Talk:Jean-Michel Basquiat/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

Reviewer: Caeciliusinhorto (talk · contribs) 07:19, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

I will review this article. Initial comments hopefully later today. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 07:19, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

In a reversal of my usual practice, as this is a visual arts article I started by looking at the images.


 * File:AsPoster-SAMO-Mania-D.-363x500.jpg is tagged as CC-BY-SA for the photograph, but there is no information about the copyright status of the poster itself. As posters are normally protected by copyright, it needs an explanation as to why it is not in copyright.
 * File:Drawing by Jean-Michel Basquiat, (Axe-Rene) 1982.jpeg and File:Untitled acrylic and mixed media on canvas by --Jean-Michel Basquiat--, 1984.jpg: both of these include as part of the fair use rationale that they show Basquiat's work. Per WP:NFCC#3a, "Multiple items of non-free content are not used if one item can convey equivalent significant information."  The fair use rationales need to explain why these two images convey different information.

I also notice that there are several external links in the body of the article (I count four; I may have missed others). WP:EL says that external links "should not normally be placed in the body of an article".

Comments on the text of the article later. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 17:14, 4 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks for taking on this review. Regarding the formatting of the cites, I could only locate 3 of the cites which needed to be formatted and have done this in the article. Since the article is fairly stable, if you would like me to format or reformat any of the other cites, then you can list them by footnote number and I will see to doing them as well.
 * Ah, perhaps I was not clear. I wasn't looking at cites: I was looking at links to other websites in the body of the article.  I removed them in this edit. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:38, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Regarding the Fair Use images rationale, this has differed in the two cases you mention. In the case of the poster the use of the image was justified as to its use being limited to the low-res image, and poster protection of converted images is different from original images. The Fair Use of the Skull image was discussed in 2016 and the decision was to retain it as discussed there. At present, the 2 images you mention illustrate 2 different sections in the article, though that might be adapted later on during editing or by other editors to use them in other sections. My thought would be to keep the rationale as belonging to the article as a whole, and not require other editors to remake the rationale argument or adjust it each time the image is shifted within the same article. Let me know it that sounds reasonable. I'll also look forward to your comments on the main body of the article when you can start listing them here. CodexJustin (talk) 15:02, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
 * I am slightly confused. The poster doesn't have a fair use rationale at all.  It is hosted on Commons, which doesn't host fair use works.  Therefore, it should be out of copyright, and needs some explanation as to why.  If it is not out of copyright, we need to host the image on en.wikipedia, not commons, and we need a fair use rationale.
 * Regarding the two drawings: the fair use rationale for each drawing needs to explain what it adds to the article individually. I don't think that it needs to refer to a particular section, but it does need to explain why the two drawings are not conveying the same information. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:38, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Ready for edit comments for main body of article when you are ready to continue. CodexJustin (talk) 14:44, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
 * apologies for the delay – I wrote up a long comment on Friday evening and my browser crashed just before posting it, and then I was busy all weekend. I shall try to reconstruct my commentary on the biography section of the article this evening... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 16:36, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

