Jean-Michel Basquiat was a painter, musician, poet and a whiz kid of the art scene in Downtown New York in the late 1970s and 1980s. When it comes to Basquiat, people think of him as being friends with Warhol and Madonna, and making the famous paint-splattered Armani suits. However, there’s much more to him, Basquiat played a significant role in the fight against police brutality in his artwork. In fact, Basquiat rose to become the most influential artist in his bid to fight police brutality against the blacks. This essay will analyze two paintings that deal with the death of fellow graffiti artist Michael Stewart in 1983 at the hands of the New York City Transit Authority.. Some of his most notable work against police brutality can be seen in these two paintings. Stewart’s death was a breaking point for Basquiat and his political awareness. Basquiat’s work up until that point consisted of the placing of black bodies within art’s history, and he would address them as a way of representation. But after Michael’s death, Basquiat’s work became less cartoonish, and more subliminally political, while displaying anger. The Defacement and Irony of a Negro Policeman are important representations of Basquiat’s interpretation on the racial conflict during the late 20th century.
Basquiat’s art usually had a subject matter that was aligned to racism, inequality, discrimination and prejudice. His work always defended the values of respect, dignity and freedom. He conveyed this message through art, literature and music. While Basquiat’s career was short, it was very influential. Jean-Michel Basquiat had a very appealing way of perceiving blackness. In his art, he always employed some exit routes that enabled him to look at the disturbing issues about blackness. His unique style of painting and graffiti background made Basquiat one of the first mergers of street art into the world of fine art. Much of Basquiat’s success was due to his quiet way of raising awareness to police brutality and discrimination in New York City. This can all be seen in his art through the constant war created by New York City on graffiti in the late 1970s up to 1980s. Inopportunely, this ongoing war and the rise of the stop-and-frisk movement as well as brutality which lead to the death of the young and fellow graffiti artist Michael Stewart.
During the rise of the stop-and-frisk movement in the 1980s, police brutality was out of control, and white policemen who killed black people were infrequently prosecuted for the crime. Michael Stewart, a young black graffiti artist, was detained by police early on Sept. 15, 1983 by New York City Transit Authority on charges of writing graffiti on a subway station. In the incident, the young graffiti artist was thoroughly beaten by police into a coma after he was caught tagging a wall in a street near first avenue subway station. Within an hour of his detainment, Michael was in coma in the Bellevue Hospital Center. Thirteen days after his detainment, Michael died caused by what was described as a cardiac arrest. According to police reports, Michael Stewart became violent, resisted arrest and ran through the streets before the police officers beat him up to unconsciousness and later he succumbed to severe injuries. Later an all-white jury was formed to investigate the eleven police officers that were involved in the incident, and they were all acquitted. The police involved in the death of Michael Stewart weren’t charged with the death of Michael Stewart, because federal prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence. However, the procedures of arresting Stewart were highly questioned while the officers who handled it were greatly criticized and condemned due to their irresponsible and brutal treatment of the suspect. Basquiat was one Stewart’s friends, and was deeply affected by these horrible events, and as it happened Basquiat quickly understood that this horrible event could have happened to him easily if he had been still doing street graffiti and had been put in the same situation. Suzanna Mullock, his ex-girlfriend, mentioned that Basquiat was really shaken by his friend’s death and that he cried to her, “It could have been me.” When he heard the news he proceeded to a studio of his friend in the east village, Keith Haring, and painted the Defacement on the wall. The Defacement was all about the death of his friend, and this was his first work that meant to create awareness about police brutality.
Just as Basquiat wanted to create consciousness, movements such as Mothers Against Police Brutality formed in 2013 to create awareness in a similar manner. The movement was formed by LaBourier in response to the treatment of his brother by police. According to LaBourier, her brother Clinton Allen was seriously beaten and killed by the Dallas Police in 2013 despite him being unarmed. According to her, the case of police brutality against her brother was not handled well by the grand jury, prompting her and her mother to come up with the idea of Mothers against Police Brutality. The movement was meant to create and promote awareness about the concern of increased police brutality as well as support other families that lost their loved ones as a result of police brutality. According to LaBourier, the idea of coming up with the movement was borrowed by Jean-Michel Basquiat’s activities. Despite being around three decades between the death of Basquiat and the inception of Mothers against Police Brutality, LaBourier pointed out that her parents were great fans of his artwork and often described him as a black man in a white man’s art world. Similarly, she was a great fan of art, hence the work of Jean Michel Basquiat was always her favorite.
