How Basquiat Became the $60 Million Man

It is very ironic that Basquiat, who mocked the Capitalistic System in his paintings, has become this huge money maker for Rich people. He would probably find it humorous that this 'Ugly Head Painting' sold for $110 million dollars. I am a big fan of his work but this painting is not one of his best. I have seen paintings very similar to this one on E-Bay selling for $5.00.

Anyone who says Basquiats best work is the early eighties is someone whose extent of knowledge begins and ends with other articles that make similar claims. Those articles are cheap piggybacks on the easy, false narrative that early works by artists are usually 'better'. The greatest, most insightful baquiat ever made was 'riding with death' from 1988, the year he died. In 1987 he made a series of superhero inspired works where he appropriates the real power of brand in a groundbreaking way. Works from this series traded privately for record prices north of 20 million many years ago. I don't mean to insult articles like this but the author simply is not versed enough on the subject and it pains me to see misinformation spread.

Flip the coin over and consider: Does this sale reveal what today's billionaires consider that art is worth to them, or does it reveal what money is worth to them?

Oh, please. He's not even a major artist. There's nothing notable in his work that wasn't done (better) by De Kooning thirty years earlier.

https://elitistunderground.wordpress.com/2017/05/23/whats-in-the-news-th...

"Basquiat certainly earned the distinction that his painting selling for such a large sum brings, but we need to question who decided who gets such a distinction. The answer is, of course, the rich. This moment alludes to a greater truth about the art world: art only becomes fine art when it becomes inaccessible."

Andy Warhol's unmatchable bon mot:
"Art is what you can get away with."

"It's only natural to play the skeptic when the artworld is a circus of profligacy, drunk with cash, and when dimwitted speculators make headlines, wasting fortunes on bad art." - MICHAEL KIMMELMAN, The NYT, July 14, 2006

• The answer to this remarkable trajectory of Jean-Michel Basquiat, who died at 27 of a drug overdose in 1988, lies in the art market’s unpredictable but powerful alchemy: a combination of raw talent, compelling biography and limited supply.

"It has been noted once more that such figures make it impossible to see the art for the money, that works costing this much are, at least temporarily, damaged goods."
Art Is Hard to See Through the Clutter of Dollar Signs
By ROBERTA SMITH
The New York Times
NOV. 13, 2013

• “And then, on top of that, the cool factor and the mythology,” said Franklin Sirmans, the director of the Pérez Art Museum Miami....

"Intellectually, ours has in many respects become a self-lobotomized society in which the moral fatuities of pop culture are quickly made to fill the gaps left vacant by our widespread incomprehnsion of the historical past." - HILTON KRAMER

Nothing but overrated trash.

"Art promises an experience out of the ordinary, but with masterpiece exhibitions commonplace, and galleries selling fun and games and almost any crazy old thing for millions, it is easy to feel spoiled or to mistake shock for awe." MICHAEL KIMMELMAN, The NYT, Nov 22, 2006

"It's only natural to play the skeptic when the artworld is a circus of profligacy, drunk with cash, and when dimwitted speculators make headlines, wasting fortunes on bad art." - MICHAEL KIMMELMAN, The NYT, July 14, 2006

• The answer to this remarkable trajectory of Jean-Michel Basquiat, who died at 27 of a drug overdose in 1988, lies in the art market’s unpredictable but powerful alchemy: a combination of raw talent, compelling biography and limited supply.

"It has been noted once more that such figures make it impossible to see the art for the money, that works costing this much are, at least temporarily, damaged goods."
Art Is Hard to See Through the Clutter of Dollar Signs
By ROBERTA SMITH
The NYT, Nov 13, 2013

• “And then, on top of that, the cool factor and the mythology,” said Franklin Sirmans, the director of the Pérez Art Museum Miami....

"Cool", really?

"Intellectually, ours has in many respects become a self-lobotomized society in which the moral fatuities of pop culture are quickly made to fill the gaps left vacant by our widespread incomprehnsion of the historical past." - HILTON KRAMER

Nothing but overrated trash.

