Jean-Michel Basquiat emerged from the punk scene in New York as a street-smart graffiti artist. He successfully crossed over his downtown origins to the international art gallery circuit. Basquiat’s work is one of the few examples of how an early 1980’s American graffiti-based could become a fully recognized artist. Despite his work’s unstudied appearance, Basquiat very skillfully and purposefully brought together in his art a host of disparate traditions, practices and styles to create a unique kind of visual collage. His work is an example of how American artists of the 1980’s could reintroduce the human figure in their work after the wide success of minimalism and conceptualism. This piece is called “Irony of a negro policeman” by Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1981. This is a Neo-expressionist painting; he used acrylic and crayon to create this figurative image. It is depicting an African-American being a policeman. The figure in the painting is a black mass, with a mask-like face and hat resembling a cage. On the right of the painting are the words “Irony of Negro Policeman,” and to the bottom right of the panting is the word “Pawn,” clearly stating Basquiat’s opinion on the ridiculous position of a black Policeman. Basquiat used a lot of straight simple lines, squares and rectangles, the colors used in this image are especially primary colors, he also used words on an almost empty background to amplified the meaning of his image and the concentration of details are on the
Known for his neo- expressionist and gestural paintings,Jean–Michel Basquiat was a famous ‘black urban’ artist who came to the forefront of the art world in the 80s, his art reflecting the graffiti culture of the United States. In a letter written to Basquiat after his death, Bennett writes: Through Bennett’s admiration for Basquiat is the need to re- contextualise the issues that he has explored throughout his career as an artist. Gordon Bennett approaches such issues within a global context within one of the works from the series Notes to Basquiat (Jackson Pollock and his other)
When Jean-Michel Basquiat was invigorating the oppressed art movement of street art, Madonna was an upcoming singer. After a couple of years, and while he was creating amongst, with and for the LA and New York’s art elite, Madonna was still an unknown but aspiring entertainer and they were together.
gallery space. However, it is the aim of a postmodern artist to step outside these
So within the context of the movie Basquait the story emerges of a Haitian-American kid, who has 'seen the streets' and lived on the hard side of the tracks. Carrying his copy of 'Greys Anatomy' he dissects the streets, dissects and illustrates what he finds beneath and this dissects society and his own fractured place in it. His art even looks a bit like the anatomical drawings of Greys Anatomy and it is this ferocious dissection that formed the basis of a lot of his work. Although Mayer said “Basquiat speaks articulately while dodging the full impact of clarity like a matador. We can read his pictures without strenuous effort—the words, the images, the colors and the construction—but we cannot quite fathom the point they belabor” it is maybe through the lens of thinking about his background as a child who had a challenging childhood that we can figure out what was going on (2205 50). His painting of an African-American policeman with its huge size and broken body may give a further clue with the cultural / race identity confusion of his childhood in the 1960's and 1970's very evident. It is these pressures combined with the pressures of the corporate money-focused art-as-currency/investment discourse that must surely impact on an artist such as Basquiat: painting from within the establishment and making money from it a mechanism that can only
Paul “Moose” Curtis has found himself immersed within the unusual and incredible art of reverse graffiti. Instead of using aerosol paint to create murals on walls, Moose uses a pressure washer to remove the dirt and grime from the wall eventuating a creation of ravishing images of pattern. This new art form is evolving into a mad craze all over the world. This is the story of Moose.
His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humor with graffiti done in a distinctive stenciling technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world.
Graffiti portrays contemporary sub-cultured art through its versatility and bold attractiveness on the communal grounds. In the 1970s, graffiti was blatantly acknowledged as territorial graffiti where
These art pieces exemplify this Zeitgeist because they each show how the artist sees themselves. In the painting by Chuck Close, he creates a very realistic painting which is created by, “small dashes, dots of pigment, thumbprints, or applied pieces of colored paper.” Jean-Michel Basquiat’s painting is also representing how he envisions himself. This painting looks kind of demon or monster-like. When one compares these two paintings they can see how differently these artists portrayed
“He merged American visual culture into European avant-garde (modern art) design, integrating Cubism, Constructivism, the Bauhaus and De Stijl into his work.” (Reed, Norah)
"There were two cops. One said 'You niggers have to learn to respect police officers.' The other one said, 'If you yell or make any noise, I will kill you.' Then one held me and the other shoved the plunger up my behind. He pulled it out, shoved it in my mouth, broke my teeth and said, 'That's your *censored*, nigger.'"(Abner Louima) The police officers that allegedly performed this act of racial violence on August 9, 1997 had no reason to brutally beat and sodomize Abner Louima. They beat him for the fact that he was an African-American. I will show how I researched a poem by Maya Angelou and how racism occurred in "The Bluest Eye". First, we need to understand what racism is.
