As Beyoncé and JAY-Z’s ad for Tiffany’s stirs up controversy, some question the company’s suggestion that the blue hue of Basquiat’s painting was inspired by the brand.
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Posted inNews
Basquiat’s Painting on an Apartment Door Acquired by Dallas Museum of Art
Jean-Michel Basquiat painted the portrait in 1985, on the door of a Dallas apartment where he was staying.
Posted inArt
The Street Wisdom of Al Díaz, a First-Generation Graffiti Artist
Although many discussions on Díaz begin with his partnership with Jean-Michel Basquiat in the late 1970s, he still has something real to say.
Posted inArt
How Music Steered the Art of Jean-Michel Basquiat
The online documentary series “Time Decorated” argues that Basquiat was the connection between the bebop and hip-hop worlds.
Posted inArt
Hip-Hop’s Afrofuturistic Hive Mind
Basquiat’s oeuvre can now be said to constitute a Black male wall of fame, one exploding with markers of the fraught conquests, Pyrrhic victories, and traumatic vicissitudes of Black male being-and-nothingness in America.
Posted inOpinion
Barbie’s Back, as Basquiat?
The latest from Mattel suggests another 20th-century artist has become just a recognizable style easily packaged for kids.
Posted inArt
Remembering Basquiat Through the Keepsakes He Gave Intimates
Our Friend, Jean, an exhibition of ephemera left behind, given to, or swapped with people who knew Basquiat prior to his extraordinary fame, offers a tiny but intimate window into his life.
Posted inFilm
The Bittersweet Nostalgia of Watching Basquiat in Downtown 81
A time capsule that holds the legendary artist in immortal youth, the cult classic also preserves a certain New York, which has now changed beyond recognition.
Posted inBooks
The Cult of Jean-Michel Basquiat
What happens when an artist’s mythologized life distracts from his work?
Posted inArt
In a Biting Letter to Basquiat in 1981, Edith Schloss Dragged the NYC Art Scene
Read this 3,700-word, hyper-critical letter discussing the work of Philip Guston, Anselm Kiefer, Nell Blaine, Bill King, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, and several others: “Everyone seems to be proud of having no go, no oomph.”
Posted inArt
No One Owns Basquiat, Not Even Peter Brant
Brant has cogently influenced the legacy of Basquiat on several fronts, but the artist and his work remain gloriously defiant.
Posted inFilm
A Documentary on Basquiat’s Teen Years Tracks a Star’s Early Ascent
Sara Driver’s new documentary Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat wants to bring the young art star back down to earth, but often can’t help positioning hovering him above.