Your Weekly Mixx! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of contemporary art and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. This week, we feature the work of Herakut, Christopher David White, Wendy Campbell, John Wilhelm, Francois Nielly, Annalu Boeretto, DZIA, and Julie Veenstra.
Jean-Michel Basquiat: 1960-1988
Born on December 22, 1960, in Brooklyn, New York, Jean-Michel Basquiat was a successful graffiti and Neo-Expressionist artist who continues to influence contemporary artists today.
Basquiat showed a passion for art at a young age and was encouraged by his mother who had an interest in fashion design and sketching. Early influences included cartoon drawings, Alfred Hitchcock films, cars and comic books. An avid reader who spoke three languages, Basquiat was also inspired by French, Spanish, and English literature.
From 1976 to 1978, Basquiat created ‘Samo’ (Same Old Shit), a fictional character who earned a living selling ‘fake’ religion. He also collaborated with his close friend and graffiti artist Al Diaz. Basquiat and Diaz’s graffiti took the form of spray-painted messages that were seen around Lower Manhattan. In 1978, SAMO gained some recognition when a positive article was printed in the Village Voice. The collaboration ended in 1979 and “Samo is dead” was seen on walls in SoHo.
In the late 1970s, Basquiat met artists and musicians in various clubs. This led to his introduction to New York art collectors and dealers. During this period, Basquiat created postcards, collages, drawings, and t-shirts that depicted events such as the Kennedy assassination and themes such as baseball and Pez candy.
Basquiat’s first public exhibition was in the group The Times Square Show alsongside David Hammons, Jenny Holzer, Lee Quinones, Kiki Smith, and others. By 1982, he was showing regularly and became part of the Neo-Expressionist movement. That same year, he began dating the then unknown Madonna and met Andy Warhol, with whom he collaborated and formed a close friendship. Basquiat’s first solo exhibition was also in 1982 at the Annina Nosei Gallery in New York.
Basquiat’s art was influenced by imagery and symbolism from African, Aztec, Greek, and Roman cultures, as well as that of his own Puerto Rican and Haitian heritage, and Black and Hispanic cultures. The crown was Basquiat’s signature motif. In some paintings, the crowns are placed on top of generic figures. More often, he crowned his personal heroes including jazz musicians, such as Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, and athletes, such as Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali, and Hank Aaron.
Basquiat began many paintings by pasting his own drawings or photocopies of them onto the canvas. He also used words to elaborate his themes often repeating the same words over and over again creating a hypnotic effect.
In 1984, Basquiat began using a new layering technique using silkscreens. His drawings were transferred onto screens and printed onto the canvas. He then painted, drew, and added more silk-screened images to build the piece into a multi-layered composition.
In the mid-1980s Basquiat began using heroin, and much of his artwork appeared unfinished and repetitive. The death of Andy Warhol in 1987 had a profound affect on him. His grief turned into creativity and his painting displayed a new confidence and maturity. Many of his works during this period make references to death.
Following an attempt at rehabilitation, Basquiat died on August 12, 1988 of an accidental drug overdose. He was 27 years old. Several major retrospective exhibitions of Basquiat’s works have been held since his death, in the United States and internationally. The Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Switzerland held a retrospective from May to September, 2010 to mark what would have been Basquiat’s fiftieth birthday.
For more information about Jean-Michel Basquiat, visit the source links listed below.
Sources: Brooklyn Museum, Wikipedia, MoMA
DAF Group Feature: Vol. 181
Your Weekly Mixx! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of contemporary art and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. This week, we feature the work of Alex Janvier, Ernest Zacharevic, Julia Manning, Nadav Kander, Andrew “Mackie” McIntosh, Michihiro Matsuoka, Julia Veenstra and the video “Franz of Prague” This huge, kinetic sculpture, titled “K on Sun”, is by Czech artist David Cerny. It can be found in a business center in Prague, distracting people from the frustrations of dealing with government employees.
DAF Group Feature: Vol. 180
Your Weekly Mixx! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of contemporary art and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. This week, we feature the work of Aurora Robson, DZIA, Adonna Khare, Emilia Dubicki, Hiroshi Watanabe, Nicole Dextras, Darryl Cox, Jr., Lorraine Roy and a video by Istanbul-based new media agency Ouchhh. Inspired by the iconic work of Buckminster Fuller, AVA_V2 / Particle Physics_Scientific_Installation was created by using projection mapping on a hemisphere structure made of semi transparent fabric, requiring the installation to have six projectors. We developed our own technology which enabled the mapping to be projected in all 360 degrees. This installation and its structure were designed with assembly/disassembly in mind, thus allowing the installation to be re-performed anywhere in same conditions.
