“SAMO As An End 2 Art Confining Terms:” The Art of Jean

“SAMO As An End 2 Art Confining Terms:”
The Art of Jean-Michel Basquiat and a Conception of Identity as Outside of the Other
Adrian Muoio
Senior Thesis Completed
In Fulfillment of
The Honors Program in Art History
Davidson College
April 2, 2014
!
!
Muoio i
Table of Contents
I)
Introduction ………………………………………………………………………… 1
II) On Heidegger and Basquiat’s Aesthetic of Lack …………………………………… 8
III) Basquiat and Deleuzian Differentiation …………………………………………… 21
IV) Outside of “Otherness”: An Identity Outside of the Spectacle ……………………. 32
V) Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………. 41
VI) Appendix …………………………………………………………………………… 44
VII) Works Cited ……………………………………………………………………….. 49
VIII) Image Bibliography ……………………………………………………………… 52
!
Muoio 1
I. Introduction
Jean-Michel Basquiat was, or perhaps more precisely is, a controversial figure in
the art world, his meteoric rise to fame (some might say infamy) causing skepticism of
his artistic merit. In 1978, homeless and utterly broke, he was writing graffiti on the
street-side façades of SOHO under the tag name SAMO.1 Less than fifteen years later,
Basquiat’s art hung on the walls of a more traditional venue, the Whitney Museum of
American Art, for a posthumous retrospective exhibition of his work in 1992. During an
even shorter span of time (Basquiat died in 1988)––and between these two very different
exhibition settings––Basquiat created over a thousand paintings and drawings. He made
more money, more quickly than any other artist of his time; he went from trying,
nervously, to sell Andy Warhol one of his postcard drawings to collaborating with the art
world icon on almost one hundred paintings. The life of Jean-Michel Basquiat was a
whirlwind, a brilliant, distinctive flash surpassed only in luminosity by the radiance of his
oeuvre. That being said, much of the criticism surrounding Basquiat’s art relies almost
exclusively on first-hand accounts of the artist’s eccentric personality, and in so doing,
provides, ironically, little critical insight into the works themselves.
This thesis examines the works of Jean-Michel Basquiat––the visual evidence that
is the art itself––maintaining a critical, receptive lens rather than one obscured either by
conjecture of the artist’s intention or emphasis on his celebrity. Through the eschewal of
a biographical approach to interpretation, a deeper understanding of Basquiat’s oeuvre
reveals itself––one that evokes a new conception of identity formation favoring the
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1!Basquiat’s tag name “SAMO” was short for “Same Old Shit.” The title of this thesis
quotes one of Basquiat’s SAMO graffiti pieces, which read, “SAMO as an end 2 art
confining terms.” !
!
Muoio 2
individual over the collective. While many critics, such as bell hooks, claim that the
paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat “delineate the violent erasure of a people, their culture
and traditions,” this thesis will argue that his works portray the erasure of the person––the
individual––whose ability to craft a unique identity has been usurped by culture and by
tradition and whose individuality has seemingly collapsed under the hegemonic weight of
the collective.2 Basquiat’s work evokes a process of identity formation––an act of selfportraiture––that conjures a resurrection of the individual from the collective graves of
culture. In so doing, his corpus enters into a dialogue with Martin Heidegger’s theory of
fundamental ontology, Gilles Deleuze’s theory of differentiation, and Guy Debord’s
theory of the Spectacle, which help reconstruct a dynamic process of individuation
similar to that evoked through Basquiat’s work.
Through Heidegger’s distinction of “Being” from “genus,” the meaning of
“identity” elucidates itself, a definition which will prove to be of critical importance in
facilitating the new outlook on Basquiat’s paintings argued in this thesis. With this
foundation established, the experiential quality of Basquiat’s work will be examined,
aided by the process of differentiation articulated by Deleuze. This thesis will then
discuss Basquiat’s work as being outside of both “otherness” and, consequently,
Debord’s “Spectacle” as well––all as a process of clarifying the voice of Basquiat’s
corpus as it exists in a larger conversation of identity formation.
Even before Basquiat began his career as an artist, the disparity between cultural
identity and individuality had manifested itself in art. During the 1960’s, Andy Warhol
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2
bell hooks, “Altars of Sacrifice: Re-membering Basquiat,” Race-ing Art History:
Critical Readings in Race and Art History, ed. Kymberly Pinder (New York: Routledge,
2002), 344.
!
Muoio 3
and the Pop artists exposed the commodification of the individual, presenting a rather
grim outlook on the possibility for reclaiming personhood from the commodity-driven
societal structure. The studio was replaced by The Factory; the identity of an individual
was likened unto a commercial product, such as a soup can, paralleling its massproducible and mass-consumable characteristics. The brands differed, yes, but within
each, there was little room for differentiation. Each tomato soup can was the same as the
next––an exact duplicate. It had become evident that an identity was not defined by
unique personal characteristics but by cultural branding; the individual had become
analogous with the soup can. Just as each can was only definable by the generalized
attributes of the brand, the “identity” of an individual seemed only to exist within the
confines of a specific culture. Citing race, gender, and/or socio-economic status––all of
which can only define an individual in collective terms––was the dominant approach to
identity formation. And understandably so, for at the time, the idea of the conforming
collective was ubiquitous: dichotomies of communism and democracy, and of
conservatism and liberalism, were omnipresent.
This essentializing perspective was a modernist conception of identity, in which
cultures (and subcultures), veiled as naturally occurring phenomena, defined individuals.
A decade later, however, culture became an increasingly scrutinized entity. With the
United States economy in a state of recession and with the controversial Cold War in full
swing, various marginalized groups began to question (and in the process illuminate) the
hidden power structures at play. They amplified a quiet ideology in an attempt to alter it.
A renewed feminist movement, led artistically by Judy Chicago and Cindy Sherman,
questioned gender discrimination. A new, prolific graffiti movement emerged, reacting
!
Muoio 4
against New York’s widening socio-economic divide. The social unrest was the
manifestation of post-modernism––an attempted reworking of the “pre-established
system.” 3
Jean-Michel Basquiat was not one these artists. His works cannot be confined to
movements; instead they seem a reaction against the very idea of the movement. As an
artist, therefore, he breaks with the academic tradition in Art History that retrospectively
conjoins the work of an artist to a collective aesthetic (and often treats the connecting
thread as inherent in the art). Previous reception of his work has failed to recognize the
rupture of tradition found in the paintings of Basquiat. Operating under the tag name
SAMO, Basquiat initially gained recognition for the at once nonsensical yet somehow
profoundly intelligible idioms he sprayed on walls in Manhattan’s SOHO neighborhood.
His first gallery shows were group exhibitions of “graffiti art.” Beginning in the mid
1970’s, the commercial art world developed an infatuation with the graffiti movement.
Soon, willing “writers” swapped train for canvas, migrated south from the Bronx and
Harlem to lower Manhattan, and began exhibiting in SOHO and East Village galleries en
masse.4 This geographical relocation of graffiti marked a more abstract, sociocultural
displacement of the movement as well––on the streets and subways, the writer was a
vigilante battling social injustice, a populist voice for the impoverished minority; in the
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3
“Pre-established system,” here, refers to the hierarchical structure of society, as dictated
by those in power and complied with (or not) by those not in power. Power typically
denotes economic power, although race, nationality, gender, etc. certainly play a pivotal
role in empowerment.
4!Graffiti writing was prolific outside of the Bronx and Manhattan as well, in Brooklyn
and Queens. However, the best writers all aimed to “bomb” the subways that ran on the
4 and 5 lines, which would be stored in the Bronx, and would run through Manhattan,
and down into Brooklyn. Those two subway lines achieved the widest visibility possible
for the graffiti writers.
!
Muoio 5
gallery, the heroism of the writer was muted by the exclusivity of the commercial art
world––a setting intended to attract and appeal to collectors, the upper echelons of
society. In this context, the more colloquial name “graffiti” even gave way to a more
academic, institutional term, “neo-primitivism”––the latter more suggestive of an
adherence with, what art historian Chika Okeke-Agulu labels, “the genealogical
narrative” of the Eurocentric high art tradition that appealed to conservative art world
elite.5
Basquiat was swept up in this neo-primitivist wave. Yet when the commercial
art world’s craze for and exploitation of the graffiti movement began to dwindle around
1980, just a few years after it sparked, Basquiat plowed ahead, unscathed. But Basquiat
never saw himself purely as a graffiti artist. In fact, he found racist undertones in labeling
him as such, saying in 1986 “I don’t really consider myself a graffiti artist, you know?
And then they have this image of me [as a] wild man, a wild, monkey man.”6 His
ambitions, motives, aesthetic, and content all seemed disparate from those of his coexhibitors in graffiti shows. And the graffiti community seemed in concurrence, never
truly embracing Basquiat on account of his middle-class upbringing.7
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5!Chika Okeke-Agulu, “Globalization, Art History, and the Specter of Difference,
Contemporary Art: 1989 to the Present, ed. Alexander Dumbadze and Susan Hudson
(Malden, MA: Wiley- Blackwell, 2013) 447. Okeke-Agulu denounces this “genealogical
narrative” as an “obsolete model of art history” that is exclusionary and thus lacking in
credibility and relevance within an increasingly globalized world.
6!Jean-Michel Basquiat as quoted in Phoebe Hoban, Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art
(New York: Penguin, 1994) 41.!
7!Lenny Mcgur, interview with M. Franklin Sirmans March 17, 1992 in Jean-Michel
Basquiat, ed. Richard Marshall, et. al (New York: The Whitney Museum of Art, 1992)
236.!Lenny Mcgur,!a prominent graffiti artist of the time who wrote under the tag name
Futura 2000, discusses the confrontational friendship between Basquiat and Rammellzee,
another graffiti artist and dj of the 1970’s and 1980’s, saying “Rammellzee highlighted
and often brought up an identity complex in Jean-Michel…coming from that middle class
!