African Americans in modern America have bound together in unity against inequality to help end the unnecessary murders and unjust police beatings. However, where did these tensions between police and African Americans begin? This question can be answered by looking at the history of police in America and why they were originally established. Police first came on to the scene in 1704 when Carolina established the nation’s first slave patrol that would turn into what we know today as the modern police. The slave patrol had the duty of searching for runaway slaves and returning them to their masters. Therefore, the original reason the police force was established was to deal with black slaves and it seems as if some officers today still hold that as their job title. However, this was just the beginning to the negative police encounters that many African Americans would have to endure. With the ratification of the 13th amendment and the freeing of the slaves the slave patrol became what is known as modern day police. During reconstruction the police began a war to create a new form of slavery, this form of slavery was known as convict leasing. Although, the 13th amendment legalized the enslavement of anyone convicted of a crime it seemed as if it was only used against African Americans. This new method of enslavement sky rocketed the rate of African American arrests and created new laws in the south such as the pig laws which sentenced anyone who stole a pig to 5 years in
Over the last two years in the United States the African-American people have been fighting a war within our own backyards. The Washington Post reports that since January 2015, the police have shot and killed over 175 young black men ranging from ages 18-29; 24 of them were unarmed. On the flip side 172 young white men were killed, only 18 being unarmed. With these statistics there are similarities in the numbers but, blacks were killed at rates disproportional to their percentage of U.S population (1.Washington Post). Of all unarmed people shot and killed by police in 2015. With 40% being black men make up just 6% of the nation’s populations. In the wake of the killings of Mike Brown, Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling, and many more the world has been made more publicly aware of injustices black people have to handle when dealing with law enforcement. Crime in the black community is nothing new in the black community or should I say black on black crime. There is a bad stereotype that has been put on black people since slavery times that I believe has help fueled the violence between the police and my people.
While the painters after the Impressionism period were collectively called the “Post-Impressionists,” the label is quite reductive. Each artist had their own unique style, from Seurat’s pointillism to Signac’s mosaic-like divisionism, Cezanne, Émile Bernard, and others. These artists were all connected in that they were reacting to the aesthetics of Impressionism. Two of the more influential painters from this movement were Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, who aimed to connect with viewers on a deeper level by access Nature’s mystery and meaning beyond its superficial, observable level. However, each artist’s approach to achieving this goal was different. In close examination of Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait (Dedicated to Paul Gauguin) and Paul Gauguin’s Self-Portrait with Portrait of Émile Bernard (Les misérables), one may clearly see the two artists’ contrasting styles on display.
There has long been a difference between African Americans and the police. Sometimes minor to being outright confrontational. But if you ask someone on the police force, they would most likely answer no, there are not any differences in the way minority and non-minority communities are treated. But if you asked a minority community, they would probably answer yes, there is a difference. One of the facts that remain constant is the difference in the way blacks and whites view policing and racial relations in America. Pew Research Center polling has continually found that blacks and whites have very different views about many sides of race all together, from trust in the police to advances in racial equality. In one poll, whites said that they believed quite a bit of progress has been made since 1963, compared with only about one-third of blacks, according to a 2013 survey, which was done just before the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington.
In 1953, Robert Rauschenberg had the idea of adding drawing to his All White Series. However, drawing on these paintings, or anywhere, would defeat the purpose of this series, and so he came to the conclusion that the only way he could achieve this would be through erasure. He began experimenting with his own drawings, but still being a young artist it he didn’t think it would be considered art. For his idea to work, he thought, it had to be art that he erased. Having admiration and respect for artist Willem de Kooning, Rauschenberg decided to buy a bottle of Jack Daniels, and go to his house. Rauschenberg explained to de Kooning his idea, and asked if he could use a drawing of his. Reluctant, de Kooning agreed, only because he understood the idea. After looking through his portfolios, de Kooning handed Rauschenberg a drawing that he would miss, and that was almost impossible to erase. A month later, Rauschenberg successfully erased de Kooning’s drawing, and with the help of Jasper Johns, titled the piece in ink, and framed it. Robert Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning Drawing can be seen as either a minimalist piece or conceptual piece. Through a clearer understanding of both movements, the aim of this essay is to show how this piece could be seen as a minimal piece or a conceptual piece, and to see which movement it leans more towards.