Prose comments
Comments on §Biography
 * "Matilde Andrades": Matilde and Gérard were married when Basquiat was born. Had she kept her maiden name?
 * "Jose Machado": Machado is a Portuguese/Spanish name, which suggests to me that his first name is actually José?
 * "a more than competent athlete": what's wrong with a simple "good athlete"
 * "the Gray's anatomy book": "a copy of Gray's anatomy" would be more idiomatic.
 * "San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1974": needs comma after Puerto Rico
 * Why did Basquiat run away from home?
 * "Basquiat transitioned from being homeless and unemployed to selling a single painting for up to $25,000 in a matter of several years." Can this sentence be rewritten more elegantly? It's pretty clunky.
 * There's an apparent contradiction between "In 1976, Basquiat and his friend Al Diaz began spray painting graffiti [...] under the pseudonym SAMO" and "In 1978, Basquiat [...] began "SAMO,""
 * "Plus safe he think.. SAMO": is this correct? If so, mark with .  Else correct.
 * "SAMO," should have the comma outside the quotation marks. There are various other violations of MOS:LQ throughout the article.
 * "When Basquiat and Diaz ended their friendship, The SAMO project ended": "The" shouldn't be capitalised here
 * "where in October 1979 Basquiat showed, among others, his SAMO color Xerox work": I think this means that B was part of a group show, but it's ambiguous; it could equally be taken to mean he showed the color Xerox work and other things too. Clarify.
 * And while we are at it, what is "color Xerox work"?
 * "Gray also consisted of" is an awkward construction. And if the members of Gray are important enough to be named, why not at the first mention of the band?
 * "The early 1980s were Basquiat's breakthrough as a solo artist". Awkward construction.  The 80s were not themselves B's breakthrough.  Perhaps they saw B's breakthrough?
 * "Emilio Mazzoli, an Italian gallerist saw": should be a comma after "gallerist".
 * "Modena (Italy)[...] Modena, Italy": wikilink should be at first mention; geographical disambiguation should be with commas as throughout the rest of the article on first mention, and is probably unneeded on second.
 * "In March 1982...": three uses of "work"/"worked" in this sentence, and it's a real run-on one: break it up!
 * "I was a little concerned -- one too many": use an n-dash rather than two hyphens!
 * "he took considerable interest": presumably B took, but grammatically this refers to Larry Gagosian.
 * "In the early 1980s, David Bowie[...]" this sentence doesn't appear to connect to the rest of the paragraph.
 * "In late 1981 Basquiat met Annina Nosei and had a first exhibition with her gallery in a group show in October called Public Address with Keith Haring and Barbara Kruger among others": this sentence feels like it could be made significantly less convoluted.
 * "his girlfriend (from 1981-1983), Suzanne Mallouk". Date range should either be "from 1981 to 1983" or "1981–1983". And we've just been told that in 1982 B's girlfriend was Madonna!
 * "the single contained two versions of the same track: "Beat Bop" on side one with vocals and "Beat Bop" on side two as an instrumental." when talking about vinyl singles, I believe A-side and B-side are the conventional terms. And can the repetition of "Beat Bop" be avoided?
 * "Despite his artistic success in this period, he began to use heroin frequently. Many of his peers speculated that his heroin use was a means of coping with the demands of his newfound fame[...]" If the heroin use was a coping mechanism, why is it "despite" his success?
 * "Despite the unsuccessful attempt at sobriety": I suspect "despite", "attempt" and "died [...] of a heroin overdose" make "unsuccessful" redundant!
 * "Among those... were... Ingrid Sischy": should be "was".

I will tackle §Artistry later (probably tomorrow)... Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 17:20, 8 July 2019 (UTC)


 * That should be up to date. Look forward to Artistry when you are ready. CodexJustin (talk) 20:57, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

On §Artistry
 * "According to Sirmans": who is Sirmans? Give his full name (and wikilink him) on first mention.
 * Similarly, give Brentjes' full name
 * "A recurrent and prominent theme in the early Basquiat portrayed historical and non-historical black figures who were identified by Basquiat as black heroes and saints." This sentence doesn't make sense.
 * "used to distinguished": should be "distinguish"
 * "As summarized in Art Daily concerning the Basquiat show in the Bilbao Guggenheim": this is also ungrammatical. Perhaps "As the Art Daily described Basquiat's show in the Bilbao Guggenheim..."
 * "and many other sculpture and mixed media works as well": definitely cut "other"; probably "as well" is unnecessary also.
 * Ricard's first name is given as Rene in the text, and in Untitled (Axe/Rene), but René in the title of Basquiat's drawing René Ricard. Is this correct?
 * Formatting of artwork title and date is inconsistent. Sometimes we have "Untitled 1983", sometimes "Untitled (1983)", and sometimes "Untitled, 1983".