Muoio 6
The commercial art world, however, welcomed him with open arms, exploiting
his “wild man” aesthetic. Designating him as part of the “neo-primitive” school, early
critical reception of his work cast him as the artistic offspring of Jean Dubuffet and Cy
Twombly. Critics exoticized the work despite Basquiat’s New York birth and upbringing.
Starting with the commercial exploitation of the graffiti movement, there was a renewed
interest in “primitivism,” and to the dealers and collectors, Basquiat’s aesthetic was the
genre’s newest manifestation.
We return to bell hooks, who opines the most progressive, but still ultimately
inadequate, interpretation to date. She aligns Basquiat’s work with the collective struggle
of the black community to express, for itself, its own identity:
Basquiat’s work delineate[s] the violent erasure of a people, their culture and
traditions. This erasure is made all the more problematic when artifacts of that
“vanishing culture” are commodified to enhance the aesthetics of those
perpetrating the erasure.8
In its consideration of Basquiat’s work as an effort in identity formation, hooks’
argument is creditable. However, as stated earlier, Basquiat’s work evokes the identity
struggle of an individual rather than of a collective. Thus, in her analysis, hooks limits the
potential of Basquiat’s work by restricting it to a specific demographic. This thesis,
however, will argue Basquiat’s oeuvre as being evocative of a much broader question
regarding identity: How, in the face of an increasingly commodity-driven,
apprehensively globalized society, can an individual establish a unique identity––one that
defines the individual as just that, an individual and not a representation of a collective?
Basquiat’s work conjures notions of this struggle, of embarking on the task of identity
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
neighborhood and yet dressing so fucked up.” Basquiat’s father was an accountant and
owned an entire town house in Brooklyn.
8!hooks, 344.
!
Muoio 7
formation that transcends the oppressive, narrow confines of culture. Each painting
stands as a kind of self-portrait––or more precisely as the act of self-portraiture,
constantly in a dynamic state of becoming and never fixed (as cultural ideology so often
purports). With identity itself in a state of turmoil, the work of Jean Michel Basquiat
evokes a romantic struggle to position oneself as the agent in the act of self-definition and
self-expression.
!
Muoio 8
II. On Heidegger and Basquiat’s Aesthetic of Lack
It has already been stated that the current popular reading of Jean-Michel
Basquiat’s work entangles it in “the collective fate of diasporic black artists and black
people.”9 However, this interpretation assumes that one’s identity is definable through a
semblance of congruity with others (marked, for example, by race or socio-economic
status); it identifies an aesthetic created by an individual as that of a collective (i.e. a
people). This association––between a singular person and a larger grouping of people––
thereby, limits notions of identity to the confines of collective culture. Cultural
constructs, which together define a culture, emerge from the same process––through a
system of classification that roots itself in a foundation (generally) accepted, by the
people of that society, as naturally occurring.
This foundation is ideology, which while seeming innate, in fact operates as an
artificial set of “constraints” dictating social norms.10 The literary critic James Kavanagh
provides a concise definition of ideology as “a system of representations, perceptions and
images that precisely encourages men and women to ‘see’ their specific place in
historically peculiar formation as inevitable, natural, a necessary function of the ‘real’
itself.”11 In order to function, then, ideology must sequester its own artificial origins; it
must appear as a natural governance of human exchange. In so doing, ideology remains
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
9!hooks, 342.
10!Stephen Greenblatt, “Culture,” Critical Terms for Literary Study, ed. Frank Lentricchia
and Thomas McLaughlin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) 227.
11!James H. Kavanagh, “Ideology,” Critical Terms For Literary Study, ed. Frank
Lentricchia and Thomas McLaughlin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995) 310.!
!
Muoio 9
an invisible hand of culture; its quiet potency transforms individuals into “social
subjects,” imposing a generic identity onto them.12
A cultural reading of Basquiat’s work, such as that of bell hooks, presupposes that
a single identity can define multiple individuals. In her analysis, which serves as an
example of this cultural interpretative lens, hooks comprehends Basquiat’s aesthetic
definitively and exclusively as an extrapolation of a collective identity––“a people, their
culture and traditions”––as well as the strife associated with a collective identity––“the
struggle for cultural hegemony.”13 The flaw in this interpretation of Basquiat’s oeuvre,
however, lies in its presuppositions––not only about the work of Basquiat but also about
identity (as in the conception of identity). Hooks’ approach implies that one’s identity
manifests itself entirely through an external, perceptible, and shared set of material traits.
It addresses the what but fails to penetrate the who. Thus, its conclusion about the
paintings remains ostensible; it asks too little of the aesthetic of the work itself,
compliantly abiding to the ideological limitation of the person as a “social subject.” This
first chapter aims to demonstrate the works of Jean-Michel Basquiat as evocative of a deconstruction of our understanding of identity to its most elemental level, the form of the
question itself––what is the meaning of identity? The examination of this question will
serve as a necessary foundation for a new conception of identity and identity formation.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
12!Ibid.!
13!hooks, 344 and 345.
!
Muoio 10
“Being Is Not a Genus” 14
“Traditional ontology” purports the self (i.e. one’s Being) as definable through
characteristics shared with others, allowing for a designation of these selves into various
groupings. 15 Through the theory of Hegel, tradition has manifested itself in art history in
an identical manner––justifying the structuring of bodies of work (and artists) into
progressive movements or periods. But this traditional, Hegelian approach functions too
much like a marionette doll: each artist of a movement is akin to an attached string, while
the art historian, the puppet master, manipulates these strings, as a collective unit, to
animate the doll, thus fabricating the grand narrative of Art History. The individual
forms are important only in how they manifest the collective (i.e. cultural) form and how
they purport artistic movements to be naturally occurring and progressing. Initially, this
method of organization and contextualization seems a harmless act, or perhaps even an
outright necessity, facilitating the comprehension of a piece of art. An issue arises in this
methodology, however, when a work of art is considered representative of an artist’s
identity.
It is possible to analyze the convergence of expression (i.e. art) and self (i.e.
Being of the artist), but the process of interpretation then becomes substantially more
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
14!Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings: From Being and Time (1927) to The Task of
Thinking (1964) (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 43. Heidegger here is translating
Aristotle’s original Greek “oute to on genus” from Metaphysics III.!
15!Karsten Harries, “The Search For Meaning,” Existential Philosophers: Kierkegaard to
Merleau-Ponty, ed. George Alfred Schrader, Jr. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), 168.
While Harries uses the concise phrase “traditional ontology” (cited here), he is citing
what Heidegger calls in Being and Time “the history of ontology” or just “tradition.”
Harries’ idiom has been chosen here to aid in the elucidation of the distinction of
“traditional” and “fundamental” ontologies. Additionally, I am using capitalized-B
“Being” in the manner of Heidegger, who distinguishes it from “being.” The former
relates to someone’s inner self, essentially addressing who, whereas the latter relates to
external, perceptible self, essentially addressing (on a more superficial level) what.
!
Muoio 11
convoluted, for the identity of an individual cannot be likened unto that of a group; its
definition is never wholly material and therefore never fully communicable. Defining a
work of art as a self-expression is to acknowledge it as just that, an expression of the
self––a “self-portrait.” Where traditional ontology, which poses identity as entirely overt
and communicable, errs is in its extension of interpretation beyond acknowledgment of
the self; when it, like a cultural analysis of Basquiat’s work, imposes its own delineations
onto this expressed self, it addresses the question of who by applying an answer for what.
According to Heidegger, what is overlooked in this traditional approach is the underlying
question of Being itself.
Basquiat’s work exposes the oversight of Hegelian analysis and, in the process,
evokes a Heideggerean approach to the de-struction of the traditional conception of
Being. In his magnum opus Being and Time, Heidegger stated, “the ‘universality’ of
Being ‘surpasses’ the universality of genus” in that it is at once “universal” and
“indefinable.”16 Being is universal in the sense that everyone innately exists in a state of
Being (whereas a genus is constructed by others and culturally specific)––and that by
living, one affirms her/his Being––and indefinable in that it is not rooted in ideology.17
In fact, ideology only obscures a genuine conception of Being in that it ignores the most
fundamental question of Being itself, which it assumes as given. As Heidegger says,
All ontology, no matter how rich and tightly knit a system of
categories it has at its disposal, remains fundamentally blind and perverts
its innermost intent if it has not previously clarified the meaning of Being
sufficiently and grasped this clarification as its fundamental task. [sic] 18
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
16!Heidegger, Basic Writings, 42-43.!
17!Ideology in this case refers to what Martin Heidegger calls “traditional logic.” !
18!Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson
(New York: Harper and Row, 1962) 31. These are Heidegger’s italics.!
!
Muoio 12
According to Heidegger, the analysis of the definition of the concept of “Being” is
foundational for, and therefore must preface, the examination of Being.
In the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, the blindness toward and perversion of the
question of Being is evoked through the artist’s use of symbols, through the novel
symbolic language found during the actual process of viewing. For example, in a 1983
piece entitled Notary (Fig. 1), a plethora of symbols coexist on the canvas.19 There are
words like “Pluto,” “dehydrated,” “fleas,” “46. leeches,” “47. Leeches”––all seemingly
strewn about the surface of the work. Is the viewer, then, to interpret these symbols as
somehow related to one another? To the figures? Yes, all the elements are recognizable
on their own, as precisely what they are, symbols for objects or ideas existing outside the
painting; this is definitive. Beyond mere acknowledgement of the symbols, however,
little if anything can be assuredly said of their meaning within the context of a logical
narrative, particularly in relation to identity. Any attempt to impose a narrative onto
Notary is sure to be futile, for the work is quintessentially anti-narrative––meaning does
not lie in the amalgam of disparate semiotic interpretations of each symbol––in that it
refuses a traditional, verbal “reading” by the viewer. On their own, each symbol is
impenetrable in terms of defining the piece as a whole; the viewer cannot conjure
meaning from the symbols individually, at least not convincingly. For example,
Basquiat’s depiction of flea in Notary is solely that, an image of a flea; there is no fixed
implicit semiotic meaning. But, as cultural critic Greg Tate points out, “there are no such
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
19!Jean-Michel Basquiat, Interviewed by Marc H. Miller, Jean Michel Basquiat: An
Interview (New York: Inner-Tube Video, 1989). The work actually consists of three
hinged panels in order, according to Basquiat, to allow it to fit through a doorway.
