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  • Essay / A review of Jean-Michel Basquiat's paintings

    Jean Michel Basquiat had a consistent methodology when creating his works. Regardless of the nature of his art, each piece seemed to have the same technique. When he painted human faces, the majority had the same skeletal, representative face. His work resembles detailed and colorful graffiti sold by the millions. Some believe he was talentless, repetitive and that his work had no message. However, others believe he had a true gift and used his personal story as motivation for his work. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Some critics find his art not worth millions. Hilton Kramer says: "He was essentially a talentless con artist, intelligent but otherwise invincibly ignorant, who used his youth, good looks, skin color and abundant sex appeal to gain overnight fame that turned out to be his undoing.” She believes his fame was due solely to the fact that he attracted the attention of a well-known artist, Andy Warhol, who "was always looking for young collaborators and acolytes." However, there were people like Priscilla Frank who had "a hard time imagining a more talented, passionate, mercurial lover – with better hair – than Jean-Michel Basquiat." While Kramer considered Basquiat's work "smudges and squiggles," Frank believed he created paintings that "mixed abstract expressionism, graffiti, medical jargon, and classical mythology, interspersed with hints of his personal history." all in bright, screaming colors.” In Basquiat's work, "Untitled (Boxer)", he looks like a black man with broad shoulders, a thin hip, boxing gloves, a big helmet and a white background with random colored lines scribbled on and around of him His work appears to have been scribbled on a piece of paper, but somehow the final piece turns out to be exceptional. You can stare at this painting for hours and analyze it because it is so full. of different parts. It doesn't seem to tell a story, but it's easy to create one. He seems to do this a lot with his other work, "Ashes", he shows a dark-haired man in a prison outfit. labeled "101490", holding a broom, a barrel labeled "ASHES", random letters next to the man's face, and what looks like a ladder with random lines next to it. the man looks like a skeleton It is difficult to understand exactly what Basquiat is trying to say in this work. Still, it's so interesting that you can look at all the different pieces he's incorporated into it and create your own message. This seemed to be Basquiat's goal. When creating his work, perhaps with some motivation from his personal life, he seemed to add unrelated pieces, but then depended on the viewer to make sense of it when looking at the work as a alone. According to Jennifer Clement, Basquiat's work "Untitled (Boxer)" was like how he loved all kinds of people, regardless of their color or size, as long as they were intelligent. She says: “They can be boys, girls, big, fat, pretty, ugly. It was, I think, motivated by intelligence.” This fits the painting well because the person drawn has broad shoulders, but a thin waist and skinny arms, representing the insignificance of someone's height. Additionally, above the head, what looked like a large helmet could be interpreted as a large.