Jean-Michel Basquiat, Phooey (Artist's Proof), 1982/2021.
This print was released by the Basquiat Estate after Basquiat’s multi-panel collage, Phooey. Completed in 1982, this was produced during Basquiat’s era of experimenting with original drawings and repeated imagery.
Phooey was completed in a period before moving on to photocopied versions of his illustrations and was created by collaging original drawings onto canvas.
In the work, Basquiat can be seen to comment on the limitations of resources and the way in which ownership and commerce play a part in this. Basquiat achieved this through including the copyright symbol alongside words such as 'cents' Most notable of these resources is petroleum but other, more essential, resources such as water are also noted by the artist.
These resources are merged with depictions and descriptions of the human body, showing the inextricable link between humankind, society and the resources we have come to rely upon.
Artist
Jean-Michel Basquiat
The most notorious artist of the 1980s New York gallery scene, Basquiat hung out with Warhol, appeared in a Blondie video, and died of an accidental overdose at just 27 years old. Starting his career with witty street scrawlings under the tag SAMO, he went on to achieve superstar status through topical pieces with wide-ranging reference points – from his Puerto Rican heritage to the medical textbook, Gray’s Anatomy. Basquiat was a key figure in the neo-Expressionist movement and his works are priced accordingly: in...
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