Thursday 6 January 2011

Basquiat at the Museum of modern art in Paris



photos by the Museum of Modern Art, Paris














Museum of Modern art in Paris is showing a retrospective of works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, of haitian and porto rican descent, who lived in New York in the Golden Age of clubbing, graffiti, street art, and pushing limits.
He became a star of the wild expressionism or "neo-expressionism" wave that countered the minimalism and conceptual art in the USA.
Prolific in his works, as if constantly urged to produce, he never doubted his being as an artist. He did not bend into a style or a trend. He just painted in the rawest manner, without obvious skills.
it came out unrestrained, spontaneous.
Subjects were deep, painful, violent.
He started as a graffiti artist in the streets of New York signing under the name of SAMO (same old shit). Galleries recognized his potential, collectors started buying.
He made a collective work with Andy Warhol, the association produced interesting pieces. Although they shared a lot of similarities, Warhol had a plastic aesthetic side to his work that did not necessarily match the violent, naked self expression of Basquiat.
He died at 28 years old.
Short existence for an artist.
But the retrospective is a great overview of his work.
If you're in Paris by the 30th jan 2011, don't miss the show.

link to the Museum of Modern Art

3 comments:

rabaa said...

i love his work.. he is a perfect example of how some one can start a whole new way of looking and expressing things and oneself

waleed said...

I have seen his work before. I like it, I like raw genuine non academic constipated work.

sarah said...

creative people can connect easily to this raw genuine works.
The interesting part of a retrospective is squishing in a space a wide spectrum of works that usually take a lifetime to produce. Basquiat's production was over a very short period of time but still had the impression of evolution and work in progress, refinement of expression and ideas.
I don't really know if I like it... I am intrigued by it, but it has a gross feeling with an uncomfortable part to it.
Surely it is great pieces of art, and he is a great artist.