Basquiat Movie Essay

After watching the film Basquiat, I saw that Jean had great difficulties in both his life and career. He had to deal with the fact that his mother is in a mental institution and he became estranged from his father. Basquiat started out as a graffiti artist and he was living in the streets. He had a pen name that was called SAMO and he appeared to have some talent in music. He had issues with his career such as being a black painter, exploitation,crtitcism, paranoia, and drug use. In his image making, he was very expressive in showing themes of inequality, racism, current culture, and his own background. Moving on, the way he put words and symbols in his work was to show the events in his life. For example, the term SAMO is dead, probably meant he was done using that that pen name for his graffiti. Another one would the common crown symbol that would explain about his desire for a higher status in society and the

In a formal theory, it looks like he used acrylic, oilstick, spray enamel, and metal paint on canvas (Embuscado). It looks like the same techniques he used for graffiti and there are two subjects that almost have the same facing in direction. It almost look like it was done without thinking, but it actually connects each other. The two beings seem to have inverted coloring of each other as the one with teeth is yellow with red outline and the other is red with yellow outline. From a contextual theory, it tells nothing much about the time the painting was made. Maybe it would tell about Basquiat’s friendship he once had before he died. Other than that, it could be abstract since is shows two figures but, not much significance. Also, the two figures are shown to have a shared a hand gesture with each other. From an expressive theory, I would say it could have been personal with a friend of some sort or a mutual understanding between two