User:Lm16v/sandbox

Background
Born in Park Slope, Brooklyn, Jean-Michel Basquiat displayed an aptitude for art at a very young age. Raised by parents of both Haitian and Puerto Rican descent, Basquiat grew up experiencing life through a multicultural lense. With a multitude of influences from contemporary pop culture and his own personal life surrounding him, Basquiat began his career of creating images in the nineteen seventies. Primarily a graffiti and street artist in his early years, Basquiat’s first works consisted of large scale pictures overlaid with text on various buildings scattered about Manhattan. At the same time, Basquiat was heavily involved in drugs such as LSD and PCP, which would later lead to his untimely death at the age of twenty-seven. Basquiat named as his main pop culture influences Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and fellow artist Andy Warhol. The culture and lifestyle of the seventies that these figures engaged in is communicated through many of Basquiat’s works, including one of his later paintings, Dustheads. Dustheads, which was completed by Basquiat in nineteen eighty-two, is a large scale acrylic and spray enamel composition. Standing at just under seven feet tall, Dustheads presents the viewer with an array of bold colors and expressive lines. Falling under the stylistic umbrella of Neo-Expressionism, Dustheads utilizes abstract lines along with vivid coloring to convey a sense of exaggerated emotion and feeling. Many critics viewed these aspects of Basquiat’s work as too informal and unprofessional due to a lack of traditional “‘formal”’ artistic elements. Basquiat’s lack of a structured art education did not help matters, as his graffiti-like image did not appeal to the more traditional art aesthetic. Contrary to these critiques, Basquiat does indeed communicate much more than simply line and color to the viewer. In Dustheads, two simply drawn figures stand against a dark black background. There is nothing substantial below their feet, but the idea of a street sidewalk is implied by a few quickly drawn lines. The figures are not realistic in the least bit, their bodies’ bodies only composed of straight lines, and look similar to the chalk or crayon drawing of a child. Surrounding the figures are multiple lines of color, which seem to serve no purpose beyond decoration.

Influences
Basquiat must have been looking to art trends of the past, as stylistically these attributes show the influences of Cy Twombly and Jean Dubuffet, both of whom worked withemployed abstraction to express raw and excited emotion. The influence of these two artists can be seen across Basquiat’s works, with author Leonard Emmerling going as far to say, “If Cy Twombly and Jean Dubuffet had a child and gave it up for adoption it would be Jean-Michel Basquiat.” Also like the works of Twombly and Dubuffet, in Dustheads Basquiat pulls from a nontraditional art form, graffiti, in order to illustrate the message of the artist. In this case, the simplistic forms and thick brushstrokes are Basquiat’s way of expressing the tumultuous political and cultural climate of the nineteen eighties1980s that he was experiencing. Additionally, the title gives further insight into the painting. The term dustheads is commonly used as a slang expression when talking about drug addicts, specifically addicts whose drug of choice is PCP, or “‘angel dust." The chaotic, nonrealistic scene could also relate to the hallucinogenic effects of PCP, which can cause one to experience unusual visions in extraordinary vividness. Basquiat’s painting, therefore, could represent the type of scene one might experience while high on PCP, one filled with nonsensical chaos and color.

Impact
Overall, Dustheads presents viewers with a complex and stimulating picture, contrary to its simplistic lines and forms. The bold colors and abstracted brushwork evoke a sense of urgency and dramatic emotion, similar to the effects of PCP and other popular drugs at the time. On the other hand, Basquiat also creates an image indicative of its time, revealing the confused and hectic experiences of a black male living in contemporary timesliving in modern New York City. In 2013, Dustheads was sold by Christie's auction house for just over $48,000,000.