The Defacement was created in 1981 using acrylics and marker on wood, and it was a memorial to Basquiat’s friend Michael Stewart. This painting was all about the loss of life. It depicts two brightly colored cartoonish police officers beating a black shape under the word defacimento and C.O.P. The black figure is lacking of features and this is were Saggese points out that Basquiat painted was trying to depict that these black shape could be Michael’s body, his body, or the large number of black men who are being targeted by police men. Chaedria LaBouvier notices and points out that Basquiat’s copyright symbol can be seen in the ‘O’ of defacimiento written on top of the policemen and the black figure, which became a topic of significance since the symbol has been constant in all of Basquiat’s work as a form of commentary on state violence and the protection of himself as a black man and artist.
In Defacement, Jean-Michel Basquiat rose to the top of the world of art while at the same time knowing the borders of social assimilation. Jean-Michel Basquiat was very aware that the painting Defacement was not a mere personal opinion about his friend Stewart but rather it was connected to larger issues of police brutality and the long history of the violence by the state against black people. Similarly, Defacement has been termed as both a personal expression and a political expression of his stand concerning police brutality and the eventual state ignorance concerning the immorality. It has been strongly argued that while Jean-Michel Basquiat and Michael Stewart were not very close, Jean-Michel Basquiat dated Stewart’s ex-girlfriend and that both moved around similar social circles, hence Stewart’s death was a big blow to Jean-Michel Basquiat. Similarly, the painting has been viewed as political given the period in which it was painted, 1983. During the period, there were no video cameras like in today’s world to move around spreading the effects of police brutality. There was also no universal language concerning white supremacy or police brutality, hence Jean-Michel Basquiat’s paintings can be termed as a political language. New York was surrounded by fear of police amongst black people since the police could easily kill and get away with murder. Due to such environment, it is perceived that Jean-Michel Basquiat’s painting was not just about Stewart but rather, it was about the whole history of state ignorance and police brutality on the black people.
The painting Irony of a Negro Policeman (1981) (Fig #.) is a representation of the black policemen under the repression of the 1980s society. It is a grotesque cartoon of how Basquiat saw a hypocrisy of black men being oppressing other black men. He believed that it was unethical that black man took on the career that enforced laws that were created to uphold power over his own race. Ricard Schur claims that Basquiat was criticizing the black male in this piece. He believed that Basquiat actually had a bad image of the black community throughout specific paintings. However, I believe this painting allows the white audience to understand the symbolism it contains which is depicted by the black man in a position that is more than often appointed to white man. The police in this painting is the representation of white supremacy and how it is a threat to minorities.
Besides Defacement and Irony of a Negro Policeman, Jean-Michel Basquiat was also involved in other art that greatly condemned police brutality and state ignorance of brutality on black people. For instance, he more often spoke about his own interaction with racism. For instance, Jean-Michel Basquiat described how it was hard for him to get a cab simply because he was black and how difficult it was for museum to touch his piece of work just because he was black. Before his death, Jean-Michel Basquiat had only one museum show in England, while his first big museum in America was four years after his death. This shows that he was very much updated by the effect racism had in his own life. Jean-Michel Basquiat’s friendships with notable figures such as Warhol and Madonna also greatly shaped his political opinion and eventually influenced politics in his work. However, despite being highly political, an aspect that has made people forgets the role of his work. Another important painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat is the “untitled”. The painting contains three individuals, a prisoner flanked by two police officers. Unlike the police officers, the prisoner is black, showing the racial overtones in the society. The Jim Craw is another painting that offers a clear social announcement.
Jean-Michel Basquiat has very impressively used his art through paintings to sensitize people on the growing police brutality during the 1980s. His various paintings such as the Defacement have been essential in preaching the police brutality against the blacks. Defacement was about his friend Michael Stewart who was thoroughly beaten by police and later died, for no apparent reason. Other writers have developed stories that prove that police brutality against the blacks is real and should be addressed.