Jean Michel Basquiat’s “Riddle Me This, Batman”, produced in 1987 is a Neo-Expressionist figurative painting (see fig. A.1). It was first shown in Paris’s Galerie Yvon Lambert. Two months after its debut, the piece exchanged hands several times, emerging briefly from private collections only to be snapped up at auction. Most recently, it was sold at a Sotheby’s auction for over six-million USD.
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Million dollar pieces were common in the 1980’s. During this time, the price of neo-expressionist works increased steadily. In the market place of public bidding-wars and private sales it seemed that art no longer had intrinsic value. The ever-increasing prices of these works drove many artists to manufacture pieces in turn making huge profits. However, this rather pessimistic consumerist view of art did not replace the true aesthetic value of Basquiat’s “Riddle Me This, Batman”. Rather it is Basquiat’s ability to produce and express reflections of culture, identity, and of the pains of life, which resist the monetary function of aesthetic value, in favor of an aesthetic standard as a matter of taste.
Aesthetic value is determined by a standard. Typically, this standard is called beauty. While beauty is conceptually simple, easily evoked in the mind’s eye, it becomes far more complex when used as a scale of aesthetic judgment. Treating one piece of art as more beautiful than another implies that beauty can be measured, and in order to do this measuring an objective standard must be used. There are two problems in understanding beauty to be an objective standard. In his essay, The Aesthetic Hypothesis Clive Bell illustrates that aesthetic value is a matter of taste:
All systems of aesthetics must be the personal experi...
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...ened to be Warhol’s assistant.
Warhol’s death in February 1987 caused Basquiat to sink into depression. His addition to heroin resurfaced, gaining momentum until his death only 18 months later.
Works Cited
Aristotle, . Metaphysics. Aristotle: Selections. Edited by Terence Irwin and Gail Fine. Indianapolis: Hackett , 1995.
Bell, Clive. The Aesthetic Hypothesis. Aesthetics. Edited by Susan Feagin and Patrick Maynard. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Brooklyn Museum, "Exhibitions: Basquiat ." Accessed December 3, 2011. http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/basquiat/1983.php.
Kant, Immanuel. Art and Genius. Aesthetics. Edited by Susan Feagin and Patrick Maynard. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Sotheby’s, Contemporary Art Evening Auction. Last modified November 9th, 2010. Accessed December 4, 2011. http://tinyurl.com/7abp44j.
People usually expect to see paintings and sculptures in Art Galleries. Imagine the surprise one finds when they are presented with a man stitching his face into a bizarre caricature, or connected to a machine which controls the artist’s body. These shocking pieces of performance art come under the broad umbrella that is Postmodernism. Emphasis on meaning and shock value has replaced traditional skills and aesthetic values evident in the earlier Modernist movements.
“Introduction to Modern Art.” metmuseum.org. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 18 June 2009. Web. 25 Sep. 2009.
In eight quasi-connected stories, Susan Vreeland delivers a fictional lesson on aesthetics. Set amidst human sorrow and historic chaos, the narrative follows an imagined Vermeer painting from the present day through 330 years of its provenance--beginning with its willful destruction in the 1990s and concluding with its inspired creation in the 1660s:
Jean Michel Basquiat, born on December 22, 1960 in Brooklyn, NY, was one of the world’s famous neo-expressionists in the world. He is the only African American paper to have attained a mystic “superstar” position. This previous graffiti artist whose work is inextricable from the scenery of NYC streets and alleys infiltrated the world’s famous arts with a quite rapid motion. His work captivated the attention of famous art dealers including Mary Boone, Anina Nosei, and Bruno Bischofberger, and meanwhile enthralling a diverse (class-wise) audience ranging from the poor to the rich. He had first arrested the attention NYC people for his graffiti under the nickname of “SAMO”. Before his career of painting
Mitchell, Helen Buss. "Aesthetic Experience." Roots of Wisdom: A Tapestry of Philosophical Traditions. 6th ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2011. 303-24. Print.
(1) See "Judgment, Aesthetic" in A Companion to Aesthetics edited by David Cooper (Basil Blackwell, Oxford: 1992).
Jean-Michel Basquiat, of both Puerto Rican and Haitian descent, grew up in Brooklyn and at the age of 17, ran away from his home to live in Manhattan and pursue his art career. He began as a homeless graffiti artist under the name SAMO. Throughout Manhattan, he would tag poetic phrases onto walls. An expression he used repeatedly was “Boom For Real.” It meant that he would rupture a coherent object or idea (Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child). The end result would be a galaxy of reality made up of incoherent yet equal parts. He believed that he could do this to the art industry. He pioneered a new art form that puzzled the preceding artists. It was, essentially, graffiti that had been put on a canvas. To many Americans, graffiti was an art form for those who held little impact in the chaos of the art world, such as the average African American male. So by having his work bought and valued by people who actually had impact in the art realm, he detonated such realm. When pop star Madonna was inquired about him, she acknowledge...
Nicholas Bourriaud’s 1998 book Relational Aesthetics (Esthétique Relationnelle) has unquestionably been a successful catalyst of discussion. Relational Aesthetics has led the way in attempting to scrutinise and classify artworks by a generation of European artists during the nineteen-nineties. Over time, the book has become regarded by many as an essential text. Bourriaud described an innovative ‘relational’ concept of art, with the viewer’s interaction developing into an element of the piece of art. Relational art is frequently not regarded as art because it questions the perception and experience of art. Redolent of the period from which it developed, Relational Aesthetics reflects the beginning of internet culture instantaneous interaction.
To some readers such ‘relational aesthetics’will sound like a truly final end of art, to be celebrated or decried. For others it will seem to aestheticize the nicer procedures of our service economy (‘invitations, casting sessions, meetings, convivial and user-friendly areas, appointments’). There is the further suspicion that, for all its discursivity, ‘relational aesthetics’ might be sucked up in the general movement for a ‘post-critical’ culture – an art and architecture, cinema and literature ‘after
Aesthetics found that through their great interest in beauty, pleasure that is derived form objects of art is more beautiful than other pleasures.
I'm Clive Bell's Art he expresses the belief that the only people that can say something with a notable and impactful way regarding aesthetics are those who have studied it and can make sound judgement. Bell finds that these people must be sensible because one must be able to think deeply about aesthetics in order to make a clear judgement.
Philosophies of Art and Beauty Edited by Hofstadter and Kuhns, (Chicago: University of Chicago press, 1976) chapters one and two for an overview of the aesthetics of Plato and Aristotle.
Larmann, R., & Shields, M. (2011). Art of Renaissance and Baroque Europe (1400–1750). Gateways to Art (pp. 376-97). New York: W.W. Norton.
Just as other works that reflect art, pieces in the category of fine arts serve the important message of passing certain messages or portraying a special feeling towards a particular person, function or activity. At times due to the nature of a particular work, it can become so valuable that its viewers cannot place a price on it. It is not the nature or texture of an art that qualifies it, but the appreciation by those who look at it (Lewis & Lewis, 2008).
Geuss, Raymond. "Art and Criticism in Adorno's Aesthetics ." European Journal of Philosophy (Black Well ) 6, no. 3 (1998 ): 297-317.