Prophet or Prophecy….Jean Michel Basquiat?

Great film of a great artist.

Really lucky to catch a BBC screened film, charting the artistic life and work of Jean Michel Basquiat, who started out as a street Artist, with others, as ‘Samo’. The very prolific main body of his Art as Basquiat had always shocked me. It also turned me off a little, while I still had to look…I viewed his work as apocalyptic or even existential nihilism? It was actually a real story of how one, brilliant young black Artist, saw the world in the 70’s and 80’s.

“The more I paint the more I like everything.” 

As always, the reality in any Art and it’s Artist is also the back story. The message being conveyed in their Art, its own prophetic meaning to the individual artist. Once all is known, it can perhaps be understood or interpreted, in as many ways as there are humans on the planet? Basquiat was very clear about his message and once the work was done and out there, he tragically died aged 27. Quite apart from how he died, sadly, in a very ‘modern’ way, he would surely not be happy with how his work is sought or valued now. Though this is the fame he sought from the outset.

“I don’t think about art when I’m working. I try to think about life.” 

I wondered after seeing the film, if there was yet another meaning now Basquiat’s Art sells for $100m plus. Was this a metaphor for the world…it being all about the money? Or that we have forsaken all peoples and the planet to chase it down, as that’s all that matters now? Has the fact that Covid has shown this thinking at odds with the planet! It stopped the world and us in our tracks, meaning we got it wrong? Or maybe our politics are now manipulated and marginalized by social media? And yes, technically tampered with, meaning we have little voice, or can’t trust what’s being said to us now?

“I don’t listen to what art critics say. I don’t know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.” 

If Jean Michel Basquiat were here with us now, he would surely be horrified by the lack of freedom to express your truth. Or enjoy civil liberty, as he did. The facets of his Art work are so far reaching, for all people. The message or prophecy, which ever you prefer….must surely be, you don’t have to die young, even if you make it so big. This was a sad, and very tragic loss for all, and mostly for our future world…whatever that may be?