Jean-Michel Basquiat - Gold Griot

Jean-Michel Basquiat is a Brooklyn native born in 1960; Basquiat lived a very short life and died only twenty seven years later from a drug overdose in 1988. His work was very appealing to me because unlike many other artists his style is very unique. Basquiat’s career began by painting graffiti in and around New York City. He would later transition into a nineteen eighties neo-expressionist style of artist. His mixed nationalities of Haiti and Puerto Rico had influenced the young artist to speak fluent French, Spanish, and English from a very young age.

The piece of art that I would like to examine was created in nineteen eighty four and is called the Gold Griot. The art piece is an acrylic and oil paintstick on wood design that now rest in The Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica. The picture can be found under the title of cultural identity on the website of the Brooklyn Museum. I have had some trouble actually understanding why this piece reflects this theme however. I find this piece of work to be very interesting because it is not on a canvas but rather on a ten foot by six foot plank of wood fence. The piece shows a black oil painted character with his arms up in the air. His face consists of any colors and his body is outlined with what appears to be a skeleton and ribs. It is very different than any other piece of art that I have ever seen before.

After doing some research on this specific piece of work I found that this painting was created in what is called Basquiat’s middle period. This time period was noted by multi panel paintings and individual canvases and seemingly unrelated imagery. Paintings of this time period in specific show Basquiat’s pride in his black identity and identify with historic and contemporary black figures and events. Many paintings of this time reflect Basquiat’s interest in Rauschenberg. Many of these painting received poor critical reception but are (iconographically) complex and the process of painting together influenced each other’s later works.