Exhibition Label:
“Big Shots: Andy Warhol, Celebrity Culture and the 1980s,” Aug-2009, Susan Earle
In a meteoric rise orchestrated by art dealers, Jean-Michel Basquiat became a big-shot artist at the apex of artists becoming celebrities in the celebrity-obsessed 1980s. His infamy as a celebrity may have exceeded his reputation as an artist. Known for a graffiti style of painting, Basquiat was a key figure in the art world, and in Warhol’s re-emergent success, in the 1980s. The two artists collaborated on 50+ works before Basquiat’s early death at age 27 from a drug overdose. The iconic, bare-shouldered portrait seen here was one of the Polaroids that was later pieced together to create a full-length painting of Basquiat. On a separate occasion, Warhol also shot Polaroid portraits of Basquiat’s father, mother, and sister, seen elsewhere on this wall.