Basquiat stated that the work was painted all at once (i.e. not in three separate panels that
were then conjoined).!
!
Muoio 13
things as empty signifiers, only misapprehended ones.”20 Perhaps paradoxically, it is the
very impenetrability of the artist’s individual symbols (and the resulting refusal of
narrative) that provides a legitimate access point to the unitary, collective symbolic
language of Basquiat’s work. What the symbolic lack of narrative evokes is a
transcendence of logical comprehension. The formation of Being, similarly, is
“nonsensical” and in conflict with “logic” in the sense that it transcends logic.21
In its defiance of a logical narrative––that is, a narrative constructed by logic, the
tool of the intellect which encourages presupposition––Notary evokes and demonstrates
the problematic nature of the presuppositions of traditional ontology (and thus of cultural
ideology) in regard to defining one’s identity. A narrative does not naturally exist within
the painting, or if it does, it is wholly inaccessible to the viewer. Thus to impose a
narrative rooted in logic onto Notary––onto another person’s self-expression––and
subsequently on to Basquiat (as the creator of the expression) would be entirely lacking
in foundation.22 Moreover, it hinders a deeper understanding of the work and conception
of Being, diminishing both to, what Heidegger calls, “the level of the obvious”––a
concept that poses material superficiality as verity.23
Ideology and traditional ontology designate things as “obvious” as a means of
concealing their own lack of foundation. Both stand as cultural constructions that ignore
and obscure the fundamental, universal question of Being itself. As stated by Heidegger,
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
20!Greg Tate, “Nobody Loves a Genius Child,” Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on
Contemporary America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992) 239.
21!Martin Heidegger as quoted in Michael Murray, Heidegger and Modern Philosophy:
Critical Essays (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), 83.
22!With that said, to ignore all together the symbolic language of Basquiat’s work on
account of its deviation from traditional semiotic interpretation is equally unacceptable.!
23!Heidegger, Basic Writings: From Being and Time (1927) to The Task of Thinking
(1964), 66.!
!
Muoio 14
“the tradition makes us forget such a provenance altogether. Indeed it makes us wholly
incapable of even understanding that such a return is necessary.”24 Basquiat’s work,
however, through its non-logical, anti-narrative treatment of symbols, conjures this
original question of Being. Because the symbolism is culturally recognizable, one is
initially tempted to read the work through a traditional semiotic, narrative interpretative
lens––as if “meaning” and “Being” were material objects. However, while individually
the symbols are representational, collectively they stand as an abstract landscape; the
paintings present a novel language, in which the representational content of individual
symbols becomes irrelevant in understanding the piece as a whole. Instead, it is the nonlogical, non-narrative relationship between the symbols that grants Basquiat’s work
viewer accessibility by encouraging a holistic consideration of the work, as one unitary
form rather than as a frame containing disparate elements.
Viewing Basquiat’s work is a process, with multiple phases. The initial glance is
superficial; the viewer identifies the symbols individually and searches for a narrative
relationship entwining them in the hope of conjuring meaning from the work. In Notary,
the viewer can identify the word “Pluto,” the word “Fleas,” a drawing of a flea, and the
word “Dehydrated,” for example. When viewed in relation to the piece as a whole,
though, these symbols lose their stark clarity. The lack of a logical relationship between
symbols soon frustrates the viewer’s effort to make firm conclusions about the “meaning”
of the work without slipping into that dangerous territory of hypothesizing intentionality.
In fact, it is the impulse to assume that a traditional narrative relationship exists (and that
viewers are capable of unearthing it) that temporarily hinders our ability to address and
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
24!Ibid.!
!
Muoio 15
analyze the work holistically––as being transcendent of verbal articulation associated
with narrative.
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work points to the necessity to look beyond logic––
beyond the fixed ideologies of tradition––in search of a new conception of Being. The
symbolism emits the sense of an original language––appropriated and reconfigured by
Basquiat from popular culture––that reveals the inadequacy of tradition and ideology in
defining Identity. It is a language of irrelevance––of irreverence––toward tradition that
calls for a pre-verbal interpretation of the work and subsequently, an alternative
conception of Being. Writing on Heidegger’s conception of Being, Ludwig Wittgenstein
stated, “Everything which we feel like saying can…only be nonsense.”25 Being is
something that cannot be wholly understood in words, for it goes beyond them.
Paradoxically, the effect of words in Basquiat’s works points to the incompetency of
verbal language in defining one’s Being. The non-logical relationship of these symbols
exposes the ineptitude of cultural ontology in the conception of identity. With this in
mind, it is thus necessary to look beyond the verbal––past the words that occupy the
majority of Basquiat’s works––to the human figures.
Throughout Basquiat’s oeuvre, set against and juxtaposing the symbolic
landscape of traditional irrelevance, are figures of privation––ones that evoke
incompleteness, aesthetically and conceptually. Unlike the precisely rendered, clearly
discernable (albeit ultimately illogical) symbols, the figures in Basquiat’s work are
lacking in finish. In another 1983 painting Mitchell Crew (Fig. 2), for example, eight
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
25!Ludwig Wittgenstein, “On Heidegger on Being and Dread,” Heidegger and Modern
Philosophy: Critical Essays, ed. Michael Murray (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1978) 80.
!
Muoio 16
large faces are surrounded by scrawled words and images from pop-culture. Yet none of
these words seem adequate in wholly defining the figures, and in fact, the figures do not
seem wholly defined themselves. Each face appears to have multiple contour lines. The
largest face of the composition (on the right panel), for instance, is no exception. What
defines that face in terms of its outline? Is it the blue-green swaths of color? Is it the
crudely rendered, broad black brush strokes that discontinuously and only partially
circumscribe the face? Or the red line that seems equally disjointed and inadequate? Or
the thinner line of black or red? The confusion of the outline results in a confusion of the
precise (visual) definition of the figure, evoking the Heideggerean notion of Being as
something lacking––or perhaps more precisely, transcending––a material “what.” 26
Being is supra-material, a “who” as opposed to a “what,” in the sense that Being always
exists yet can never be defined through description of a being’s materiality alone.27
Being, according to Heidegger, is transcendent––literally an act of “going-beyond.”28
This implies that a Being has transcended something but has also not yet gone beyond
something as well. A “who,” therefore, is a constant process of transcendence rather than
a material and static “what” (or material object). The contour aesthetic of lack––of an
image perpetually coming into Being rather than statically and strictly defining it––
evokes this notion of one’s misapprehension of Being when viewed in an exclusively
material context. It demonstrates the need for a new search for self-definition that does
not confine itself to the physical realm.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
26!Heidegger, Basic Writings: From Being and Time (1927) to The Task of Thinking
(1964) 54.!
27!Note the lower-case “b” (associated with materiality) being as opposed to the uppercase “B” Being (associated with the supra-material).!
28!Loy M. Vail, Heidegger and Ontological Difference (University Park: Pennsylvania
State University Press 1972), 48.!
!
Muoio 17
In Basquiat’s work, the words and symbols contain a quality of mass-
reproducibility; they often appear duplicated one after another within the same canvas.
The faces and human figures, opposingly, seem completely individualistic––utterly
irreproducible. The aesthetic distinction evokes the dissimilarity between the two
entities, suggesting the necessity for differing modes of inquiry in understanding each.
The relationship of the two elicits Heidegger’s differentiation of “traditional” and
“fundamental” ontology.29 Traditional ontology does not question the relationship
between the self and others; it assumes Identity as an overt and static entity able to be
entirely perceived and articulated by others. Traditional ontology, therefore, is capable
only of defining being (as opposed to Being).30 Fundamental ontology, however,
questions the very relationship of the inner self and tangible objects and traits. Through
this skepticism, it aims for acknowledgment of the existence of Being, asking instead,
what is the meaning of Being? Fundamental ontology views Beings as “changeable in
themselves” rather than as static entities rooted in material being.31 Whereas with
traditional ontology a person’s self is entirely definable by, for example, his/her physical
structure, fundamental ontology acknowledges an inner-self––that is, one beyond
materiality and one whose definition is constantly in a state of becoming.
In Basquiat’s Gold Griot (1984, Fig. 3), for instance, the figure conjures the
definition of its identity as founded in fundamental ontology. The figure’s identity is not
wholly manifested in the work––not entirely defined in overt and static terms. Gold
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
29!Harries, 168.!
30!Again, for Heidegger, “being” and “Being” are very different things. The former
refers to an individual’s overtly physical characteristics, whereas the latter refers to the
essence of the individual, to the meaning of the individual’s existence.
31!Martin Heidegger, as quoted in Werner Marx, Heidegger and the Tradition (Evanston
[Ill.]: Northwestern University Press, 1971) 164.
!
Muoio 18
Griot evokes this malleability and dynamism of identity formation through the aesthetic
relationship of line and color. The negative space, for example, between the white outline
of the head and the black color of the face within that contour, confuses the exact
constitution of the figure. The aesthetic lack in regard to the figure’s precise definition,
suggested by the lack of spatial agreement between the outline and the color the outline
attempts to circumscribe, evokes a notion of identity as being in a similar a state of
uncertainty when sought out through a purely traditional ontological process. The
discordant physical appearance of the figure actually obscures any attempt to define with
certainty the figure. Thus, the figure in Gold Griot necessitates a transcendence of the
static, verbal identifiers typical of traditional ontology and conjures instead a preference
for a fundamental ontological approach to self-definition.