More anon. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:10, 8 July 2019 (UTC)


 * That should be up to date now for Artistry. Ready for next set of edits. CodexJustin (talk) 17:18, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

On §Reception, exhibitions and art market
 * The whole first paragraph is problematic. First sentence makes sense but is clunky.  Second doesn't.  Perhaps "refereed" should be "referred to"?  What does "the action of painting in Basquiat" mean?
 * Then the next paragraph: "A second recurrent reference to Basquiat's aesthetics comes from the role of the artist as a person sharing, in the words of Niru Ratnum, a "highly individualistic, expressive view of the world"." What?
 * "Basquiat seems to invite us to in the words of Luis Alberto Mejia Clavijo," at the very least there should be a comma after "to" here, but "us" is not very encyclopedic (see MOS:WE).
 * "Reviews about his work have been written on the direct relation of painting and graffiti as stated by Olivia Laing[...]": this "as stated by" construction appears several times in the article and is very awkward. Avoid.
 * Throughout the article, but particularly in this section, there are a lot of long quotations. I think there are on the whole too many: as MOS:QUOTE says, "try not to overuse them[...] it is generally recommended that content be written in Wikipedia editors' own words".
 * "Basquiat's first public exhibition was[...]": when was it?
 * "Rotterdam, in 1985)" a closing parenthesis with no matching opening paren
 * "the Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover (1987, 1989)": missing something here.
 * "The catalog for this exhibition, edited by Richard Marshall and including several essays of differing styles." another ungrammatical sentence fragment.
 * "Basque and the Bayou": every other show is given in italics, but this one in quotation marks.
 * "begins his first paragraph": just "begins" is more concise and conveys exactly the same meaning
 * "The praises to follow are in the lines of "talentless hustler"": more grammatical problems
 * I am not clear why there are two separate subsections, one entitled "Reception" and one "Reviews".
 * "his market has developed": ugh, this is corporate jargon. "the market for his work" has developed.
 * "$185,000 worth of fake drawings put forth as being the work of Basquiat.": perhaps "$185,000 worth of fake Basquiat drawings"?
 * Do we really need two and a half paragraphs of blow-by-blow record-setting Basquiat prices? Our article on Van Gogh (a Featured Article) is twice as long as this one yet has much less on the topic of his record-setting prices.
 * "Maezawa's two purchases of Basquiat artworks in 2016 and 2017 currently reach a total approaching $170M USD." if this is really that important, "currently reach" is superfluous, but frankly I think this whole sentence can be cut. Anyone reading this article can do the arithmetic here.
 * "The Authentication Committee of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat": is this really a proper noun?

And on Legacy: no comments on the prose, but this just reads like a list of stuff which happened, without any narrative tying it together.

Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 19:15, 9 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Ready for the next group of edits when you are ready with them. CodexJustin (talk) 20:58, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

One unconnected point: Joe Lewis (linked under "Heroes and Saints") is a disambiguation page. Is this meant to point to Joe Lewis (artist)? or someone else?

Sourcing comments
Looking at references: plenty of them, which is always a good start. Citation formatting wildly inconsistent, which would be a problem at FA level, but not strictly required at GA.


 * Cite 15 (as of this revision) reads "Harvey Russack, founder, owner, and CEO of Unique Clothing Warehouse 1971–1992." If this comes from a published interview, that needs to be cited; if it doesn't, then it's not verifiable and can't be used as a source.
 * "That same year, Basquiat formed the noise rock band Test Pattern – which was later renamed Gray – which played at Arleen Schloss's open space, "Wednesdays at A's",[18]" I cannot see how the source cited supports this claim – it's the auction record for a Basquiat drawing.
 * Cite 19 is to a 90-minute documentary. Can you include a timestamp!?  Same for cite 22.
 * Cite 28 links to the main page of the Annina Nosei Gallery website, which does not support the claim that it is cited for.
 * Cite 65 is a wiki, and therefore is not reliable
 * Cite 67 reads "Hoffman, Fred. "The Defining Years: Notes on Five Key Works," in Ibid., p. 13)". Hoffman's "The Defining Years" certainly doesn't come from the Sotheby's May 2017 Contemporary Art Evening Sale.

