Jean Michel Basquiat Research Paper

Tyrone Sam

Art App

4/15/2016

Basquiat

Jean-Michel Basquiat was born on December 22, 1960 in Brooklyn New York. He got his nickname SAMO from his tags in all of his graffiti work around the streets in Harlem. His father was Haitian and his mother was from the Puerto Rican decent. He was very smart and a great drawer at a very young age, he was also self-taught, which shows his education and passion for his artwork. He dropped out of school and to make means meet he sold lot of his artwork on the streets. He always had the idea of being famous even though he was very reclusive and stayed to himself. He said that he never wanted to be brought up just so he can be brought

There was graffiti everywhere from walls to the subways, graffiti was the reason to why he became who he was. He lived a rough life in Harlem he seemed to be always trying to find his way like any other person who is struggling, until he became famous. At the time “hype” was even becoming a big aspect people started to want. Basquiat paintings as art was expanding in the 80s. Art became much hyped and he was becoming a phenomenon. The fact that Basquiat was poor and reached great fame because of hype and his paintings were the reason people believed heroin lead to his

His art work was high priced and it was very graffiti based and even criticized by many. His art works was not just criticized but he was also, when he first started to sell his work people would think his put no effort into his paintings and didn’t think much of his art. At the time there were really no black artist either, there were comments he made to a reporter where the reporter asked “are you an artist, or a black artist”? He responded with the answer “are you a reporter or a white reporter”? This illustrates how much adversity was thrown at him and the way he