The work also seems to amplify its call for an alternative search for identity
through its “negative gesture.” In Basquiat’s oeuvre, “negative gesture” consists of any
image or word that the artist has “crossed out” yet left essentially comprehensible to the
eye.32 When more traditional artists alter their works, they do so in order to conceal
something, an error perhaps. The results of Basquiat’s process of making pentimenti, on
the other hand, elicit a deviation from this tradition––are antithetical to it. The pentimenti
in Notary (as well as the majority of works in Basquiat’s corpus), such as “PLUTO” or
“PRIVATE,” have the opposite effect: rather than conceal, the negative gesture
emphasizes the relationship of the “crossed out” symbol to the work as a whole, and it
serves as a point of confusion. With traditional logic, a “crossing out” equates with a
nullification of consideration of what was crossed out. What was once an assertion
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
32!By “comprehension,” I mean exclusively optic comprehension, as in to be seen
formally.!
!
Muoio 19
becomes essentially “nothingness” in the sense that the symbol is now empty of a
material “what” in regard to its own identity as a symbol. The original symbol (i.e.
“PRIVATE”) loses its present tense “is” and, through Basquiat’s technique of negative
gesture, takes on a past tense “was.” That being said, the reworked symbol (i.e.
“PRIVATE”) still exists in the present tense, despite its altered form as “nothingness.”
This is because “Being cannot indeed be conceived as an entity.”33 It cannot be defined
by mere verbal articulation of materiality. Heidegger further states, “The indefinability
does not eliminate the question of its meaning; it demands that we look that question in
the face.”34 This is the function of Basquiat’s work. It calls into question traditional
modes of inquiry in respect to Being. Typically, one completely disregards the newlyformed “nothingness” brought out by a crossing out. In Basquiat’s work, however, the
negative gesture defies a logical reading. “PRIVATE” is not nullified because of its
crossing out, but rather, altered. The negative gesture of “PRIVATE” stands as a symbol
in itself, rousing a reconsideration of nothingness as pertinent to the conceptualization of
identity. The symbols then, awaken an intangible process––an active and immediate
transcendence of the constructed verbal realm in the search for self-definition.
Through an appropriated and abstracted symbolism, Basquiat’s work elicits the
inadequacy of identity formation, as it exists in the material realm of tradition. It
conjures the Heideggerean “de-struction” of Being such that it raises questions of the
relevance of culture and tradition in identity formation.35 Moreover, it asserts the two
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
33!Heidegger, Being and Time, 23. !
34!Ibid.
35!Heidegger, Being and Time from Basic Writings: From Being and Time (1927) to The
Task of Thinking (1964), 69. Heidegger explains his hyphenation of “de-struct” as an
!
Muoio 20
latter (related) institutions––that is, cultural and tradition––as hindrances to genuine selfdefinition. Rather than define Being in traditional, static terms, Basquiat’s work
elucidates a reworking of the questioning of––the active search for––self-definition.
Being is defined through the ineffable. Thus, the viewer must look beyond traditional
modes of interpretation, beyond tradition in itself, in order to find coherence in the work
of Jean-Michel Basquiat. With the form of the question established––as an inquiry
rooted in fundamental ontology, seeking to grasp the identity of Being and not of a
genus––one can now progress to the question itself and address the method for identity
formation evoked by the Basquiat’s paintings.
!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
attempt to rid the word of its typical negative connotations, alluding instead to a
breakdown of structure.!
!
Muoio 21
III. Basquiat and Deleuzian Differentiation
When critics like bell hooks canonize the aesthetic of Jean-Michel Basquiat as
inextricably linked to that of a collective black diasporic tradition (as representing “the
violent erasure of a people”) they frame it––smooth the edges and package it precisely
into a univocal representational whole.36 “Framing,” defined by French philosopher
Gilles Deleuze, “is the art of choosing the parts of all kinds which become part of a set.
This set is a closed system, relatively and artificially closed.”37 The frame, then, creates a
cropped and fixed representation of reality, decontextualizing the information captured
from reality and forcing its re-contextualization within a novel, isolated system (produced
by the framer). It is the framer who defines the system, and it is crucial to note that the
system is artificial. According to Deleuze, the frame is first and foremost “informatic,”
meaning that it re-presents information derived from outside the frame.38 However, the
content within the frame differs from the subject framed––the former being a conveyance
of external information and the latter the external information itself. The two––the
subject matter within the frame and the subject external to it––are separate entities,
neither identical nor interchangeable.
Framing is a means of representation. According to Deleuze, however, traditional
conceptions of representation are inadequate in defining one’s identity. “Finite
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
36!hooks, 344.!
37!Gilles Deleuze, “Cinema and Space: The Frame,” The Deleuze Reader, ed. Constantin
Boundas (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 179. Here Deleuze speaks of the
literal frame of a film, as in its effect produced by cropping. However, his definition is
useful for the concept of “framing” more broadly––as multiple parts forming a set whole. !
38!Ibid. I make use of the diacritic here to emphasize the separation of the information as
it exists outside of the frame (i.e. the idea) and the idea as it is presented in the frame (i.e.
the conveyance of the Idea).!
!
Muoio 22
representation,” which Deleuze explains to be “that of a form which contains a matter,
but a secondary matter in so far as it is defined by contraries,” is an inadequate model
precisely because of its secondary nature, which derives from its reducibility to
difference. 39 This opposes “infinite representation,” which ignores the process of
differentiation altogether by assuming differences to be fixed entities. Infinite
representation, therefore, also misses the mark in relation to identity formation, for it
“does not,” according to Deleuze, “free itself from the principle of identity as a
presupposition of representation.”40 It assumes that a representation, by nature, is always
representative of a fixed, unwavering identity; and that the lens of representation is in fact
a “natural” and necessary mediator in defining identity. The issue, for Deleuze, is that
both finite and infinite forms of representation view difference as an epiphenomenon, or
byproduct, of identity. According to these presupposing modes of representation,
identities contain differences––that is, differences are an inevitable outgrowth of already
fixed identities. Opposing this sentiment, it is instead “difference in itself” that Deleuze
says constitutes identities.41 Differences do not stem from an identity (an identity does
not have differences); rather, it is difference in itself that substantiates an identity.
Difference, for Deleuze, is a process, a constant act of differentiation. Returning
to the example of the frame, when viewed in and of itself, it also presents (rather than
represents) information through its determination of an “out-of-field.”42 Yet the frame––
as a closed system with static differentiations, or presupposed differences––asserts its
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
39!Gilles Deleuze, “Difference in Itself” from Difference and Repetition reprinted in The
Theory of Difference: Readings in Contemporary Continental Thought, ed. Douglas
Donkel (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), 210. !
40!Ibid.!
41!Deleuze, “Difference in Itself,” 211.!
42!Deleuze, “Cinema and Space: The Frame,” 179.
!
Muoio 23
own artificiality in that it must be constructed and does not naturally exist. The
differentiation must be applied, externally, to the frame and does not stem from it. It is
never differences that identify a Being, however, but instead the process of
differentiation.
Framing, as a mode of mediation or representation, thus clouds a true conception
of identity. Particularly after considering the Heidegerrean severance of “Being” from
“genus”––framing reveals itself to be only a form of distortion, which is “precisely what
the construction of race as a social genre of difference represents.”43 Racial hierarchy
presupposes difference as inherently (and inheritably) stemming from a material identity.
Citing a Deleuzian sense of Being however, it is an identity that––rather than containing
difference––is actually defined by difference. Difference, when viewing it from a
Deleuzian standpoint, is no longer the passive byproduct of identity, but the active force
that itself articulates identity. According to Deleuze, “Difference must become the
element, the ultimate unity; it must therefore refer to other differences which never
identify it but rather differenciate [sic] it.”44 We must, says Deleuze, think of identity as
difference, not something containing differences, for it is defined relationally through an
active, ongoing, and endless process of differentiation. It is an experience, not a static
representation.45 This experience is a movement––one that “implies a plurality of
centres, a superposition of perspectives, a tangle of points of view, a coexistence of
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
43!Cameron Van Patterson, "A Black Presence Disclosed in Absence the Politics of
Difference in Contemporary Art" (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2012).!
44!Deleuze, “Difference in Itself,” 217.!
45!Whereas identity is traditionally considered, by for example Hegel, as existing
singularly and statically, Deleuze defines it dynamically. It is not only the definition of
identity, which requires a relation with other. Rather, identity (as difference itself), can
only exist in relativity, through a variance of experience.!
!
Muoio 24
moments which essentially distort representation”––in that it is a constantly reworked
divergence.46 This notion deconstructs the legitimacy of race because, given this
experiential contingency, one cannot define, let alone represent, the identity of an
Other.47 An identity is not static and thus, cannot be described in static terms or through
static representations.
Therefore, to claim the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat as “representative” of
identity is to misapprehend the very concept Identity.48 A representation is itself an
object. It is difference. Art, according to Deleuze, is “…theatre where nothing is fixed, a
labyrinth without a thread (Ariadne has hung herself). The work of art leaves the domain
of representation in order to become ‘experience’, transcendental empiricism or science
of the sensible.”49 It is transcendentally empiric in that art exists only for and through a
process of sensation. The work of art is a divergence––a differentiation that is antithetical
to convergence. It does not speak for others, as some have suggested by fixing
representation to the work; it simply speaks of itself, of its own existence as difference.