Next stop: spotchecking sources. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 21:38, 14 July 2019 (UTC)


 * The cites you have just listed have been largely changed over to new ones or corrected. The last one is a book page cite which looks correct for Fred Hoffman, I am missing the connection to your mention of 'Sotheby's May 2017', let me know what is still missing. The book cite for Hoffman is correct. Otherwise, article is ready for your next set of edit requests and modifications. CodexJustin (talk) 15:07, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The problem with the Hoffman cite is the "ibid". Ibid means "in the same source as the previous citation", which in this case is the Sotheby's catalogue.  Only the Hoffman chapter certainly wasn't published in the Sotheby's catalogue. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:27, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Okay, spotchecked a few sources and I have further questions/comments. (Referring to sources as of this revision):


 * Curiator (cite 59) is user-generated and therefore not reliable
 * Why is InEnArt (cite 100) reliable?

Instances where the source doesn't appear to support the claim made:
 * "He slept on park benches in Tompkins Square Park, and was arrested and returned to the care of his father within a week.": both cited sources say Washington Square Park; Hoban supports that he was brought home by the police but doesn't say arrested.
 * I can't work out how cite 51 supports the sentence it is put with.
 * This is to support the gallery designations at Bilbao: “Street as Studio” and “Heroes and Saints”. It is in the article's Heroes section on Wikipedia. Is this the '51' you refer to ? CodexJustin (talk) 17:00, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
 * No, I am referring to the Laura Cumming review of Boom for Real in the Guardian. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 17:17, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
 * "Drawings became central to his work as he developed as an artist." What in the cited source supports this claim?

Instances of close paraphrasing:
 * "At the suggestion of Swiss dealer Bruno Bischofberger, Warhol and Basquiat worked on a series of collaborative paintings between 1983 and 1985. In the case of Olympic Rings (1985), Warhol made several variations of the Olympic five-ring symbol, rendered in the original primary colors. Basquiat responded to the abstract, stylized logos with his oppositional graffiti style." cf. cite 32.
 * "From a very young age Basquiat would produce cartoon-inspired drawings alongside his mother, who had an interest in fashion design and sketching." cf. cite 53.
 * "In 1985, he was featured on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in connection with an article on the newly exuberant international art market; this was unprecedented for an African-American artist, and for an artist so young." cf. cite 97.

Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 15:34, 16 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Ready for next group of edits. There is a comment above in response to one of your notations. This last one from you was the best yet... who were those naughty previous editors with all those close quotations? Ready for next edits when you are. CodexJustin (talk) 17:28, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Comments on lead:
 * What does it mean for Basquiat to "appropriate" drawing and painting?!
 * "Basquiat's art has inspired many in the hip hop music community such as Jay-Z." In the lead, but not as far as I can see in the body of the article. Per WP:LEAD, the lead should summarise what the body says.

I still see various problems mentioned above which have gone unaddressed. Some of these are relatively minor problems in the grand scheme of things (violations of MOS:LQ, which is not strictly required for GA; inconsistencies in how artwork dates are given). Others are more problematic: I am still unhappy with the copyright status of the three images discussed above; I am not sure why we are uncritically saying He slept on park benches in Tompkins Square Park when various sources cited in the article say it was Washington Square Park...

Unfortunately, between these issues and the various troubling instances of close paraphrasing found by Earwig's tool I am not comfortable letting this article pass as a GA at this point. I don't have access to all of the printed sources to check them thouroughly for issues, nor do I have the time to do so. I suggest you get hold of the printed sources and make sure you can attest that there are no remaining copyvio/close paraphrasing problems before you re-nominate this article. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 17:17, 24 July 2019 (UTC)