Jean-Michel Basquiat - SAMO

Basquiat Boom for Real, 2017

Pages: 296 / 259 color / 53 b/w
Format: Hardcover
Size: 23,5 x 28,5 cm
Publisher: PRESTEL

€58.00

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About the work

Basquiat Boom for Real, 2017

Basquiat first came to prominence when he collaborated with Al Diaz to spray-paint enigmatic statements under the pseudonym SAMO©. He went on to work on collages, Xerox art, postcards, performances, and music before establishing his reputation as one of the most important painters of his generation.

Accompanying a major exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery, this book opens with introductory essays from the curators, which place his practice in a wider art historical context and look at his career through the lens of performance. Six thematic chapters offer new research, with essays from poet Christian Campbell on SAMO©; curator Carlo McCormick on New York / New Wave; writer Glenn O’Brien on the downtown scene; academic Jordana Moore Saggese on Basquiat’s relationship to film and television; and music scholar Francesco Martinelli on Basquiat’s obsession with jazz.

This insightful new survey also features extended captions, rare archival material, and extensive photography, demonstrating how Basquiat’s legacy remains more powerful and relevant than ever today.

Dieter Buchhart (Editor), Eleanor Nairne (Editor), Lotte Johnson (Editor)

About artist

Jean-Michel Basquiat - SAMO

Jean-Michel Basquiat, an American with a Haitian father, gained recognition as an artist in the 1980s. His rise to prominence was swift but his career was cut short.

Between 1977 and 1980 he was a graffiti artist, tagging his mysterious, subversive messages with the name SAMO©. By 1980 he was frequenting artists such as Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Francesco Clemente, and abandoned graffiti for painting. Buoyed by the energy of hip hop with its sampling, scratching and DJ culture, his practice drew on many influences such as Picasso, Penck, Schwitters, Dubuffet as well as Cobra movement, jazz and voodoo. His frame of reference expanded to include history and global literature, from Homer to Napoleon and Malcolm X. His style was characterised by a bold and sparing colour palette, and the use of symbols such as the crown and skull, as well as numbers and scientific formulas. Like palimpsests, his works feature layers of drawing, scratches, painting, collages of photocopies and objects. The chaotic complexity of his compositions reveals a spontaneous exuberance and a mastery of different materials and techniques, from acrylic to screen-printing, markers to sprays.

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