Jean-Michel Basquiat is discouraged and drug addicted. The end is for soon. Andy Warhol, with whom he enjoyed working, dies in February 1987.
Jean-Michel works little, but still expresses the same aggressiveness against white domination and capitalism. Tags on the squalid walls bear his scream, with unsequenced letters and meaningless words among which the real messages must be sought.
On February 10 in London, Sotheby's sells an acrylic, oilstick and xerox collage on canvas 213 x 152 cm realized in 1987, lot 41 estimated £ 6M.
The character in skeleton structure is wearing a top hat with which he claims for a funeral voodoo rite. The fist is raised in the gesture of the Black power. Behind him, the main message appears twice: Despues de un Puno without tilde because the walls are not required to respect the spelling.
The copyright sign placed everywhere and the letters ESSO angrily blocked express that the ultimate fight of this autobiographical skeleton was against capitalism. One of the two marks Despues de un Puno is also crossed out, indicating the uncertainty of this Pyrrhic victory after which the character exhibits a paltry triumphalism.
Jean-Michel probably feels that he has already lost his fight to identify and maintain his place in society. His art will always remain helpless against the political and economic powers. He dies on August 12, 1988, aged 27. Yet he had been the most gifted artist of his generation.
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Jean-Michel works little, but still expresses the same aggressiveness against white domination and capitalism. Tags on the squalid walls bear his scream, with unsequenced letters and meaningless words among which the real messages must be sought.
On February 10 in London, Sotheby's sells an acrylic, oilstick and xerox collage on canvas 213 x 152 cm realized in 1987, lot 41 estimated £ 6M.
The character in skeleton structure is wearing a top hat with which he claims for a funeral voodoo rite. The fist is raised in the gesture of the Black power. Behind him, the main message appears twice: Despues de un Puno without tilde because the walls are not required to respect the spelling.
The copyright sign placed everywhere and the letters ESSO angrily blocked express that the ultimate fight of this autobiographical skeleton was against capitalism. One of the two marks Despues de un Puno is also crossed out, indicating the uncertainty of this Pyrrhic victory after which the character exhibits a paltry triumphalism.
Jean-Michel probably feels that he has already lost his fight to identify and maintain his place in society. His art will always remain helpless against the political and economic powers. He dies on August 12, 1988, aged 27. Yet he had been the most gifted artist of his generation.
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Despues de un Puno: a masterpiece painted just before Basquiat's death. Now on view in NY ahead of our London sale. pic.twitter.com/ierCa8ZnAV
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) January 13, 2016
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