CHAPTER 3
THE SUBJECTS OF THE ARTIST 1
The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic Just because the body is rotten— That is all fantasy. What is found now is found then. If you find nothing now, You will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death. Kabir2
UNDERLYING JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT’S SENSE OF HIMSELF AS
an artist was his innate capacity to function as an oracle, distilling his perceptions of the outside world down to their essence and, in turn, projecting them outward through his creative acts. This recognition of his role first manifested itself in street actions wherein, under the tag name of SAMO, he transformed his own observations into pithy text messages inscribed on the edifices of the urban environment. This effort quickly became the basis for his studio output, which was informed by the same process of distillation, revealing a more basic truth locked within a given event or thought. As his career unfolded, the young artist applied the same intense scrutiny previously reserved for the world around him to the emotional and spiritual aspects of his own being.
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT
Acque Pericolose (Poison Oasis) (detail), 1981 Acrylic, oil paintstick and spray paint on canvas 66 x 96 inches 167.5 x 244 cm
Beginning in early 1981, when he was barely twenty years of age, Basquiat went through what would be a defining period in his career. Drawing from his own life experiences as a way to address larger human concerns, he produced five key works over an eighteen-month period: Untitled (1981), Acque Pericolose (1981), Per Capita (1981), Notary (1983), and La Colomba (1983). These works not only offer insight into this period in Basquiat’s career but also reveal the depth of his concern for portraying man’s inner-life experience. These works are testament to Basquiat’s
irrefutable power to transcend the individual and address broader issues and universal themes.
UNTITLED (1981)
Sometime early in 1981, Basquiat began a painting depicting an oversized head extending across the pictorial field, an image that had no precedent in earlier sketches, drawings, or paintings. Showing little regard for either physiognomic accuracy or individual likeness, Basquiat chose to emphasize the expressive qualities of the head. With its public presentation, this painting declared Basquiat’s arrival as a new and authentic voice in the world of contemporary art. Unlike many of his later paintings, which were completed quickly, Untitled was begun and then put aside for several months,3 to be completed later in the year.4 One can only speculate about the reasons for this hesitation, but several individuals close to the artist— including myself and Annina Nosei, the artist’s dealer at the time—suspect that this young, unseasoned artist hesitated to complete the work because he was caught off guard, possibly even frightened, by the power and energy emanating from this unexpected image. Others had a comparable reaction, later in the year, shortly after the work was first publicly exhibited.
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