“Looking at [Basquiat’s works on paper], one cannot escape without feeling the almost perverse sense of care taken to raw detail with what seems an acute distracted concentration.”
E xecuted at the apex of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s career, Untitled (Black) offers a glimpse into the artist’s energetic, imaginative and ingenious mind. The present work illustrates a vibrant symphony of densely layered motifs and symbols that have come to characterize Basquiat’s diverse practice. A masterly combination of figuration and abstraction drawn purely in black and white, the present work reveals various faces, hands, feet, and coins along with letters and fragments of words that are instantly recognizable features of Basquiat’s oeuvre. Different from his paintings, the frenetic energy of Basquiat’s works on paper are unique in their raw immediacy that pave the way for his creative genius to shine through in an unaltered fashion. A self-taught artist, Basquiat’s genius lay in his instinctive understanding of composition and unique iconographic lexicon, and the immediacy of paper as a medium provided the perfect vehicle for Basquiat’s innate brilliance. It is easy to see the appeal of working on paper for Basquiat as there is little possibility of correction through overpainting. As a result, works on paper, including the present example, stand as tangible records of the artist’s otherworldly way of thinking and in turn his limitless creative potential. As seen in the present work, Basquiat repeatedly scratches off segments of the composition as well as leaves parts unfinished, unearthing the rapidness of his artistic thinking resulting in a raw work of art that holds true to the artist's innate skill. The free-formed, distinctive articulations of Untitled (Black) are remnants of Basquiat’s short yet dynamite life and brilliance.
"Drawing, for [Basquiat], was something you did rather than something done, an activity rather than a medium. The seemingly throw-away sheets that carpeted his studio might appear little more than warm-ups for painting, except that the artist, a shrewd connoisseur of his own off-hand and under foot inventions, did not in fact throw them away, but instead kept the best for constant reference and re-use. Or, kept them because they were, quite simply, indestructibly vivid."
A combination of symbolic abstraction and categorical figuration, the present work includes various symbols that allude to Basquiat’s view of the world around him. Within the present work, words such as “FLEXI”, “SILVER", and the trademarked “BLACK” as well as numbers like "3,000" are scattered throughout the composition. Several renditions of faces, hands, feet, and teeth, stemming from Basquiat's fascination for Henry Gray's Gray's Anatomy , are revealed under a sea of black shading, that fills the composition through its horizontal and vertical lines. Images of U.S. quarters and watering pots as well as various geometric shapes stand out. The consistent use of the trademarked word "BLACK" could signal Basquiat's identity. Most notably, however, is the drawing of a man’s face at the upper right corner of the composition. The gaping, voided stare is eerily reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, which Basquiat admired and studied extensively.
The general darkened tone of the present work invokes a mysterious and supernatural aura that seemingly belongs to “another plane, a different dimension, in which the comic strip borders on the immateriality of the spirit world. The body, constantly evoked, becomes an idea, a fleeting trace without substance, all light and shadow. Like the maker of the image, it is both inside and out.” (Francesco Pellizzi, “Black and White All Over,” Exh. Cat., Art Gallery of Ontario, Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now’s the t.mes
, 2015, pp. 187-189). The present work’s aggressive, exhilarating rhythm recalls the energy of 1980s Lower Manhattan, where Basquiat spent the majority of his t.mes
. Phrases and imagery mined from Basquiat’s lived experience and personal findings are transformed into verses as the artist breaks them down into shorter groups of words, conveying a lyrical sense of rhythm akin to the cadence of a Jazz song. Electric in its talismanic immediacy, Basquiat’s Untitled (Black) is packed with recurring themes from his artistic oeuvre, which send the viewer on an ongoing attempt to unpack the artist’s dense imagery.
Leonardo da Vinci plays a fundamental role in the self-taught training of Basquiat: the transposition of this icon into a new aesthetic universe allows Basquiat to confront and measure himself against his mentor. From this clash of the titans emerges a work of unparalleled richness and complexity, powerful and coherent. Between 1982-1983, crucial years in his career, the incursions of Leonardo are frequent in the paintings of Basquiat. Mona Lisa from 1983 is comparable to the present work’s rendition of a Leonardo-esque figure.
At the age of seven, Jean-Michel Basquiat was a victim of a serious car accident, and while recovering his mother gave him a copy of the famous Gray's Anatomy. Throughout his recovery, the book fascinated him, and the study of human anatomy would continue to interest him in his adulthood, bleeding into his artwork.
The image of the coin is another persistent theme in Basquiat’s oeuvre. Possibly referencing Basquiat’s personal narrative growing up as a Black artist under economic hardship, coins serve as a symbol of the artist’s relationship with money. Additionally, as Basquiat became more and more successful, currency soon became a significant symbol of power structures and systems.
Throughout his practice, Basquiat has explored themes surrounding his Black identity through the stamping and trademarking of the word “BLACK”. Through this act, Basquiat encourages the viewer to consider his race as a crucial element of his art.
The symbol illustrated here is a hobo sign for tobacco leaf. This image as well as the text “TOBACCO” are recurrent throughout Basquiat’s practice, often in connection to Native American subjects, as with his work Untitled (Tobacco Versus Red Chief). The tobacco leaf symbol directly relates to Basquiat’s exploration of race, colonialism and slavery as tobacco was the leading cash crop grown in the plantation economy.
The present work was revisited throughout Basquiat's career after his foray into Xerox art. Beginning in 1983, collage became a defining element of his practice—Basquiat began to extensively use the photocopier as a tool to create paintings. The process of photocopying became so integral to his practice that he eventually invested in his own color Xerox machine for his studio. He called upon the cut-up technique popularized by Beat Generation writer William S. Burroughs to assemble cut-and-ripped photocopies into large-scale compositions that he overlaid with text, symbols, drawings and found objects. Notably, the present work made its way into three revered large-scale paintings: Famous Moon King (1984), Logo (1984), and Untitled (1984).
Untitled (Black) exemplifies Basquiat’s practice of combining various symbols and figures that reveal a microcosm of meaning in the rawest approach possible. Although impossible to dilute his imagery into one all encompassing theme, the present work ultimately serves as an example of Basquiat's keen attention to detail and mastery of the line. Exemplifying the raw receptivity and hypersensitivity to his surroundings, Untitled (Black) achieves an intimate look into Basquiat's world, through the unmediated accumulation and articulation of the artist’s lived experience.