DAF Group Feature: Vol. 179
Your Weekly Mixx! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of contemporary art and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. This week, we feature the work of Lisa Occhipinti, Aaron Kinnane, Claudio Fuente, Diane Cooper, Henrik Uldalen, Michal Lukasiewi, Crystal Wagner, and Felipe Foncueva.
DAF Group Feature: Vol. 178
Your Weekly Mixx! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of contemporary art and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. This week, we feature the work of Claudio Fuente, Coista Magarakis, Pastel, Hector Frank, Jaqueline Rush Lee, Aida Muluneh, Monique Orsini, Stéphane Halleux, and a video featuring the three-dimensional art objects of Chie Hitotsuyama whose works use the material of old newspapers that stopped serving their role as an information medium. She breathes artistic life and value into those newspapers and repurposes them into new shapes. (via Vimeo)
DAF Group Feature: Vol. 177
Your Weekly Mixx! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of contemporary art and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. This week, we feature the work of Steven Powers, Malcom T. Liepke, James Ettelson, Remy Soubanere, Sebas Velasco, Travis Collinson, Saba Ghole and Shilo Shiv Suleman, Hopare, and a short video by Will Farrell featuring Edourd Martinet’s whose “art will make you reimagine the insect world. The Frenchman’s sculptures are distinctly creepy, true to nature, and full of life. His medium is piles of bent metals and cast-off bits and pieces with shapes that appeal to him: bike parts, kitchen spatulas, trumpet parts, umbrella ribs—anything can be of use.” (via YouTube)
DAF Group Feature: Vol. 176
Your Weekly Mixx! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of contemporary art and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. This week, we feature the work of Kate MccGuire, Herakut, David Alexander, Gonzalo Garcia Calvo, Jessica Eve Rattner, Rick Berry, Sergey Kalinin, Zemer Peled and a video with Greg “Craola” Simkins painting his piece “When Life Give’s Lemons”.
DAF Group Feature: Vol. 175
Your Weekly Mixx! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of contemporary artworks and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. This week, we feature the work of Michael Adamson, Bordalo II, Guennadi Kalinine, Christina Mrozik, Derick Melander, Molly Wood, Oleg Oprisco, Nicole Watt and a video on the installation “Narcissism : Dazzle room” by Shigeki Matsuyama. This installation is one of a series of dazzle camouflage themed works the artist has been creating since 2013.
Dazzle camouflage was a type of ship camouflage used during World War I. As its name suggests, it was meant to dazzle and confuse the human eye. In an era where radar technology did not exist, an enemy vessel’s range and heading needed to be visually identified for targeting. The complex black and white patterns painted on ships with dazzle camouflage made it difficult to ascertain whether a target was moving closer or farther away and prevented accurate firing.
The person in the room covered with dazzle camouflage uploads selfies to social media while surrounded by a larger self representing narcissism. In an era where much communication occurs over social media, metrics such as likes and follows fulfill our desire for recognition; however, the ease of which we can obtain validation from others leads to the growth of this desire, and we attempt to satiate it using our self-image or “larger self.” The boundary between self and self-image is unconsciously blurred by dazzle camouflage, and as a result, we ourselves cease to recognize our own boundaries. (via vimeo)
DAF Group Feature: Vol. 174
Your Weekly Mixx! DAF’s Weekly Mixx is a selection of contemporary artworks and/or art related videos chosen from artist and gallery submissions and from our own search for new and interesting works. This week, we feature the work of Carlos Garaicoa, Dan Tirels, Eric Esterle, Michaël Husser, Gilles Bensimon, Kiki Xue, Linda Jacobson, Shai Yossef and a video from the Whitney Museum of American Art, Human Interest: Martha Wilson on John Coplans, artist Martha Wilson discusses honesty in John Coplans’s portrait Frieze, No. 2, Four Panels, 1994 and her own.
If you would like your work featured in the Weekly Mixx, visit the Submissions page for information on how to apply.
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