Basquiat Forever?

This summer marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Jean-Michel Basquiat, the NYC street artist who became one of his generation's most acclaimed painters.

The child of a broken home, of Haitian and Puerto Rican parents, he migrated from Brooklyn to Manhattan, living on the streets, spray-painting "SAMO" all over town (short for "Same Old Shit"), and was soon discovered by Andy Warhol and the NYC downtown art world. Almost overnight he was displaying his work at P.S. 1  (in 1981) establishing him as a hot young artist. By the mid-1980s his work was in high demand, and he became a bona fide art world celebrity. His work was wild, unconventional, a little dangerous, a little dirty, but always colorful. And he was young, black, beautiful, and he even dated Madonna. He was "It."

And then, tragically, he died (from a drug overdose at the age of 27). He passed from man to myth, a person to a legend (a movie was even made about his life.) Since then, the value of Basquiat's work has grown astronomically. Last year, his painting "Untitled" sold for $110.5, the highest amount of money paid for an American painting ever (and the sixth most paid for any painting in history). Basquiat's reputation as a great talent, that shone brief and bright, is assured.

But is deserved?

This a hard, hard question. When people spend that kind of money on a painting, when a man is remembered, both for his life and work, for a time longer after his death than he lived, it seems like the answer is an easy "Yes." And, yes, he was young and black and he worked very hard in his brief life, so one is mindful of his tough background that he overcame with genuine accomplishment. But his work was ... not necessarily that great. It wasn't bad but not truly deserving of the hype. At least that's what "some people" say, both then and now.

When Basquiat died in 1988, a critic named Robert Hughes published a rather controversial article that argued just that: Basquiat was a talented but not really great artist. He was, Hughes posited,  more a product of marketing and celebrity. In fact, by the time Basquiat died, his art was falling out of favor. It wasn't selling as briskly and was already, by 1988, regarded by the art world as a bit passe (such is the shelf life of trends). But Basquiat's death changed all that. Since there would be no more work, he instantly became an icon, a collector's item, his reputation frozen in time, now forever timeless. Hughes pondered, "The reputation may survive, or it may not."

Clearly, it has -- if present day sales figures mean anything. But it's not unquestioned. Now, almost 30 years later, as the anniversary of Basquiat's death arrived, and as the price of art goes ever skyward, the question remains: was he a better celebrity than artist? Does the work match the hype (and money)? 

A more recent article examines that same question and comes up with a much more complicated answer than does the reputation "survive" or not -- it obviously survives, but not because the work itself is so great but because we need to believe that Basquiat was great -- certainly his (short) life story was until its tragic end, and the fact that his life gives all starving artists (no matter their race or background) a rooting chance. We value Basquiat because of what he means to us, as much as his work, and he'll endure, as this article makes clear, because "the market will bear" it. That, in America, it what always rules but it also reflect that he and his work are still valued.

The life and work and legend of Jean-Michel Basquiat -- both beloved and highly rewarded and, at the same time, unsettled, both then and now -- reflects the enduring vissicitudes of art and our attitudes towards it, and also how we can both love something and someone (living or dead) and question whether their popular reputation (good or bad) is deserved. Like life, it's a complicated, ultimately unanswerable question. 

That constant conflict, within the self and between people, between how we feel about people and their work, will most certainly survive, no matter what the market will bear.