Short Essay #1~Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat (Luzangela Martinez)

Luzangela Martinez

Professor Doris Cacoilo

ART 242 Self: Image

4 November 2020

Short Essay #1: Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat

Personality is not permanent. In our lifetime, there will be many personal experiences that can significantly shape our aspirations, social behavior, and personality. Often, these encounters take place because of our gender, race, culture, economic status, and appearance. Indeed, our personality is a collection of personal experiences. In the same way, an artist’s past will greatly influence their work style. For example, artists like Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat had impactful experiences from their childhood to their adult years. As a result, both their artworks reflected prevalent themes of fame and mortality.

Andy Warhol, a leading artist of the 1960s Pop Art Movement, experienced a fatal sickness during his childhood which stirred his obsession with celebrities and fame. At the age of eight, Warhol developed a disorder that resulted in involuntary movements of the body called Sydenham Chorea. As a result, it left him bedridden for several months. During this time, he would obsessively skim through comics and celebrity magazines to escape boredom. If he were to go out, it was to see movies that had his favorite actresses or actors. Ultimately, his childhood fascination of comics, and celebrity tabloid magazines and movies resulted in his attraction for celebrities, mass consumerism, and money. During the 1960s, there were various Hollywood icons that were adored and idolized by many. However, none can compare to Marilyn Monroe, who had a mythical status as a Hollywood icon. It was for this reason that Warhol decided to recreate a series of images of Marilyn Monroe (see Figure 1). In his Marilyn Monroe series, Warhol utilized bright and vivid colors that enabled his work to stand out. Also, he used a diptych style, a technique commonly used for portraying saints in Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches. By placing Marilyn’s portrait in this style, he connects the idolization both saints and Marilyn Monroe received from people. Lastly, his idea of repeating the image of Marilyn Monroe symbolized the mass production that was seen in the early 1960s due to the post-war economic boom. Joanne Finkelstein, the author of The Art of Self Invention once stated that, “In every social encounter, we are directed to think about how to make a good impression and how to influence the opinion of others. We pay attention to the other, and they turn and pay attention to us” (Finkelstein). Ultimately, this is true for Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe series because he portrays her as a perfect saint-like figure with rarely any flaws to sell her looks, which highlights the themes of celebrity and fame.

In addition, Warhol’s past experiences with death assisted in developing his deep attraction for mortality. When Warhol was a teenager, his beloved father, Andrej Warhola, died of tuberculosis peritonitis. It was also believed that his poor recovery after having a gallbladder surgery played a significant role. As accustomed by most Greek Catholics, Andrej’s body laid in the family living room for three days. As a result, this became a very traumatic experience for Warhol as he refused to leave his room. Not only did this impact Warhol as a teenager, but it also greatly influenced his artwork as well. As writer and artist, Dahlia Elsayed, once said, “for artists in general, a lot of things start with the personal” (“Painting With Words, Writing With Color.”).  Ultimately, this explains the reasoning behind Warhol’s choice of creating the Marilyn Monroe series two weeks after her death. It also explains his decision in painting Red Jackie and Blue Jackie after the assassination of her husband and the United States’ 35^th president, John F. Kennedy (see Figure 2).  As John Berger once said, “If you buy a painting you buy also the look of the thing it represents” (Berger 83). Ultimately, this is true for the paintings shown in Figure 2 that represent the theme of death and disaster. Warhol had another life-changing experience when he was shot by Valerie Solanas, a radical feminist author. After spending months at the hospital, Warhol was obligated to wear a surgical corset to hold his organs in place. Unlike other past experiences, his work became more focused on death by including several skulls and guns in his paintings. 

In a similar way, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s artwork also highlights the theme of death. This predominant theme observed in many of his pieces was influenced by past childhood experiences. For example, at the age of eight, Basquiat was hit by a car causing him to spend a month in the hospital. Similar to Warhol’s experience, Basquiat escaped boredom by reading and skimming through a copy of the 19^th century anatomical textbook Grey’s Anatomy. As a “way of marking the experience,” Basquiat would incorporate words he learned from the textbook into his work (“Painting With Words, Writing With Color.”). For example, in the In Italian work, Basquiat added words like “corpus,” “sangre,” and “blood” (see Figure 3). In other artworks, he would include words like “ear,” “eye,” “skull,” “jaw,” “diagram of the heart pumping blood,” and “scapula.” Ultimately, due to this life-altering experience, it was evident that “[t]he written word always [came] first when [he was] doing a painting” (“Painting With Words, Writing With Color.”).  It can also be seen that Basquiat’s paintings were “a way of reclaiming [his] roots…..Although the culture in which [he] live [was] part of [him], [his] roots and cultural identity are a result of” his Haitian and Puerto Rican descent ("Overlooked No More: Ana Mendieta, a Cuban Artist Who Pushed Boundaries"). As he created more works as such, Basquiat became even more popular and recognized by many artists like Andy Warhol. Eventually, both artists developed a unique friendship both socially and creatively, producing joint paintings. However, after the death of Warhol, Basquiat became a heavy drug addict and lost himself in it. It was this experience with drugs that brought him to create one of his last pieces: Riding with Death. As shown in Figure 4, it appears that Basquiat painted a black man riding a four-legged skeleton. Once again, his use of bones in this painting highlights his fascination with the Grey’s Anatomy textbook. Lastly, his scribbling style demonstrates that he may have been under the influence of a hard drug.

Furthermore, Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat had life-changing experiences from their childhood to their adult years. Not only did these experiences influence their personalities, but it also impacted their artistic sides. Both artists utilized different techniques to convey the same themes of death. It was also observed that Warhol’s childhood obsession of celebrities and fame also influenced his work.

 

                                        Figure 1: Marilyn Monroe Series created by Andy Warhol

Figure 2: The figure to the left is (a) Red Jackie, and to the right is (b) Blue Jackie. Both pieces were created by Andry Warhol.

Figure 3: In Italian created by Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Figure 4: Riding with Death created by Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Works Cited

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. 1972.

Finkelstein, Joanne. The Art of Self Invention: Image and Identity in Popular Visual Culture. I. B. Tauris, 2007.

Gorce, Tammy La. “Painting With Words, Writing With Color.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Jan. 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/nyregion/a-review-of-dahlia-elsayed-hither-and-yon-at-new-jersey-state-museum.html.

“Overlooked No More: Ana Mendieta, a Cuban Artist Who Pushed Boundaries.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 19 Sept. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/obituaries/ana-mendieta-overlooked.html.

Pruitt, Sarah. “Andy Warhol Was Shot By Valerie Solanas. It Killed Him 19 Years Later.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 31 May 2018, www.history.com/news/andy-warhol-shot-valerie-solanas-the-factory.