Therefore, Basquiat’s work is not a representation of identity, but an identity of its own,
manifested as a dynamic sensation. As an experiential, rather than a static informatic
entity, the work of art not only points to multiplicity (what Deleuze calls a “plurality of
centres”), but on a more fundamental level is constituted by multiplicity––by a
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
46!Deleuze, “Difference in Itself,” 217.
47!By other, I mean an entity other than self, with its own identity. Representation is
extremely problematic for Deleuze. It claims to literally “re-present” something, implying
therefore that the represented object’s identity is identical to the representation of the
identity. Thus representation asserts the existence of a single center from which an
identity can be universally defined.!
48!That is, Identity as difference, for a Deleuzian sense of identity (and being) conceives
of it as difference (as stated above).
49!Deleuze, “Difference in Itself,” 217. !
!
Muoio 25
coexistence of moments that are experienced from a “rhizomatic” world, as in one that
does not progress linearly but instead accepts the variance of unconnected abundance.50
The work of Basquiat achieves this “transcendentally empiric” status through the
distinction it draws between figure and figuration. Deleuze defines the figure as “form as
it relates to sensation” and figuration as “form as it relates to an object that the form is
supposed to represent.”51 The figure exists in the painting––is internal to it. It is
phenomenological in that nothing needs to be brought to the work from outside of it.
Figuration, conversely, is external to the painting. It must be inferred from outside
knowledge and then applied to––or perhaps more precisely, imposed upon––the painting
by the viewer. Basquiat’s work, however (as has been argued in the previous chapter),
eschews narrative interpretation through its nonsensical amalgamation of supposed
representative symbols. The work, therefore, opposes figuration in favor of sensation.
Thus, maintaining the figure as separate from figuration, Basquiat’s work is not
figurative, despite containing figures. Yet it is not wholly abstract either. For
abstraction, according to Deleuze, is in fact quite similar to figuration in that it “develops
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
50!The term “rhizomatic” here refers to Deleuze’s novel theory of ontology being like a
rhizome (rather than as a tree). “The rhizome is altogether different, a map and not a
tracing [sic]…entirely oriented toward an experimentation in contact with the real.”
Deleuze suggests here that the rhizome does not assume the validity of a linear
progression and moreover views such a system as constructed (out of contact with the
real). He goes on to say that “the map has to do with performance, whereas the tracing
always involves an alleged ‘competence’.” Here, Deleuze puts forth the question of being
as one of temporality, of experience. (Gilles Deleuze, “Rhizome Versus Tree,” The
Deleuze Reader, ed. Constantin Boundas (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993),
35.)!
51!Gilles Deleuze, “Painting and Sensation.” The Deleuze Reader, ed. Constantin
Boundas (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 188.!
!
Muoio 26
a symbolic code”––one that is “necessarily cerebral and misses sensation.”52 Neither
figurative nor abstract painting liberates the figure or asserts the painting as a sensation
(in and of itself). Both imply the necessity, on the part of the viewer, to bring meaning to
the work, from outside of it, rather than look within it to conjure meaning.
Again, Basquiat’s works constitute a different conception of painting. Figural
painting, as stated by Deleuze, “remains in an irredeemably confused state” thereby
keeping it in “the act of painting”––that is, in the dynamic process rather than the static
result.53 Rather than being either figuration or abstraction, Basquiat’s work holds
meaning in the tension between the two, in its evocation of a process that abstracts
figuration. Thereby, it resists reduction; irreducibly is difference––an active and ongoing
differentiation that is “relative and inter-relational.”54 The holistic quality of Basquiat’s
50 Cent Piece (Fig. 4), for example, evokes, phenomenologically, this process of
differentiation that does not identify but differentiates––defines itself not by any fixed
univocal idea, but through a plurality and multiplicity of coexistence. What coexists, in
the work, is abstraction and figuration. On one level, the “sensation” of the painting is
chaos.55 It is composed of a plethora of visually (and narratively) disjointed forms
(primarily words in this work) that, if viewed as an amalgam of figurations, dissuade
consideration of individual elements in favor of the whole. The whole, following
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
52!Gilles Deleuze, “The Diagram,” The Deleuze Reader, ed. Constantin Boundas (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 196 - 199.
53!Deleuze, “The Diagram,” 199.
54!Van Patterson, 15.!
55!It is critical to recall that the painting, as a single, holistic entity, is sensation. It is not
certain elements within it that make up multiple sensations within the work, for “there are
not sensations of different orders, but, rather, different orders of one and the same
sensation” within the painting. (Deleuze, “Painting and Sensation,” 189.)
!
Muoio 27
Deleuze, can be thought of as a “diagram.”56 Deleuze says, “The diagram is indeed a
chaos, a catastrophe, but also a seed of order and of rhythm.”57 On a panoramic level, the
chaos of the individual forms gives way to, or perhaps more precisely conjures, a more
abstract, holistic rhythm of the painting itself, as a sensation. It is in this manner that
Basquiat’s work embraces chaos––espouses the plurality and multiplicity of identity. No
singular element is capable of defining the work. It is neither rooted in figuration nor
abstraction. Rather, it is the relationship of (i.e. the active differentiation of) the forms
that constitute its performative unity.
As has been previously stated, identity is not a static “what,” but rather a “who” in
a constant state of formation. Again addressing the work phenomenologically, the work
of Jean-Michel Basquiat evokes process, an ongoing and dynamic reworking of its own
identity, which in the case of a painting is, essentially, its meaning. By containing
negative gesture, such as the “PINEAPPLE” in the center of the canvas or the
UNFINISHED PORTRAIT OF in the bottom left, the sensation of 50 Cent Piece elicits
time as the space in which identity formation occurs. In negative gesture, forms cross out
other forms below––a line for example, crosses out “pineapple”. However, rather than
act as some kind of camouflage of the creative act, which often embodies many technical
and conceptual re-workings, these alterations evoke movement––seem to emphasize the
process as the product. The sensation of the work takes on a temporal quality. Similarly,
identity, according to Deleuze, exists in a temporal realm. Identity is a state of becoming
in that it is never fixed; difference is never that which is differentiated but always what is
differentiating. The former would imply that identity could exist independent of Other––
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
56!Gilles Deleuze, “The Diagram,” 195.!
57!Ibid.!
!
Muoio 28
outside of difference. However, it is difference (that is, identity as difference) which
affirms its own existence, through a perpetual differentiation from Other.58 It is precisely
because of the Other that a Self always finds itself “in the movement of” difference.59
Within the painting itself (within the sensation), negative gesture elicits the
Deleuzean temporalization of identity. The red “RUSSIA” in the top of canvas, for
example, evokes time in its suggestion of both the creative and perceptive act.60
Regarding the former, the negative gesture suggests an initial conception and then a
reworking––a figuration and subsequent re-figuration. Clearly, a reworking occurs in a
temporal, as well as spatial, realm; something is “worked” and then “re-worked.” Based
on phenomenology alone, the viewer can see that the symbol “RUSSIA” preceded its
later re-figuration to “RUSSIA.” Thus, the viewer gains insight into the creative process.
With regard to the process of creation, the temporal realm is marked by the time between
initial conception of the form and its alteration to another form (the reworked form).
Another way of thinking about this reworking is to view it as a deformation. The
initial form (that is, the form that exists prior to being reworked) is literally deformed––in
that its original form recedes––and is reformed––as its alteration comes to the forefront
as a novel form. This deformation, therefore, is not subtractive, but equally productive as
the initial form. Through the process of reformation, following Deleuze, a deformation is
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
58!A Self, therefore, is utterly reliant on Other in identity formation, for without Other
there is nothing from which to differentiate itself.!
59!Daniel Barber, “On Post-Heideggerean Difference: Derrida and Deleuze,” The
Southern Journal of Philosophy 47 (2009): 120.!
60!Deleuze, “The Diagram,” 195. It is important to note here that, for Deleuze (following
Francis Bacon), the function of form (the elements that collectively constitute a painting)
is to “suggest”––to introduce “possibilities of fact.” According to Deleuze, they do not
constitute a fact until they are perceived together as a visual whole (as a figure).
Negative gesture is form, capable of suggestion, which conjoined with the remaining
forms of the painting, constitute the figure, or sensation of the painting. !
!
Muoio 29
actually a novel formation––nothing is capable of losing its form, but instead can only
give way to new forms. Both forms exist independently when viewed in a temporal
realm (i.e. as a form that has undergone a process to create a new form). “RUSSIA,” for
example, reveals two distinct forms, the original figuration “RUSSIA,” which deformed
and reformed by a bisecting line created the second figuration, “RUSSIA.” The emphasis
of this defiguration, of a symbol losing its original form and taking on the form of a new
symbol, in Basquiat’s negative gesture emphasizes the temporal realm––reduces the two
polarities (figuration and defiguration) to independent, coexisting forms.61 Thus we
enter into the latter suggestion brought about by negative gesture––the perceptual act as
movement.
In the case of perception, negative gesture elicits the superiority of the
relationship between figuration and defiguration (over figuration itself) as an agent in
constituting Identity. The figure (composed of numerous forms) is (i.e. exists as a self) in
a manner constituted by a relational what it is not. The negative gesture (the
defiguration) in 50 Cent Piece, therefore, is not to be disregarded, despite what a
traditional semiotic interpretation may suggest of something “crossed out.” It awakens
the necessity of a perception of the Other––the is not––for the differentiation and thus
conception of the Self––the is. This relationship is made evident in 50 Cent Piece by
negative gesture, which requires a consideration of time, on the part of the viewer, first of
what is and then of what was. The viewing process, then, actually takes on a similar
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
61!“Reduction” is not synonymous with an essentializing diminishment. Therefore, the
word “reduction” should not be read with a negative connotation. In fact, it is a reduction
that is sought in understanding Identity. To reduce is to make more fundamental, and a
fundamental understanding of Being, of the identity of the self, is the aim of Deleuze and
of this theory. !
