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拍品专文
Drawing was a constant creative outlet for Jean-Michel Basquiat. His mind overflowing with imagery and ideas, he constructed cryptic narratives on paper that combined his own symbolic vocabulary with observations and inventions from his daily life. Untitled is a particularly rich example of this output that alludes to some unknown storyline of which the viewer is only partially aware. Using red and black to pull us in, the artist constructs a sense of exploded space that expands outward into our realm. Talking about his nuanced use of text, imagery, and calligraphic line, actor and Basquiat enthusiast Johnny Depp noted rather astutely, “Looking at these works, one cannot escape without feeling the almost perverse sense of care taken to draw detail with what seems an acute distracted concentration…every line, mark, scratch, drip, footprint, fingerprint, word, letter, rip and imperfection is there because he allowed it to be there” (J. Depp in E. Navarra, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris 2000, pp. 16-17). Far from laying down errant marks and unimportant asides, Basquiat’s ability to coalesce competing forms into a writhing whole was unmatched. Color, line, and empty space are all in service of his final composition that highlights internal relationships within his nuanced arrangement.
Rendered with his characteristically expressive use of oil stick, the disparate elements in Untitled come together into a cohesive visual whole under Basquiat’s frantic hand. Assessing the scene, one finds four faces in a variety of styles that stare out at the viewer. Three are situated in the middle of the work and, from left to right, show a boy with a floating baseball cap and spiked hair, a bizarre clown-like figure with a pointe red nose and cherry lips, and a glaring red mechanical man with top hat and protruding ears. Each is a distinct character without a body, their personalities wholly made of their facial features and the artist’s ability to imbue even the slightest line with magnetic energy. Untitled is a dynamic example of Basquiat’s predilection for drawing the human head in various guises. Fred Hoffman explained this habit when he noted, “What drew Basquiat almost obsessively to the depiction of the human head was his fascination with the face as a passageway from exterior physical presence into the hidden realities of man’s psychological and mental realms. As such, the two largest human orifices of the eye and mouth, the gateways enabling a passageway within, are depicted as both large and open. In the case of the eyes, they not only peer out as if seeing, but also invite the viewer to penetrate within” (F. Hoffman, Jean-Michel Basquiat Drawing: Work from the Schorr Family Collection, exh. cat., New York, Acquavella Galleries, 2014, p. 74). All three of the above-mentioned faces have large round eyes with chaotic pupils and open mouths that boast a horde of unnerving teeth. The fourth head is less brazen, situated in the lower left of the composition, it is paired with a small hand and exhibits vertical slits for eyes. Given its positioning and simplified rendering, as well as the swirling lines that seem to extend from its space, one can almost see it as a narrator of the scene that is explaining some unknown happening in vivid detail.
The overriding power of Basquiat’s compositions lies within his expert handling of a rich visual vocabulary. Pulled from multiple sources in myriad fields, the symbols, marks, and images that populate works like Untitled speak to an artist firmly entrenched in the visual culture of 1980s New York. Equally inspired by the Cubist constructions of Picasso, and the curvilinear forms of Matisse, as he was by subway graffiti and advertisements, the painting prodigy combined these references wholesale in his head before laying them down with gusto on the canvas or page. Jeffrey Hoffeld, describing this virtuosic amalgam, explained, “[There is a] widespread tendency in his work to turn things inside out. Inner thoughts are made public in graffiti-like litanies of words and other bursts of expression; distinctions between private spaces and public places are dissolved; past and present are interwoven, and levels of reality are multiplied and scrambled; the imagined realms of paradise, hell and purgatory become indistinguishable” (J. Hoffeld, “Basquiat and the inner self”, in Jean Michel Basquiat, Gemälde und Arbeiten auf Papier (Paintings and works on paper), exh. cat. Museum Würth, Künzelsau 2001, p. 27). Playing with the history of Western visual culture seen through the lens of a Haitian and Puerto Rican artist scrambling for a foothold in a white-dominated art world, Basquiat had to create his own revolutionary style and self-image while staying attached to the lineage of artistic tradition. It is because of the masterful manner in which he choreographed this delicate dance that his work remains as strong today as it was when it was created.
Rendered with his characteristically expressive use of oil stick, the disparate elements in Untitled come together into a cohesive visual whole under Basquiat’s frantic hand. Assessing the scene, one finds four faces in a variety of styles that stare out at the viewer. Three are situated in the middle of the work and, from left to right, show a boy with a floating baseball cap and spiked hair, a bizarre clown-like figure with a pointe red nose and cherry lips, and a glaring red mechanical man with top hat and protruding ears. Each is a distinct character without a body, their personalities wholly made of their facial features and the artist’s ability to imbue even the slightest line with magnetic energy. Untitled is a dynamic example of Basquiat’s predilection for drawing the human head in various guises. Fred Hoffman explained this habit when he noted, “What drew Basquiat almost obsessively to the depiction of the human head was his fascination with the face as a passageway from exterior physical presence into the hidden realities of man’s psychological and mental realms. As such, the two largest human orifices of the eye and mouth, the gateways enabling a passageway within, are depicted as both large and open. In the case of the eyes, they not only peer out as if seeing, but also invite the viewer to penetrate within” (F. Hoffman, Jean-Michel Basquiat Drawing: Work from the Schorr Family Collection, exh. cat., New York, Acquavella Galleries, 2014, p. 74). All three of the above-mentioned faces have large round eyes with chaotic pupils and open mouths that boast a horde of unnerving teeth. The fourth head is less brazen, situated in the lower left of the composition, it is paired with a small hand and exhibits vertical slits for eyes. Given its positioning and simplified rendering, as well as the swirling lines that seem to extend from its space, one can almost see it as a narrator of the scene that is explaining some unknown happening in vivid detail.
The overriding power of Basquiat’s compositions lies within his expert handling of a rich visual vocabulary. Pulled from multiple sources in myriad fields, the symbols, marks, and images that populate works like Untitled speak to an artist firmly entrenched in the visual culture of 1980s New York. Equally inspired by the Cubist constructions of Picasso, and the curvilinear forms of Matisse, as he was by subway graffiti and advertisements, the painting prodigy combined these references wholesale in his head before laying them down with gusto on the canvas or page. Jeffrey Hoffeld, describing this virtuosic amalgam, explained, “[There is a] widespread tendency in his work to turn things inside out. Inner thoughts are made public in graffiti-like litanies of words and other bursts of expression; distinctions between private spaces and public places are dissolved; past and present are interwoven, and levels of reality are multiplied and scrambled; the imagined realms of paradise, hell and purgatory become indistinguishable” (J. Hoffeld, “Basquiat and the inner self”, in Jean Michel Basquiat, Gemälde und Arbeiten auf Papier (Paintings and works on paper), exh. cat. Museum Würth, Künzelsau 2001, p. 27). Playing with the history of Western visual culture seen through the lens of a Haitian and Puerto Rican artist scrambling for a foothold in a white-dominated art world, Basquiat had to create his own revolutionary style and self-image while staying attached to the lineage of artistic tradition. It is because of the masterful manner in which he choreographed this delicate dance that his work remains as strong today as it was when it was created.