Basquiat gay painter
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His father was Haitian and his mother was Puerto Rican. He painted Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart) (1983) in response to the incident.
He died on 12th August 1988 at age 27 years old, of a heroin overdose at his home.
Basquiat leaves a legacy as one of the most acclaimed contemporary artists of his generation.
His visual style was acutely political and direct in his criticism of colonialism and his support for class struggle.
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LGBT+ History Month - Meet Jean-Michel Basquiat, anti-racist artist and social commentator
In the UK it is celebrated in February each year, to coincide with the 2003 abolition of Section 28, a law passed in 1988 by the UK government that stopped councils and schools in England & Wales ‘promoting the teaching of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.’
The aim is to be an exciting, informative and celebratory month, to educate out prejudice and make LGBT+ people, in all their rich diversity, visible.
LGBT+ History Month is spotlighting five people to illustrate this theme. His raw, less-than-perfect interpretation was a political statement meant to redefine traditional symbols of royalty.
He’s in the Same League as Pablo Picasso
Although Jean-Michel Basquiat is known as a star in the art world, his work didn’t always command the same hefty price tags it does today.
It was a very rich multichromatic sexuality. not monochromatic. It was a very rich multichromatic sexuality. In 1980, they fell out and Basquiat wrote ‘SAMO IS DEAD’ around lower Manhattan. They could be boys, girls, thin, fat, pretty, ugly. Due to her instability and family unrest, he ran away from home at 15. They started spray painting graffiti on buildings in Lower Manhattan.
He learnt his art skills from visiting art galleries and was inspired by music his father played.
He started as a graffiti artist using the tag “SAMO” (shorthand for “same old s*** ”) in 1978. But more than four decades later, one of his paintings made history.
In 2017, a Japanese billionaire bought Basquiat’s 1982 painting “Untitled” for $110.5 million at a Sotheby’s auction.
That unbelievable transaction makes Basquiat’s painting one of the most expensive to be sold at auction, with only 10 other works selling for more than $100 million.
If you missed it, you can catch up here [35 mins]:
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He also named his band Gray which referenced the book.Jean-Michel’s mother suffered from mental illness.
“He’s now in the same league as Francis Bacon and Pablo Picasso,” art dealer Jeffrey Deitch told The New York Times. He shared information about the history of the world, and his own personal history, his own roots.”
Although his life and his career were tragically cut short on Aug. 12, 1988, when he died of a drug overdose at age 27, Basquiat’s legacy lives on through a new generation of artists and musicians he’s inspired, including Alvaro Barrington and Jay-Z.
In honor of what would have been his 65th birthday, we’re looking at some of the most fascinating facts about artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.
He Was Self-Taught
Basquiat began cultivating his love of art at a young age, often using paper his father brought home from his accounting job to draw his favorite cartoon characters.
He was attracted to people for all different reasons. In his art, he decorated historically prominent black figures with crowns and halos.
At age 22, he was the youngest to exhibit at the Whitney Biennial. He created this with high school friend Al Diaz.