divide the wealthy (CALIFORNIA 10,856 ) and the impoverished (ALABAMA $7,484), the dichotomy of rich versus poor. Per Capita thereby extends the artist’s concern for the common people and their labor found in many of his earliest paintings, such as an untitled work (1981; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles) in which a prison inmate, wearing a number, holds a rake or broom, the tool of his labor.
Throughout Basquiat’s career, political and social commentary functioned as a springboard to deeper truths about the individual. Thus, in Per Capita the radiating halo hovering over the black boxer’s head as he holds a burning torch in his left hand seems to assert a universal theme. While the social-political commentary is undeniable, that does not adequately reflect the totality of the work. Equally, the inclusion of a lit torch—replacing the more traditional “E pluribus unum” bouquet—could possibly refer to the torch traditionally carried from Olympus and used at the ceremonies inaugurating Olympic competitions. In view of the painting Cassius Clay and several others devoted to the same subject, it would not be far-fetched, then, to conclude that Basquiat’s figure in Per Capita, too, pays homage to the legendary Olympic boxing champion and role model.17 More important, however, the nimbus and torch in Per Capita allude to what the myth scholar Joseph Campbell called “a unity that already exists,”18 an underlying set of truths that binds all peoples in all times. Seen this way, Basquiat’s black male—who first surfaces in Acque Pericolose, finds definition and clarification in Per Capita, and is subsequently developed in works such as Untitled (Self-Portrait), Profit I, and Untitled (Boxer) (pages 74, 78, 98)—declares the birthright of all humankind: the idea that each individual shares in, and is entitled to, his or her “per capita” distribution of God-given rights and responsibilities. It is this democratic ideal that is proclaimed by Basquiat’s champion as he enters the stadium of self-realization.
http://basquiat.com/artist-essay.htm
Per Capita (page 31-31) is Basquiat’s third major painting from 1981. It depicts a single male figure wearing Everlast boxing shorts, positioned halfway between a vaguely defined cityscape and a surrounding pictorial field of abstract atmospheric effects. The work evolved out of an earlier group of untitled works that I refer to as Cityscapes, which were the first artworks Basquiat executed in a strictly studio context.14 Each of the Cityscapes contains aspects of the pictorial techniques and imagery previously used in his graffiti works executed under the SAMO tag in 1979 and 1980. Unleashed at the moment of his initial public recognition (first in Diego Cortez’s Times Square Show, then through Basquiat’s lead role in Glenn O’Brien’s film New York Beat), Per Capita initiates the iconography of male boxers, red and black warriors, and other male figures evincing heroic, even exalted, gestures that characterize some of his most recognized paintings, including Untitled (Self-Portrait),15 Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump (1982), Untitled (Boxer) (1982), and Profit I (1982), (pages 74, 75, 78, 98).
The iconographic breakthroughs of Per Capita were a result of the artist’s pursuit of specific pictorial strategies. As part and parcel of this newfound concern for thematic content, Basquiat implemented two new devices, both of which would become mainstays of his pictorial vocabulary. In addition to exploring the integration of image and text, Basquiat discovered more complex and elaborate means of “layering” the distinct planes of illusionistic space created by form, color, line, and atmospheric effects into a unified composition. These strategies became especially pronounced through the artist’s practice of collaging both original and photocopied drawings directly onto the canvas. While there are no collaged drawings in Per Capita, this work signaled to the artist the possibility of introducing new source material in his quest for the unification of text and image. The subsequent introduction of a collaged ground not only facilitated the union of image and text but enabled a more seamless integration of an “exterior” world into the fictive pictorial realm. Basquiat also reaffirmed what he had initially resolved in Acque Pericolose—that by applying thin, subtly modulated hues, he could build up rich atmospheric effects, thereby creating an arena in which his figures could breathe and interact. Thus text-image integration and pictorial layering went hand in hand. Enhanced by the artist’s experience as a graffiti tagger, where he reveled in the pictorial qualities of walls overlaid with layers of history (including the words Basquiat himself might apply), these new artistic discoveries reached their first phase of resolution in Per Capita.
Having synthesized his means of expression, Basquiat felt comfortable adapting a number of well recognized, even populist symbols for his personal iconography.16 In Per Capita, the Latin words E PLURIBUS—part of the motto “E pluribus unum,” meaning “out of many, one”—are inscribed in the topmost portion of the painting. These words are often associated with the image of a hand holding a bouquet of flowers and are found on the Great Seal of the United States, where they refer to the historical unification of the thirteen original American colonies into one Union, and they also appear on U.S. currency. By including E PLURIBUS along with, in the upper left, a partial alphabetical listing of states in the Union and the respective per capita income of their citizens, Basquiat points to the inequities of monetary distribution that divide the wealthy (CALIFORNIA 10,856 ) and the impoverished (ALABAMA $7,484), the dichotomy of rich versus poor. Per Capita thereby extends the artist’s concern for the common people and their labor found in many of his earliest paintings, such as an untitled work (1981; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles) in which a prison inmate, wearing a number, holds a rake or broom, the tool of his labor.
Throughout Basquiat’s career, political and social commentary functioned as a springboard to deeper truths about the individual. Thus, in Per Capita the radiating halo hovering over the black boxer’s head as he holds a burning torch in his left hand seems to assert a universal theme. While the social-political commentary is undeniable, that does not adequately reflect the totality of the work. Equally, the inclusion of a lit torch—replacing the more traditional “E pluribus unum” bouquet—could possibly refer to the torch traditionally carried from Olympus and used at the ceremonies inaugurating Olympic competitions. In view of the painting Cassius Clay and several others devoted to the same subject, it would not be far-fetched, then, to conclude that Basquiat’s figure in Per Capita, too, pays homage to the legendary Olympic boxing champion and role model.17 More important, however, the nimbus and torch in Per Capita allude to what the myth scholar Joseph Campbell called “a unity that already exists,”18 an underlying set of truths that binds all peoples in all times. Seen this way, Basquiat’s black male—who first surfaces in Acque Pericolose, finds definition and clarification in Per Capita, and is subsequently developed in works such as Untitled (Self-Portrait), Profit I, and Untitled (Boxer) (pages 74, 78, 98)—declares the birthright of all humankind: the idea that each individual shares in, and is entitled to, his or her “per capita” distribution of God-given rights and responsibilities. It is this democratic ideal that is proclaimed by Basquiat’s champion as he enters the stadium of self-realization.
http://basquiat.com/artist-essay.htm