Editing Jean-Michel Basquiat (section)

==Reception==
{{quote box
| width = 20em
| quote = Like a DJ, Basquiat adeptly reworked [[Neo-expressionism]]'s clichéd language of gesture, freedom, and angst and redirected [[Pop art]]'s strategy of appropriation to produce a body of work that at times celebrated [[African-American culture|black culture]] and [[African-American history|history]] but also revealed its complexity and contradictions.
| source = —Lydia Lee<ref name = "Sirmans" />
}}Shortly after his death, ''[[The New York Times]]'' indicated that Basquiat was "the most famous of only a small number of young black artists who have achieved national recognition."<ref name="Wines-1988" /> Art critic Bonnie Rosenberg wrote that Basquiat experienced a good taste of fame in his last years when he was a "critically embraced and popularly celebrated artistic phenomenon"; and that some people focused on the "superficial exoticism of his work", missing the fact that it "held important connections to expressive precursors."<ref>{{Cite news|title=Jean-Michel Basquiat Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works|language=en-US|work=The Art Story|url=http://www.theartstory.org/artist-basquiat-jean-michel.htm|access-date=December 5, 2017}}</ref>

Traditionally, the interpretation of Basquiat's works at the visual level comes from the subdued emotional tone of what they represent compared to what is actually depicted. For example, the figures in his paintings, as stated by writer [[Stephen Metcalf (writer)|Stephen Metcalf]], "are shown frontally, with little or no depth of field, and nerves and organs are exposed, as in an anatomy textbook. Are these creatures dead and being clinically dissected, one wonders, or alive and in immense pain?"<ref name="Metcalf-2018" /> Writer [[Olivia Laing]] noted that "words jumped out at him, from the back of cereal boxes or subway ads, and he stayed alert to their subversive properties, their double and hidden meaning."<ref>{{Cite web|first=Olivia|last=Laing|date=September 8, 2017|title=Race, power, money – the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat|url=http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/sep/08/race-power-money-the-art-of-jean-michel-basquiat|access-date=June 18, 2023|website=the Guardian}}</ref>

A second recurrent reference to Basquiat's aesthetics comes from the artist's intention to share, in the words of gallerist Niru Ratnam, a "highly individualistic, expressive view of the world".<ref>Niru Ratnam (November 16, 2013), [https://www.spectator.co.uk/2013/11/collectors-love-him-critics-hate-him-what-do-you-think-of-jean-michel-basquiat/ Do you think this painting is worth $48.4 million?] ''[[The Spectator]]''.</ref> Art historian Luis Alberto Mejia Clavijo believes Basquiat's work inspires people to "paint like a child, don't paint what is in the surface but what you are re-creating inside.<ref>{{Cite web|first=Luis Alberto|last=Mejia Clavijo|title=Voodoo Child: Ernok of Jean Michel Basquiat|url=https://luissioamclavijo.blogspot.com/2012/07/voodoo-child-ernok-of-jean-michel.html|date=July 10, 2012|access-date=June 18, 2023|website=Contemporary Art Theory}}</ref> Musician [[David Bowie]], who [[David Bowie's art collection|was a collector]] of Basquiat's works, stated that "he seemed to digest the frenetic flow of passing image and experience, put them through some kind of internal reorganization and dress the canvas with this resultant network of chance."<ref name="Eshun-2017" />

Art critics have also compared Basquiat's work to the emergence of hip-hop during the same era. "Basquiat's art—like the best hip-hop—takes apart and reassembles the work that came before it", said art critic Franklin Sirmans in a 2005 essay, "In the Cipher: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Culture".{{Sfn|Saggese|2014|p=61}}

Art critic [[Rene Ricard]] wrote in his 1981 article "The Radiant Child":<blockquote>I'm always amazed at how people come up with things. Like Jean-Michel. How did he come up with the words he puts all over everything, his way of making a point without overstating the case, using one or two words he reveals a political acuity, gets the viewer going in the direction he wants, the illusion of the bombed-over wall. One or two words containing a full body. One or two words on a Jean-Michel contain the entire history of graffiti. What he incorporates into his pictures, whether found or made, is specific and selective. He has a perfect idea of what he's getting across, using everything that collates to his vision.<ref name="Artforum-1981" /></blockquote>Curator [[Marc Mayer]] wrote in the 2005 essay "Basquiat in History":<blockquote>Basquiat speaks articulately while dodging the full impact of clarity like a [[Torero|matador]]. We can read his pictures without strenuous effort—the words, the images, the colors and the construction—but we cannot quite fathom the point they belabor. Keeping us in this state of half-knowing, of mystery-within-familiarity, had been the core technique of his brand of communication since his adolescent days as the graffiti poet SAMO. To enjoy them, we are not meant to analyze the pictures too carefully. Quantifying the encyclopedic breadth of his research certainly results in an interesting inventory, but the sum cannot adequately explain his pictures, which requires an effort outside the purview of [[iconography]] ... he painted a calculated incoherence, calibrating the mystery of what such apparently meaning-laden pictures might ultimately mean.<ref>''Basquiat'', edited by Marc Mayer, 2005, Merrell Publishers in association with the Brooklyn Museum, {{ISBN|978-1-85894-287-2}}, p. 50.</ref></blockquote>

In the 1980s, art critic [[Robert Hughes (critic)|Robert Hughes]] dismissed Basquiat's work as absurd.<ref>Graham Thompson, ''American Culture in the 1980s'', Edinburgh University Press, 2007, p. 68</ref> He attributed the Basquiat phenomenon to be a mixture of hype, overproduction, and a greedy art market.<ref>{{Cite web |last=D'Arcy |first=David |title=BASQUIAT CASE {{!}} Vanity Fair {{!}} November 1992 |url=https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/1992/11/basquiat-case |access-date=May 19, 2022 |website=Vanity Fair {{!}} The Complete Archive |language=en-US}}</ref>

In a 1997 review for ''The Daily Telegraph'', art critic [[Hilton Kramer]] begins by stating that Basquiat had no idea what the word "quality" meant. He relentlessly criticized Basquiat as a "talentless hustler" and "street-smart but otherwise invincibly ignorant", arguing that he "used his youth, his looks, his skin colour and his abundant sex appeal to win an overnight fame that proved to be his undoing" and that art dealers of the time were "as ignorant about art as Basquiat himself." In saying that Basquiat's work never rose above "that lowly artistic station" of graffiti "even when his paintings were fetching enormous prices", Kramer argued that graffiti art "acquired a cult status in certain New York art circles." He further opined, "As a result of the campaign waged by these art-world entrepreneurs on Basquiat's behalf—and their own, of course—there was never any doubt that the museums, the collectors and the media would fall into line" when talking about the marketing of Basquiat's name.<ref>{{Cite news|date=March 22, 1997|title=He had everything but talent|language=en-GB|newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4707974/He-had-everything-but-talent.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140504015415/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4707974/He-had-everything-but-talent.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=May 4, 2014|access-date=December 5, 2017|issn=0307-1235}}</ref>