Jean-Michel Basquiat Case

You may already heard about SAMO, see those kinds of painting or even heard the name Jean-Michel Basquiat. Today we decide to bring the light on this famous artist ; how did he starts ? How close was he from the famouse Andy Warhol ? And obviously what’s his artistic style ?

He was born in Brooklyn and was a kind of precocious child, indeed he learned how to read and write by age four and was a gifted artist.

His father banished him from the household after that he had been arrested by the police. He stayed with friends in Brooklyn supporting himself by selling T-shirts and homemade post cards.

In 1976, Basquiat and friend Al Diaz began spray-painting graffiti on buildings in Lower Manhattan, working under the pseudonym SAMO which mean « same old shit ». That’s how he began building his reputation on the East Village art’s scene. During three years he will keep spray-painting alone marking the end of the SAMO project with the inscriptions « SAMO is dead » on Soho walls.

In June he earns in notoriety by participating in the Times Square Show, a collective exhibition by Colab and Fashion Moda. The same year he will expose with Keith Haring and Andy Warhol.

In 1981, René Ricard publish a laudatory article about him propulsing his career, the article was called « The Radiant Child ».

When Basquiat starts to expose his painting he definitely want to grab Andy Warhol attention, which is quite normal because for the young artists at the time he was representing a living legend.

When they will meet each other they will fast become very good friends. It also corresponds to the moment where Basquiat starts display in very fashion places. With Andy they will create hundreds painting together. Basquiat will even represent his friends as a Banana: “Brown Spots (Portraits of Andy Warhol as a Banana).”

Those two artists own a