!
Muoio 30
quality to the negative gesture––both are a process occurring over time. Therefore, the
negative gesture, by evoking a creative and perceptive temporal space and demonstrating
the inter-relatedness of difference, constitutes a dynamic, pluralistic figure that rejects the
legitimacy of a closed, static identity.62
The work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, through its evocation of a process of
differentiation, exists as difference. Referring again to 50 Cent Piece, the work is not
figurative but is more purely figural. It exists on its own, holistically and selfreferentially; its meaning does not lie in its disparate elements. Perceiving the work as
such, as a process, the proposition of Basquiat’s work as univocally and statically
representational of a larger collective seems flawed. Basquiat’s work calls into question
the very relevance of representation in identity formation. It suggests that instead of
presenting a path toward comprehension, representation only serves to cloud the form as
it exists in actuality––that is, as sensation. Sensation opposes representation. While a
representation is univocal (in the sense that it derives from a single perspective), a
sensation is pluralistic (as it is something which forces perceivers to create movement,
implying a multiplicity and variance). Basquiat’s work evokes Deleuze’s re-structuring,
or rather de-structuring, of Identity as “difference in itself.”63 It does this by suggesting
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
62!Perhaps Basquiat’s negative gesture is similar to Robert Rauschenberg’s 1953 Erased
de Kooning Drawing. Rauschenberg completely erased one of Willem de Kooning’s
drawings and framed the subsequently blank page as a finished work. Despite, the
erasure, however, Rauschenberg says in an interview with the San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art, “It’s not a negation, it’s a celebration. It’s just the idea!” The idea focuses
on the “what was” and the “what is,” conjuring notions of time and process similar to
Basquiat’s negative gesture. (“Robert Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning Drawing,”
from Internet Archive, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Posted 1998, Video, 3:25,
http://www.sfmoma.org/explore/multimedia/videos/24.).
63!Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, trans., Paul Patton (London: Continuum,
2004), 36.!
!
Muoio 31
temporality as integral to difference (and thus to Identity) and thereby elicits the verity of
the relative and inter-related variance of Being. Identity is therefore not some collective
grouping such as race or socio-economic class, for to suppose congruence is to overlook
the question of identity itself. Identity is not something that contains differences, but
rather is constituted by difference in itself.
!
Muoio 32
IV. Outside of “Otherness”: An Identity Outside of the Spectacle
Almost unanimously, critics, for example the late New York Times critic Vivien
Raynor, “other” the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat. The initial “othering” of Basquiat’s
work labeled his crude aesthetic as neo-primitivism, as if, says Raynor, Basquiat had
been “touched by Dubuffet, despite being, by virtue of his Haitian background, a lot
closer to the source material than the French artist [was].”64 Through this neo-primitivist
lens, Basquiat’s work appears in the same vein as that of Jean Dubuffet, seeking to reify a
set of omnipresent and elemental, yet at once vague and subtle, “informing principles” of
Western Art History––achieved through an aesthetic focus on “tribal” forms.65 The
essentializing and Eurocentric lens was shattered in the 1980’s by critics, academics, and,
as Basquiat demonstrates, by artists. In his seminal review “Histories of the Tribal and
the Modern,” James Clifford lambasts the Museum of Modern Art’s association between
tribal African art and the European Modernism movement as a mere “effect of
resemblance” that is abhorrently misguiding in its euro-centricity.66
Out of this rejection of “primitivism” came another consideration of the “Other”
in Basquiat’s oeuvre, this time affixing his work to the canon of a collective “Other,” the
African American community that, in the 1980’s in New York, inhabited the lower
echelons of the socio-economic stratum. This community was underrepresented (or
perhaps more accurately, was all but unrepresented) within the art establishment. African
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
64!Vivien Raynor, “Art: Paintings by Jean Michel Basquiat at Boone,” The New York
Times, May 11, 1984. Raynor uses the term “source material” somewhat ambiguously,
but presumably she is referring to “tribal art” made outside of Europe.
65!James Clifford, “Histories of the Tribal and the Modern,” The Predicament of Culture
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1988), 191.
66!Ibid, 193. Clifford reviews of the Museum of Modern Art’s 1984 exhibition
“Primitivism in 20th Century Art: Affinity of the Tribal and the Modern.”!
!
Muoio 33
American artists were “other” to the existing (largely white) hegemony––the gallery
owners, the collectors, and the directors and curators of what Sociologist Vera Zolberg
calls “the most legitimating of institutions,” the art museum.67
Yet neither of these “other-ings” acknowledges the Deleuzian “other”––of an
identity as difference in itself––conjured throughout Basquiat’s paintings. That is because
Basquiat’s work lies outside of “The Other.” In both the above cases, “The Other”
becomes a category, a collective, which in the art world is commonly referred to as
“outsider art.” The framing then becomes misleading in its suggestion of singularity and
homogeneity. It is not the individual artist to which “outsider” or “other” refers, but
rather to a genre of art that the “Inside” determines as the “Outside.” The “Inside” here
refers to the art establishment, to what chief art critic of The New Yorker Peter Schjeldahl
calls the “permanent floating committee of the tribe of Western culture” (of which he, as
a prominent critic, is a participant).68 By definition, the outside necessitates a counterpart,
the inside. Yet, the dichotomy is defined by those with power, the hegemonic interior.
Again citing Schejeldahl, “What we [the Insiders] regard is valuable; what we don’t can’t
be.”69 For outsider art to even be recognized as “outsider art,” it must enter into “the
Inside.” There is a certain level of mediation, therefore, that must occur in order for a
work of outsider art to exist as a work of art. It must penetrate the threshold, defined by
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
67!Vera Zolberg, “African Legacies, American Realities: Art and Artists on the Edge,”
Outsider Art, ed. Vera Zolberg and Joni Maya Cherbo (New York: Cambridge University
Press 1997), 53.
68!Peter Schjeldahl, “On Outsider Art,” Columns & Catalogues (Great Barrington, MA:
The Figures 1994), 244.!In reality, there are many different art worlds, each with their
own hierarchies, insiders, and outsiders. For the purposes of this paper, however, the art
establishment comprising the major museums, galleries, and publications is the “art
world” that defines “the Inside,” as it is the entity that is under scrutiny.
69!Ibid.
!
Muoio 34
the art establishment, of interiority in order to express its previous exteriority. Yet, as
argued through Deleuzian theory in the previous chapter, Basquiat’s work elicits outright
differentiation from any and all groupings. It conjures a notion of identity that both
transcends cultural ideologies and is utterly unique––all while inherently, necessarily
remaining rooted in culture (the inside). Yet, how is it possible to break away from
culture while existing within it? Moreover, is this possible?
While Deleuze provides an abstract, theoretical notion of identity, Guy Debord
provides a framework for the material embodiment of this identity, conjured through the
works of Jean-Michel Basquiat. The artist, through his work, is able regain control of the
definition of his own identity––one that does indeed transcend culture in the
Heideggerean sense of the incomplete and present act of going-beyond, which
acknowledges a partial state that has not gone beyond, as well. Through the act of
painting, he controls the manifestation of his expression––defines a novel, doubly
interior, space. In essence, then, Basquiat is the Deleuzian framer; he delineates his own
identity––appropriating culturally recognizable symbols only as means of incapacitating
their influence on identity formation. By frustrating a cultural reading, his works act selfreferentially to elicit the artificiality of framing. Basquiat’s Notary, for example, seems
to stand as a meta-commentary on the process of framing. The typical frame under which
the viewer operates is dictated by pop culture, by ideology. Through this cultural lens,
certain symbols evoke certain associations––in Notary the “Leech” might seem to have
parasitic connotations, for example. The viewer then crafts meaning from the
associations, not the images directly. Basquiat’s works, including Notary, crack this lens,
!
Muoio 35
force the viewer to consider the work phenomenologically, as sensation, as discussed in
the previous chapter.
Therefore, Notary awakens at once an appropriation of cultural symbols and a
formation of a novel, phenomenological language––one that refuses to be shackled to and
by cultural semiotics. Basquiat’s work seems to evoke the cogent definition of “Outsider
art,” put forth by Schjeldahl, as “art produced by a culture consisting of one person.”70 It
is not about the collective (always defined by hegemonic forces), but the individual––the
Self as different than any other. Yet this is not to say that the Outsider artist works in a
cultural vacuum.71 It is, as Roberta Smith posits in a review of “Outsider art,” “firmly
rooted in real experiences and memories.72 For, just as in the Deleuzian differentiation, to
break away from a system requires that there is a system from which to break. !
For Debord, the system was “the spectacle” of modern life––the dominant
commodity-oriented and consumption-driven culture.73 In this culture, direct experience
no longer seemed possible. “Everything that was directly lived,” according to Debord,
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
70!Ibid.
71!The mythic “self-taught” artist (like Basquiat), for example, may not have formal
academic training, but still lives within a certain culture and is subject to its ideological
forces. Of course, it is impossible to say that that an artist works in a cultural vacuum.
However, as Basquiat’s work exemplifies, it certainly is possible to conceive of an
identity that transcends cultural ideology, even from a position internal to that culture.
72!Roberta Smith, “Outside In,” The New York Times, January 26, 2007, accessed
November 11, 2013,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/arts/design/26rami.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&. In
this piece, Roberta Smith reviews the American Folk Art Museum’s exhibition of
drawings by Mexican artist Martín Ramírez, who is, as Smith puts it, a “so-called
outsider.” In this article, Smith attempts to “render null and void the insider-outsider
distinction,” arguing that the “outside” refers more to a particular aesthetic than to the
nature of the art.
73!Guy Debord, “The Commodity as Spectacle,” Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks,
ed. Meenakshi Durham and Douglas Kellner (Malden, MA: Blackwell 2006), 117.
