Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiatwas an American artist. He first achieved notoriety as part of SAMO, an informal graffiti duo who wrote enigmatic epigrams in the cultural hotbed of the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the late 1970s where the hip hop, post-punk, and street art movements had coalesced. By the 1980s, he was exhibiting his neo-expressionist paintings in galleries and museums internationally. The Whitney Museum of American Art held a retrospective of his art in 1992...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth22 December 1960
CityBrooklyn, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I was a really lousy artist as a kid. Too abstract expressionist; or I'd draw a big ram's head, really messy. I'd never win painting contests. I remember losing to a guy who did a perfect Spiderman.
I had some money, I made the best paintings ever. I was completely reclusive, worked a lot, took a lot of drugs. I was awful to people.
I have a painting where somebody's holding a chicken, and underneath the chicken is somebody's head.
The country makes me more paranoid, you know? I think the crazy people out there are little crazier.
Every single line means something.
Most Young Kings Get Their Heads Cut Off.
My favorite Twombly is 'Apollo and the Artist,' with the big 'Apollo' written across it.
Fire will attract more attention than any other cry for help.
I cross out words so you will see them more
If you wanna talk about influence, man, then you've got to realize that influence is not influence. It's simply someone's idea going through my new mind.
I am not a black artist, I am an artist.
There are about 30 words around you all the time, like 'thread' or 'exit.'
I start a picture and I finish it. I don't think about art while I work. I try to think about life.
I don't listen to what art critics say. I don't know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.