{"id":108487,"date":"2025-03-18T12:55:22","date_gmt":"2025-03-18T03:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/voyapon.com\/?p=108487"},"modified":"2025-03-18T12:55:28","modified_gmt":"2025-03-18T03:55:28","slug":"jean-michel-basquiat-and-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voyapon.com\/jean-michel-basquiat-and-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"High and Low: Jean-Michel Basquiat and Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
In the 1980s Jean-Michel Basquiat<\/strong><\/a> \u30b8\u30e3\u30f3=\u30df\u30b7\u30a7\u30eb\u30fb\u30d0\u30b9\u30ad\u30a2<\/strong> emerged as probably the first real-deal African-American art superstar. Beginning as a graffiti artist on the crusts of popular culture he rampaged through New York signing his public work as SAMO<\/strong> (meaning \u2014 Same Old Shit), he graduated into one of the most prominent painters of the 20th century. An artistic and cultural magpie<\/strong>, he took from and referred to native African art, Da Vinci, Picasso, Pollock and his beloved mentor Andy Warhol. Basquiat, a beautiful man, charismatic, shy with an astounding talent and a massive influence on contemporary art which can still be felt today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the 1990s, as a student in Glasgow, I was studying theater and literature but also attempting to explore more about music and art. Most student apartments at that time were decorated with posters of work from Rothko, Klimt or the movie posters for Pulp Fiction<\/em> and Trainspotting<\/em>. I remember picking up a book or maybe an art magazine and seeing Basquiat’s work for the first time, then seeing a reproduction at a house party and wondering who he was, why did this work touch me and noticing the way text and words played as much a role as images. Basquiat was very much a literary artist as well as a visual master<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the latter half of the 1990s when the internet became more available and widely used, I began looking at photographs of artists and watched Julian Schnabel’s seminal biopic Basquiat<\/em><\/strong> <\/em>with an unforgettable performance from Jeffrey Wright beautifully portraying Basquiat and capturing perfectly his great and unknowable complexities. <\/p>\n\n\n\nBasquiat and Fashion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n