!
Muoio 36
“has moved away into a representation.”74 Immediacy has fallen by the wayside, leaving
only “ ‘mediacy’––life as mediated through other instruments, life as a media creation.”75
In this culture of the spectacle, everything, including one’s own identity, is mediated––
defined and contextualized by the hegemonic forces of a culture of consumerism. In the
work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, for example in his 1983 piece Hollywood Africans (Fig.
5), the backdrop of mediation (the spectacle of modern life) is conjured by the frenzied
amalgam of text and symbols on the canvas. It is the landscape in which the figures find
themselves. This spectacular landscape tempts the viewer to perceive the figures through
the text and symbols surrounding them, through the figuration. In doing so, however, one
mistakenly perceives the figures not as they exist, but rather through their mediation,
through the spectacle––stereotypes promoted by those in power. As Debord observes,
“All individual reality has become social reality directly dependent on social power and
shaped by it.”76 For Debord, this is a “deceived gaze,” for identity has become a spectacle
in itself.77 Identity loses its authenticity and its ability to present itself; it is replaced by
representations (mediations). Yet in the work of Basquiat, as well as in actuality, this
spectacle exists outside of the figures––words and images may surround the figures in
Hollywood Africans, but they (the figurations) do not constitute the figures (the
sensations); the two (figuration and figure) are disparate entities. The spectacle provides
only a semblance of identity, never truly penetrating the sensation of the painting, never
defining the who of the individual.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
74!Ibid.
75!Kalle Lasn, “Culture Jamming,” The Consumer Society Reader, ed. Juliet Schor and
Douglas Holt (New York, NY: New Press, 2000), 416.!
76!Debord, 120.!
77!Ibid, 117.
!
Muoio 37
The work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, however, does not merely expose the
commodification of identity––the figuration of the figure (as is the case in works of Pop
Art). Rather, it re-establishes the figure––the experiential, Deleuzian sensation––as the
definer of the self; the work liberates itself from the static confines of figuration. Guy
Debord’s notions of “détournement” and “dérive” each describe a means of separating
oneself from commodity, realizing a definition of Self outside of consumerism, and
ultimately, reclaiming one’s identity from the societal spectacle.78 Détournenment was a
solution provided by Debord for reclaiming the spectacle that was one’s own life.
Translating from French as literally a “turning around,” détournment consists of
appropriating images, words, and ideas from culture and using them in such a way that
alters or abandons their meaning. There is a temporal sense of defiguration, of rewriting
your own reality, or perhaps more accurately of reclaiming your own reality in a manner
that exposes the emptiness of cultural convention.
Ubiquitously, this sense of appropriation––détournement––manifests itself in the
works of Basquiat. Using common symbols, Basquiat creates uncommon landscapes. As
can be seen throughout his paintings, Basquiat immersed himself in culture. His symbols
can be (and have extensively been) rooted to specific books, television shows, and
cultural icons.79 In 50 Cent Piece, for instance, there are symbols appropriated from
medicine (such as “medulla” and “x-ray”), chemistry (such as “pasteurized” and
“homogenized”), and history (such as “Back to Africa”). But to stop at this iconographic
analysis allows only an ostensible comprehension of Basquiat’s work; as has been
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
78!Guy Debord as quoted in Lasn, 416-417.
79!While painting in his studio, Basquiat often had the television on, books open, and
classical or jazz music playing, all at once.
!
Muoio 38
mentioned in previous chapters, it only considers the individual elements of the work,
ignoring their relationships, the holistic composition––the sensation. As one unified
work, the symbols elicit a subversion of symbolism, or at least, of a traditional semiotic
approach.80 In 50 Cent Piece, for example, the symbols do not seem to hold significant
meaning as figurations––any greater meaning stemming from a semiotic interpretation of
“medulla,” “x-ray”, and “pasteurized,” seems indecipherable and irrelevant to the piece
as a whole. Rather, these symbols seem to necessitate a more panoramic consideration of
the piece––as an original, rewritten phenomenological system consisting of appropriated
symbols––that does not discount the possibility in art for the convergence of the symbolic
and the experiential, for the verbal to achieve the preverbal, for recognizable symbols to
manifest, holistically, an unintelligible sensation.
Another way of achieving authenticity of identity, according to Debord, was
through the dérive (“the drift”), a concept that, similar to the Dadaist beliefs, relied on an
open embrace of experience. Any chance encounter or interaction should be cherished
rather than avoided. Similarly, the self-referentiality in Basquiat’s work evokes pure
experience. It does not seem pointed––it does not seem to contain any hidden, imbued,
univocal “meaning” in the traditional sense. Rather, it emits a sense of the dérive, of a
drift from one lived experience to the next. Referring again to Peter Schjeldahl’s
explanation of the outsider artists, “Straightforwardness and coherence––however
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
80!A traditional semiotic approach presupposes that symbols have certain fixed meanings
that together form a linear narrative. It assumes that the intention and reception of this
specific symbolic code are identical. A traditional semiotic approach opposes itself to
phenomenology and does not allow for a hybridity of the symbolic and the
phenomenological. In Basquiat’s work, however, the symbolism acts, holistically, as a
sensation (as phenomenon), which in itself does carry meaning, but meaning outside of
the individual symbols in the work and the associations drawn from traditional semiotics.
!
Muoio 39
outlandish, however embedded in absurdity or banality––govern the forms of their
activity. . . . Outsiders rise, fearfully, from the tumult of experience.”81 The works of
Basquiat at once call forth an authenticity unaffected by the spectacle––that is, a sense of
immediacy––and the insufficiencies of mediation. One senses, through his oeuvre, that
the former, as an immediate sensation, is capable of defining Identity, and that the latter,
as a form of figuration, is capable only of superficialities and semblances.
Despite relying heavily on text, Basquiat’s canvas, such as Notary, evokes a
preverbal comprehension––preverbal in the sense that it lies outside of conventional
systems of language. Rather than awaken representation, his work elicits sensation. If
there is a semiotic “language” of figuration in Basquiat’s work, it is not one readable by
the viewer. To denote Basquiat’s work as conventional “outsider art” does not seem to
address the heart of the matter, for it subjugates it to the realm of mediation––of mediated
representation. However, as Roberta Smith points to in her review of outsider art, the
insider-outsider distinction is “null and void”––an antiquated, false (even naïve) notion
that makes the work “a vessel...available for a reverential possession and habitation that
is almost a form of colonialism.”82 The work of Jean-Michel Basquiat is therefore
outside of the “Other” (outsider art). His paintings seem to defy possession by the viewer
(the consumer) who attempts to confine it to figuration. Moreover, the work seems to
nullify its existence as a consumable good, standing instead as a pure-expression,
eternally of the artist. The unfortunate irony is that, of course, the work of art is a
commodity good, with a monetary value, consumed by those wishing to own a Basquiat,
or, perhaps more precisely, own a piece of Basquiat.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
81!Schjeldahl, 245-46.
82!Smith, “Outside In.”
!
Muoio 40
This is precisely what the artist’s works calls to mind, a life, an existence––an act
of living. They stand less as representations, and more as sensations, living sensations, of
dérive and détournement––the search for what lays beyond commodity, beyond
consumption and within the innermost self. They are mediated only insofar as they
conjure an outright rejection of mediacy––commodity symbols implode, revealing the
irrelevance of commodity in crafting identity. Rather, they hold a certain immediacy
associated with “living in the moment, pursuing the authentic gesture.”83 In a postmodern society defined by, yet consciously aware of its own infatuation with commodity,
identity takes on new meaning. In order to establish oneself as an individual (in the
Deleuzian sense of self as a singularly unique person), one must go beyond the “Other”
or the “Outside,” for the issue with these positions is that they are still very much defined
by the Inside. Instead, one must seek a new conception of identity that lies outside the
collective. To achieve this new identity, however, it is necessary to work within
convention, if only for the purpose of subverting it. Perhaps exemplified by the work of
Basquiat par excellence, in rewriting convention, one exposes its constructed and
spectacular (in the sense of Debord’s Spectacle) nature, thus subverting it and reclaiming,
in the process, control over the definition of one’s identity. The outside, then, becomes
the desirable location, rather than the inside. But it is a new outside, one that does not
oppose the Inside, but more generally is in opposition to the insider-outsider distinction.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
83!Lasn, 419.
!
Muoio 41
V. Conclusion
Often, commentaries surrounding the works of Jean-Michel Basquiat “drift…into
personal recollections of the artist,” resulting in criticism that is “rather uncritical.”84
Within the realm of exception, Basquiat’s work has been called many things: essentially
primitivist like a Dubuffet, unmistakably black like the concurrent hip-hop movement, or
deeply ironic and ambivalent like a Warhol.85 All these descriptions, however, fail to
transcend static ostensibilities. They are labels, reeking of the essentializing tradition
within art history to subjugate works of art (and artists) to Hegelian movements––ones
that reflect a larger zeitgeist and progress, linearly, toward a heightened Art ideal. They
attempt to categorize Basquiat’s oeuvre as a chapter in a grand narrative, the Western
European canon of Art.
But upon close critical (formal as well as semiotic) analysis of Basquiat’s
paintings, we find a different story––rather, we do not find any story. We find a trail that
leads to nowhere. But then, just as the frustration of inaccessibility arrives, we come to a
realization posited by Heidegger: nowhere is somewhere; nothing is something. At the
heart of this affirmation is Deleuzian differentiation. “Nothing” exists in so much as it is
distinct from all other “things”––its identity is established not through a what-it-is
process, but through a constant what-it-is-not sensibility. In his paintings, Jean Michel
Basquiat unveils the authenticity of this latter approach to identity formation. His work
frustrates narrative interpretation––symbolizes only to reveal the symbol as a false
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
84
Thomas McEvilley, “Royal Slumming: Jean-Michel Basquiat Here Below,” Artforum
International, November, 1992, 93.