"Art promises an experience out of the ordinary, but with masterpiece exhibitions commonplace, and galleries selling fun and games and almost any crazy old thing for millions, it is easy to mistake shock for awe." MICHAEL KIMMELMAN, The NYT, Nov 22, 2006

This painter is neither a risk taker nor visionary.
And there's nothing original here.
Reminds me of the state of the 'fashion' world.
Garbage.

This "painting" is hard on the eyes and the heart. It is reminiscent of the difficulty one encounters with any need to say "President Trump". The mental gymnastics required to even discuss it at all are excruciating.
Perhaps the only benefit of the oncoming planetary disaster we have unleashed will be the curing of any potential survivors of the current cult of hubris represented herein.

Basquiat ' s art is not restful. It is strong, large-scale, and unsettling. I think appreciative viewers see and feel something in Basquiat's paintings that most of us do not. They may be cut from the same cloth--risk taking visionaries. The rest of us stand by slack jawed and agog.

I have followed the art auction world for over thirty years as long as I have been in the world of stocks and bonds. I just read that the return of Amazon's stock since it's inception is a staggering 49,000%.. This painting has it beat.. I don't see the value here but I failed to see it in Amazon at today's price. So wrong on both I guess. This to me this is the greater fool theory that the price you pay today may seem foolish but your pretty confident that a bigger or greater fool will pay more doen the line. I have seen Basquiat's painting at MOMA and personally think it is very child like and maybe that is the allure. Next to a Klimt or a Monet on the same floor it seems so out of place but again just one man's opinion.

Brings to mind the tale - "The emperor wears new clothes."

Early Eighties New York was a great time when you could afford the place to make art. Not these days.

Perhaps egregious is the best way to describe Basquiat's paintings. The painting shown here is awful, imo, but I once saw a painting by Bisquiat in a famous art museum that resembled a blackboard having various small items attached to it that was interesting enough stop me in my tracks. However, the face shown here is repellant. Perhaps that is what the artist intended.

"Is a puzzlement," sang the King of Siam. And so it is.
- Is a puzzlement that 63 million of my fellow citizens voted for trump.
- Is a puzzlement that someone paid $110 million for this Basquiat.

Perhaps others can understand. To me, is a puzzlement.

Both Robert Hughes, surely the most respected and lauded art critic of the 20th century, and Hilton Kramer, long-time art critic for the New York Times, agreed that Basquiat was a "talentless hack" whose work is "wretched," but who was a perfect candidate to be exploited for huge money and publicity.
Here is Kramer's article, "He Had Everything But Talent:"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4707974/He-had-everything-but-talent....
Obviously there are plenty of people who wish to believe that Basquiat is a rare "genius." More power to them.

BASQUIAT and Van Gogh were two tormented souls who died too young. The paintings that tell of their struggles are valued at dizzying prices. Why are the patrons of the arts so drawn to the agony and suffering of the artist? What is it about painting that comes from anguish that is so alluring? For one, it gives us the chance to glimpse into the abyss without venturing too close or being damaged by the it.

The market will pay... The value established will be for a story (about the artist's life, work and the struggle to become....) It's about the value of "myths" the power of story - with the visual work left behind as evidence... It's about the shrewd development of a market for an artist - - It is interesting to see his work in person - We're fortunate to have a one example here at the Des Moines Art Center - from 1984 - untitled -

Is it good art? That's a question best left to your own considered thought - - I think it's work worth looking at and thinking about - whether you like it or not... It's up to you to make your own considered judgment...

Puh-LEESE! If Andy Warhol hadn't "blessed" this guy, his "work" would never have been deemed worthy....for good reason.

How come black artists with real skill and ability rarely get noticed? It's always some primitive, crude, scrawl that gets the Art world's acclaim. It's a rhetorical question. We know why.

But why is fine art still your privileged space?

There's also a recent children's book on Basquiat.....

