“Riddle Me This, Batman” by Jean Michel Basquiat, produced in 1987, is a neo-expressionist figurative painting (see fig. A.1). It was presented for the first time at the Galerie Yvon Lambert in Paris. Two months after its debut, the piece changed hands several times, briefly leaving private collections to be picked up at auction. Most recently, it was auctioned at Sotheby's for over six million dollars. Mark Sagoff 119Multi-million dollar pieces were common in the 1980s. During this period, the price of Neo-Expressionist works rose steadily. In the market of public auctions and private sales, it seemed that art no longer had any intrinsic value. The ever-increasing prices of these works have pushed many artists to produce pieces and in turn make huge profits. However, this rather pessimistic consumerist view of art has not replaced the true aesthetic value of Basquiat's "Riddle Me This, Batman." Rather, it is Basquiat's ability to produce and express reflections on culture, identity and the pains of life that resist the monetary function of aesthetic value, in favor of an aesthetic norm as a matter of taste. Aesthetic value is determined by a standard. Generally, this standard is called beauty. Although beauty is conceptually simple and easy to conjure up in the mind, it becomes much more complex when used as a scale of aesthetic judgment. Treating one work of art as more beautiful than another implies that beauty can be measured, and to do so an objective standard must be used. There are two problems with understanding beauty as an objective standard. In his essay, The Aesthetic Hypothesis, Clive Bell illustrates that aesthetic value is a matter of taste: All aesthetic systems must be personal experience...... middle of paper...... transformed into assistant by Warhol. His death in February 1987 plunged Basquiat into depression. His heroin addiction resurfaced, gaining momentum until his death just 18 months later. Metaphysical. Aristotle: Selections. Edited by Terence Irwin and Gail Fine. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995. Bell, Clive. The aesthetic hypothesis. Aesthetic. Edited by Susan Feagin and Patrick Maynard. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Brooklyn Museum, “Exhibitions: Basquiat.” Accessed December 3, 2011. http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/basquiat/1983.php.Kant, Immanuel. Art and Genius. Aesthetic. Edited by Susan Feagin and Patrick Maynard. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Sotheby's, Contemporary Art Evening Auctions. Last modified November 9, 2010. Accessed December 4, 2011. http://tinyurl.com/7abp44j.