85
Vivien Raynor, “Art: Paintings by Jean Michel Basquiat at Boone,” The New York
Times, May 11, 1984, C2; Michael Wines, “Jean Michel Basquiat: Hazards of Sudden
Success and Fame,” The New York Times, August 27, 1988; Trevor Fairbrother, “Double
Feature,” Art in America, September, 1996, 77.
!
Muoio 42
prophet. Basquiat rids symbols of their cultural, communicable meaning, claiming them
as a language of his own.
Thereby, his works delve into cultural ideology at the same time that they depart
from it. Initially, we see a painting by Basquiat through the lens of culture––pop culture,
African American culture, African culture, Art culture––and subsequently we are tempted
to index his works as representations of these larger, communal entities. We see a word
or a symbol that in isolation is recognizable, and this preliminary viewing is foundational,
for it soon reveals its own artificiality. The meaning of the individual symbol collapses
under the weight of the collective painting. Viewing the symbols relationally, we
become unsettled by our inability to recognize, classify, or define. It is our failure,
however, that leads us to a more profound understanding of Basquiat’s work.
Basquiat’s oeuvre stands as an attempt to eclipse the spectacle that, as Debord
discusses, contemporary culture inexorably (and subtly) makes of individuals. It ventures
beyond the hegemonic mediation of the individual––the commodity-driven forces of
society that define the individual through the collective. During his eccentric lifetime,
Jean Michel Basquiat never relented his individuality; he never let it drown in
anonymizing, cultural collectives. The works, outliving the artist himself, are equally
uncompromising expressions of the individual. In this way, his paintings all (regardless
of title) emit a sense of self-portraiture. This self-portrait, however, is not finished, but
rather, still in-the-making. Perhaps more precisely, then, what we find in Basquiat’s
oeuvre is the performative act of self-portraiture––the formation (rather than the finished
form) of an individual.
!
Muoio 43
Basquiat is very much imbued in and yet detached from the work; the author is
both alive and dead. The paintings, however, resurrect not a celebrity, as criticism has
often posited, but a self, via a self’s search for identity. At once, this expedition ventures
deeply into symbolism and phenomenology, demonstrating the ability of the former to
succumb to the latter. This phenomenological experience of symbols constitutes the
hybrid existence of the artist in his work––Basquiat does not dictate meaning through his
works. Rather, his works, as sensations, evoke more generally the idea of the individual,
unearthing it from the hushed grave of collectivity dug by the spectacle of culture.
Basquiat’s oeuvre conjures a new conception of identity––as belonging to a person and
not a people, as answering a question not of what but of who. As we view Jean-Michel
Basquiat’s paintings, his acts of self-portraiture, we discover an element of call and
response––the question turns to us. Instead of looking at his work and from it
deciphering a definition of the artist, each of us find ourselves asking another, more
introspective question: Who am I?
!
!
Muoio 44
Appendix
Figure 1. Jean Michel Basquiat, Notary, 1983.
Acrylic, oil paintstick, and paper collage on canvas with exposed wood supports, three
panels, 71 x 158 inches (180.3 x 401.3 cm) overall.
!
Muoio 45
Figure 2. Jean Michel Basquiat, Mitchell Crew, 1983.
Acrylic, oil paintstick, and paper collage on canvas with exposed wood supports and
metal chain, three panels, 71 ½ x 137 ¾ inches (181.6 x 349.9 cm) overall.
!
Muoio 46
Figure 3. Jean-Michel Basquiat, Gold Griot, 1984.
Oil and oil paintstick on wood, 117 x 73 inches (297.2 x 185.4 cm).
!
Muoio 47
!
Figure 4. Jean-Michel Basquiat, 50 Cent Piece, 1982-83.
Acrylic, oil paintstick, crayon, graphite, colored pencil, and charcoal on paper, 22 ½ x 30
inches.
!
Muoio 48
Figure 5. Jean-Michel Basquiat, Hollywood Africans, 1983.
Synthetic polymers and mixed media on canvas. 84 x 84 inches (213.4 x 213.4 cm).
!
Muoio 49
Works Cited
Barber, Daniel. “On Post-Heideggerean Difference: Derrida and Deleuze.” The Southern
Journal of Philosophy 47 (2009): 113-129.
Basquiat, Jean-Michel. Jean Michel Basquiat: An Interview. By Marc H. Miller. New
York: Inner-Tube Video. 1989.
Clifford, James. “Histories of the Tribal and the Modern.” The Predicament of Culture.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1988.
Debord, Guy. “The Commodity as Spectacle.” Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks.
Edited by Meenakshi Durham and Douglas Kellner. Malden, Massachusetts:
Blackwell. 2006.
Deleuze, Gilles. “Cinema and Space: The Frame.” The Deleuze Reader. Edited by
Constantin Boundas. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
Deleuze, Gilles. “The Diagram.” The Deleuze Reader. Edited by Constantin Boundas.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
Deleuze, Gilles, Difference and Repetition. Translated by Paul Patton. London:
Continuum, 2004.
Deleuze, Gilles. “Difference in Itself” from!Difference(and(Repetition.!In!The Theory of
Difference: Readings in Contemporary Continental Thought. Edited by Douglas
Donkel. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001.
Deleuze, Gilles. “Painting and Sensation.” The Deleuze Reader. Edited by Constantin
Boundas. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
Deleuze, Gilles. “Rhizome Versus Tree.” The Deleuze Reader. Edited by Constantin
Boundas. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.!
Fairbrother, Trevor. “Double Feature.” Art in America, September, 1996.
Harries, Karsten. “The Search For Meaning.” Existential Philosophers: Kierkegaard to
Merleau-Ponty. ed. George Alfred Schrader, Jr.. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967.
Heidegger, Martin. Basic Writings: From Being and Time (1927) to The Task of Thinking
(1964). New York: Harper & Row, 1977.
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by John Macquarrie and Edward
Robinson. New York: Harper and Row, 1962.
!
Muoio 50
Hooks, bell. “Altars of Sacrifice: Re-membering Basquiat.” Race-ing Art History:
Critical Readings in Race and Art History. Edited by Kymberly Pinder. New
York: Routledge, 2002.
Lasn, Kalle. “Culture Jamming.” The Consumer Society Reader. Edited by Juliet Schor
and Douglas Holt. New York, NY: New Press. 2000.
Lentricchia, Frank, and Thomas McLaughlin. Critical Terms for Literary Study. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Marshall, Richard, Robert Farris Thompson, Rene Ricard, Klaus Kertess, Greg Tate, and
Dick Hebdige. Jean-Michel Basquiat. New York: Whitney Museum of American
Art. 1992.
Marx, Werner. Heidegger and the Tradition. Evanston: Northwestern University Press,
1971.
McEvilley, Thomas. “Royal Slumming: Jean-Michel Basquiat Here Below.” Artforum
International, November, 1992.
Murray, Michael. Heidegger and Modern Philosophy: Critical Essays. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1978.
Okeke-Agulu, Chika. “Globalization, Art History, and the Specter of Difference.”
Contemporary Art: 1989 to the Present. Edited by Alexander Dumbadze and
Susan Hudson. Malden, MA: Wiley- Blackwell. 2013. 447-456.
Raynor, Vivien. “Art: Paintings by Jean Michel Basquiat at Boone.” The New York
Times, May 11, 1984.
“Robert Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning Drawing.” From Internet Archive, San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Posted 1998. Video, 3:25. http://www.sfmoma
.org/explore/multimedia/videos/24.
Schjeldahl, Peter. “On Outsider Art.” Columns & Catalogues. Great Barrington,
Massachusetts: The Figures. 1994.
Smith, Roberta. “Outside In.” The New York Times. January 26, 2007. Accessed
November 11, 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/arts/design/26ram
i.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&>.
Tate, Greg. “Nobody Loves a Genius Child.” Flyboy in the Buttermilk: Essays on
Contemporary America. New York: Simon & Schuster. 1992.
Vail, Loy. Heidegger and Ontological Difference. University Park: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 1972.
!
Muoio 51
Van Patterson, Cameron. "A Black Presence Disclosed in Absence the Politics of
Difference in Contemporary Art." PhD diss., Harvard University, 2012.
Wines, Michael. “Jean Michel Basquiat: Hazards of Sudden Success and Fame.” The
New York Times, August 27, 1988.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. “On Heidegger on Being and Dread.” Heidegger and Modern
Philosophy: Critical Essays. Edited by Michael Murray. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1978.
Zolberg, Vera. “African Legacies, American Realities: Art and Artists on the Edge.”
Outsider Art. Edited by Vera Zolberg and Joni Maya Cherbo. New York:
Cambridge University Press. 1997.
!
Muoio 52
Image Bibliography
Basquiat, Jean Michel. Gold Griot. 1984. JPG.
http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/jean-michel-basquiat/gold-griot (accessed
December 10, 2013).
Basquiat, Jean Michel. Hollywood Africans. 1983. JPG.
http://whitney.org/image_columns/0004/5289/84.23_basquiat_imageprimacy_600
.jpg (accessed December 10, 2013).
Basquiat, Jean Michel. Mitchell Crew. 1983. JPG.
http://www.freshnessmag.com/2009/11/05/reebok-x-jean-basquiat-fallwinter2009/ (accessed December 10, 2013).
Basquiat, Jean Michel. Notary. 1983. JPG.
http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/jean-michel-basquiat/notary (accessed December
10, 2013).
Basquiat, Jean Michel. 50 Cent Piece. 1982-83. JPG.
http://uploads4.wikipaintings.org/images/jean-michel-basquiat/50-cent-piece.jpg
(accessed December 10, 2013).
!