Take Art: Jean Michel Basquiat

The film by Julian Schnabel delivered the tragic yet charming story of Basquiat to me before I found it, which I eventually would have through my exploration of Warhol and the world of The Factory.

His art is unlike anything else that I have seen before or since — it has a musical quality to it; a physicality that shouts at you from the canvas. To say that it is vibrant and quirky and captures something of the artist in it is to say something that is not true of a lot of artist\’s art — their art exists apart from them and has more the quality of an object. Basquiat reflects the process, the jazz of the art, it encapsulates it — that is the art. I don\’t mean to speak as if I know the artist, which I obviously don\’t — I wish to speak purely of the feeling it creates in me and the thought processes that it triggers.

Again, as with his friend Warhol, you can focus on the life that went on behind the work, but do you need to know about it or understand it in order to appreciate the art? I don\’t think that you do. The art is beautiful, evocative, and still fresh despite its age. Great art creates its own time bubble — its own continuum: that is where Basquiat\’s pieces dwell. He is one of my favourite artists, check him out — you\’ll see why.