Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) - Six Fifty - Artestar licensed print

Jean-Michel Basquiat Lithography (*)
High-quality reproduction of the work “Six Fifty,” created by Basquiat in 1982.
Luxury edition on Monte Carlo high-gram watercolor paper (300 g/m2)
Print authorized by Artestar New York.
Copyright of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Specifications:

- Support dimensions: 40 x 39 cm
- Stain dimensions: 30 x 29 cm
- Condition: Excellent (this work has never been framed or exhibited, and has always been kept in a professional art folder, therefore it is offered in perfect condition).

The work will be carefully handled and packaged in a reinforced flat cardboard shipping box. The shipping will be certified with a tracking number, operated by the best transport companies (UPS DPD DHL FedEx).

The shipment will also include full insurance for the final value of the work with full reimbursement in case of loss or damage, at no cost to the buyer.

(*) Jean-Michel Basquiat was the eldest of the three children of Matilde Andrades and Gerard Basquiat. His father was a Haitian accountant of respectable economic solvency and his mother a Puerto Rican graphic designer of great prestige in her profession. Jean-Michel grew up in a torn family environment, his parents divorced and because of this he had to change schools many times. He studied at a private Catholic school, later at a public school and finally, at 16, he enrolled in City-As-School, a school for gifted teenagers, from which he was expelled a year before graduating for rebellious behavior.
In his youth he came into contact with the subculture of the big city, related to drug use and street gangs. In 1977, together with Al Díaz, he entered the world of graffiti, painting on subway cars and in the SoHo area, a New York neighborhood where art galleries proliferated.
The following year he left school one year before graduating from high school and left home to live for two years on the streets, in abandoned buildings or with his friends in Lower Manhattan, surviving by selling postcards and T-shirts that he decorated himself. He continued to devote himself to graffiti; his paintings and writings had a lot of poetic and philosophical charge, but above all satirical. The alias of his shared alter ego with Al Díaz was SAMO (an acronym for “Same Old Shit,” meaning “the same old crap,” with which they both signed their tags and graffiti with cryptic messages. The use of this name was decisive in his life.
These murals carried inscriptions such as “SAMO saves idiots” or “SAMO ends brainwashing of religion, the politics of nothingness, and false philosophy.” An article about SAMO’s street writing published in The Village Voice was the first sign that the art world was taking an interest in him.
The artist had several relationships that influenced his work; one of the most significant was with the artist Andy Warhol.
Also, romantically, he was involved with several women, one of the most well-known today being Madonna. Lower Manhattan was the area where they lived at that time, and it was in 1982 when they began to spend more time together and go to gallery parties. A topic that united them: she mentions in an interview, “She was a big fan of Miles Davis and Charlie Parker.”
In 1988 exhibitions were established in Paris and New York, and in April of that year he tried to abandon his addictions and retreated to his home in Hawaii. He returned to New York in June, announcing that he had freed himself from his addictions, but on August 12, 1988, at the age of 27, he died of a heroin overdose, becoming the most successful visual artist in the history of Afro-descendant art. He is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.
Throughout his brief but intense artistic career he would mount more than 40 solo exhibitions and participate in around 100 group shows. Self-promotion and advertising claims were priorities for Basquiat, as they had previously been for Andy Warhol or Julian Schnabel.
Neo-expressionism came to dominate over appropriationism, in part thanks to the economic upswing that pushed art prices to high levels and, especially, painting, and in part thanks to the support of gallery owners and collectors. However, critics were not unanimous in their assessment, and it was common to denounce the lack of theoretical basis in the neo-expressionist discourse. It was asserted that the art practiced by neo-expressionists lacked any political or social meaning; it was merely merchandise and, therefore, subject to market fluctuations. Neo-expressionist painting was reduced to a consumer product and, as such, a creatively disqualified and vulgar fact.