Basquiat's Graffiti Roots - How His Street Art Shaped His Paintings

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) is essential in contemporary American art. His artworks merged the street culture of graffiti with fine art and gave him a place in the New York art world in the 1980s. He began tagging places around New York with a friend, using the name SAMO. These creative artworks would significantly shape his later, more formalized works as an artist.

Basquiat was born in Brooklyn to immigrant parents. At a young age, they recognized his talent and sent him to art schools. As he aged, they encouraged Basquiat to explore the museums and galleries across the city. Growing up in Lower Manhattan exposed him to the New York art scene. At that time, Neo-expressionism captivated the art world. The movement emphasized high abstraction with intense colors and harsh brushstrokes. It was also a direct criticism of Conceptual and Minimal art.

The New York art scene received Basquiat's early graffiti pseudonym, SAMO, as Neo-expressionist. For Basquiat, SAMO channeled his teenage and rebellious rage through social commentary. This was mainly through witty and satirical slogans. The SAMO slogans resonated with the public as they bluntly spoke about the art world, politics, and consumerism. In essence, the SAMO graffiti voiced the counter-culture of the time. Basquiat exuded vivid, unrefined graffiti imagery in all his paintings. Throughout his career, he maintained his sense of urgency, spontaneity, and rawness. As this coincided with the 1980s, the Neo-Expressionists welcomed Basquiat with open arms.

His works included written language, phrases, and nonsensical scribbles. This form of artmaking was his unique visual language that provided social critique. Some of these came from the African diaspora, and their textiles and symbols inspired Basquiat. As the son of immigrants, he was invested in political commentary around marginalized communities. Likewise, graffiti's layered quality influenced his later works' textures and compositions. Indeed, many of his paintings often incorporate chaotic and layered backgrounds. He would create these with spray and acrylic paint.

He was also known to use found objects, such as doors, wood, and clothing, instead of a canvas. Visually, his later works mimic his graffiti style. Many include overlapping text, marked through text, repeated symbols, and layers of vivid paint.

Basquiat's graffiti work was a direct response to social issues. Many of these issues were around race, class, and inequality. Fine art became his avenue for shedding light on pressing issues of the time, especially police brutality. His most politically charged work is Defacement (The Death Of Michael Stewart 1983). It depicts the death of Stewart at the hands of the New York City Transit Police. The police arrested Stewart for writing graffiti in a New York subway station. He died under police custody.

Basquiat's use of culturally loaded symbols created a dialogue between street culture and fine art. These included crowns, skeletons, and historical figures found throughout his career. Basquiat's refined graffiti work became revered as rebellious, fine art.

Basquiat's graffiti caught the attention of the New York art scene and led to his transition from street art to gallery shows. In 1980, his work appeared in the Times Square Show, a 24/7 self-curated exhibition in a shuttered store that lasted all of June 1980. Basquait soon found his work in other New York galleries. He had his first solo show in 1982 at the Annina Nosei Gallery in SoHo. Even though his work entered commercial spaces, he adapted many graffiti techniques for his paintings. These include layering, gestural marks, and spontaneous creation. He still maintained the visual intensity of his street art. The subject matter did not stray much, either. His formal paintings were still politically driven. These works offered robust critiques of colonialism, classism, and racism.

Graffiti continued to influence Basquiat's work throughout his career. This is shown even after his transition to the more mainstream art world. Basquiat maintained the gritty style of graffiti through similar techniques and subject matter. This style naturally does not conform to the standards of traditional art. It is this style that has influenced generations of artists. Some examples are his contemporaries, Andy Warhol and Keith Haring. Others include later artists such as Banksy and Wes Lang. Each artist shows the enduring cultural relevance and respect for non-traditional art forms and subject matter that Basquiat inspired. His unique contribution blended the rebellious energy of graffiti with the prestige of high art. This blend would lead other artists to explore new ways of artmaking.

While Basquiat lived a short life, the art world continues to feel his impact. Many view the transition from his early graffiti work to his later formal art as the perfect rags-to-riches story. His groundbreaking implications in the art world continue to inspire artists of all mediums today and show the ongoing relevance of his work.