Basquiat & the Art of Identity

An essay by Lily Major for The Dreamers issue

Artwork by Guilherme Ferrari

As we remain glued to screens and continue to roam freely through this rich database, our nostalgic wanderings through the worlds of Warhol drew our attention to another artist who mesmerised New York’s hard-boiled art scene of the 1980s – Jean-Michel Basquiat. A culture obsessed neo-expressionist, Basquiat came to prominence as a graffiti artist, collaborating with high-school friend Al Diaz in the late 1970s to form the duo SAMO©. Together they spray-painted cryptic aphorisms onto subway carriages and blanketed the walls of Lower East Side Manhattan with enigmatic phrases, helping to transform the East Village into the epicentre of a startling art boom. Overnight, his inimitably energetic style made him feted and wealthy, and by the 1980s his art was being exhibited internationally, while Basquiat busied himself in becoming a princeling of downtown Manhattan, flaunting paint-splattered Armani suits and befriending David Bowie, Madonna, and Andy Warhol himself. 

Since his death in 1988, aged just 27 and only a year after the passing of Warhol, Basquiat has become a kind of mythical figure, immortalised both through his instantly recognisable artwork and the marketable glamour his presence exuded. From the clothes he wore to the art he made, the late Jean-Michel Basquiat was acutely aware that his whole life was a performance. Fascinated by the malleable nature of identity, he used it as a fertile ground for experimentation. There’s an image of Basquiat on the cover of the New York Times magazine from 1985, in which he wears a dark Giorgio Armani suit over a white shirt and tie and leans back in a chair, resting one bare foot up on a chair in front. This combination of an expensive suit paired with bare feet is typical of the way he defined his own image – nonchalant and unconventional. For Basquiat, style was a vehicle for navigating the art word; like so many others, he traded on his own beauty as much as his prolific artwork. He was noticeably aware that the power of seduction played into your success as an artist; the art collector is buying you as much as they are buying your work. Basquiat used his unique image, distinctive hair and striking bone structure, to his full advantage. 

In many ways, his patchworked approach to self-presentation was akin to the ways he created his art. His work was a mysterious combination of elements, each piece an eclectic mix of pop culture references from television to music, brand logos to cartoon characters. He liked to scribble, to amend, to footnote, and to second-guess. Take a look at one piece of his artwork and you will probably be able to find ten hidden references, each packed full of double meanings. At the same time as flooding his art with pop culture references, Basquiat frequently alluded to ‘high art’, paying tribute to modernist heroes like Picasso and Pollock, as well as making sure to champion his own black contemporaries. This fusion of worlds meant that his work was highly charged and political. 

With this being said, it becomes clear that his approach to dressing was a work of art in itself. Basquiat’s performance of identity has retrospectively been read as incredibly post-modern, further explaining why his influence has been so lasting. This year, as we found ourselves housebound and overwhelmed by a longing for social connection, an awareness of the malleable nature of identity resurfaced. As we all stayed home, social media became a breeding ground for performative behaviour; beautifully arranged vases of tulips were posted alongside images of immaculately baked sourdough bread and other utopic public displays, despite, we can assume, not necessarily being a reflection of reality. 

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement which has swept the globe and captured the attention of the masses after the harrowing, heart-breaking and unjust death of George Floyd at the hands of white US police officers, we were once again reminded of Basquiat. Even during the 1980s as he was becoming more and more successful, Basquiat still could not reliably hail a cab in the street. He bought expensive wines and designer suits like any artist who has suddenly made it big, and yet the anecdotes about his spending were passed on with a casual glaze of racism, as if there was something unusually revealing about his appetites.

The death of artist Michael Stewart in 1983, allegedly the result of police brutality, inspired Basquiat to create one of his most impactful works – Defacement. “It could have been me,” Basquiat would say. This year, as millions of people turned to social media to show their solidarity, support, and eagerness to learn how to be a better ally to the black community, Basquiat’s politically charged art appears evermore poignant and important. 

Jean-Michel Basquiat predicted our identity-obsessed digital age, one where everyone’s conscious is saturated at all times, with commerce, success, race, media, drama, tragedy, slaughter and black bodies. Whether we are posting a purposefully posed image with a new designer bag, or we are reposting a political statement that we feel particular engaged by, everything we do online is performative. We construct our social media feeds with a similar eclecticism that Basquiat constructed his art, and himself. This explains why 32 years after his death, his art is as painfully relevant as ever; in 2017, at Sotheby’s evening auction of contemporary art in New York, an untitled painting of a skull that he made in 1982 sold for $110.5 million, making it the sixth most expensive artwork ever sold at auction, and making him the most expensive US artist in history. 

As mentioned at the beginning of this piece, for Basquiat, style was a vehicle for navigating the art world. For us, living through an image-obsessed digital age, our identity is our way of navigating the online world. Instead of becoming too overwhelmed by this, we want to encourage you to take a look back into Jean-Michel Basquiat’s abundant archive. Despite his life being cut short, his incredibly perceptive comments on society have been immortalised through his art. Allow him to help steer you through the clouded and complicated time we are living through.