Where is the great Robert Hughes when we need him? Writing about Basquiat in the New Republic shortly after his death Hughes called Basquiat's story "the tale of a small untrained talent caught in the buzz saw of artworld promotion, absurdly overated by dealers, collectors, and, no doubt to their future embarrassment, critics." Hughes was right.

Maybe some of the commenters have never stood in front of a real Basquiat painting. He had a visual talent that (to me) touched on the primeval we share as humans - much like I feel about the early Anselm Kiefer paintings.

The quality of his work should not be confused with mercantile aspects of his death or resale of his paintings.

Brilliant artists are always divisive, as Johndrake07 has proven. Basquiat is a genius for his skills as an expressive artist and his influence on modern culture is immense. I'm glad he's joined the ranks of the historical greats as his work deserves it.

The world of the artist and the world of the collector are so disconnected from each other. This is the conundrum for artists who create works from their heart, soul and gut and then that work becomes a commodity to be stowed away in a private residence or even put in storage. This is why I'm such a believer in art in public places and museums, for all to see.

Many equate cash to value refusing or knowing no better, to look beneath the surface for a past talent that graced a canvas, their prerogative; a common note to a commoner society. Ignore our Jackson Pollocks, time to get that 6 year old Shih-tzu covered in paint and dragged across the canvas, smells like oils to me. Woof Woof.

Wow. Surprised by the vitriol here in the comments. To me, the allure of Basquiat is as much about his charisma and a feeling of nostalgia for that moment in time in NYC as it is about his art (which I happen to appreciate). Fair enough to say he's not your cup of tea and move on rather than suggest his works aren't 'real art' (care to define that?) or that your dog could produce something more artistically informed (which seems pointlessly insulting). We all see the world through a different set of eyes.

Too bad the artist himself never got to sell his work for millions of dollars. Part of the reason for the hype or maybe most of it is that he is dead. Somehow, someone alive creating similar work just doesnt have the allure. If he were still alive, he would probably be hawking his paintings in Union Square, and we could all get one for $10!

Rhetorical question: "How did a young graffiti rebel go from selling drawings for $50 in 1980 to having a painting come up for auction this week at a staggering $60 million?"

By fools and their money soon to be parted.

My 6 year old Shih-Tzu with a brush attached to his tail and his paws dipped in paint could create better art than this rubbish. Basquiat, like most contemporary artists, chose to work large scale - as if the bigger the canvas the better the art has to be. Perhaps it's the "charge by the square inch" theory of art market con men. Or it may just be that stuck with such ungainly, ugly, inarticulate pieces of what would have been called trash in the days of real artists, galleries have to boost their own brand by making a major mountain out of this illegible mole hill.

Myth making has come full circle - we used to create gods to bamboozle the public. We now create "artists" to do pretty much the same thing.

Basquiat will go down in history - along with circle dot artist Damian Hirst, who hires others to fill in the color dots, or black portrait painter Kehinde Wiley, who hires out teams of Chinese artist laborers to create his complex backgrounds, as flash-in-the-pan con men foisted upon buyers who rather than relying upon their own good taste and judgement, allow others to decide what is a cultural and valuable commodity for them.

It's a shame, really. And a waste of good canvas.

Sorry to deflate the balloon, but his "work" has a haunting resemblance to what I did in the 8th grade. But my daughter bested me and Basqiat -- her work was this good at age 10.

Basquiat is an example of the desperation of the "art" world to find something to do in an era when there is such modest-to-pathetic work to sell. His stuff is amusing as was my daughter's but the $50 he generally got for his work was fair market value, and remains so.

Some lucky person will find a bunch of stuff in the trash somewhere, where it always belonged.

He's a talented painter. Is he doing something different than Robert Rauschenberg, or Anselm Keifer? A little. His imagery is more psychotic. His color is young. His line is sophisticated and energetic. His prices will be determined by whatever the rich collectors are willing to pay for them. If I were a rich collector I think I'd prefer to wait for an Emil Nolde.
Similar energy but much more moving color. I guess these collectors can afford both. I'm a little out of touch with that kind of wealth.