COLONIALISM AND ATAVISM:

ANN INVESTIGATION OF THE WORKS OF JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT

Nicholas A. Candela Art Criticism 702-OL

March 6, 2015

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Jean-Michel Basquiat established himself in New York City during the 1980s as part of a

group of young artists working outside of the traditional (and commercial) gallery system in an

effort to reestablish conceptions about high and low art. In general, the era was fueled by greed,

excess, and other vices that were necessary combatants in repelling the rigid academia of the

1960s and 1970s art scene. Despite this attempted split from the traditional in the art world, 1

racial and ethnic division still played a prominent role socially as well as in the evaluation of art

and artists. The rapid assimilation of Basquiat’s work into the white-walled gallery culture of the

decade did little to alter these long-held attitudes of bias, and Basquiat the individual remained

an outsider and victim to affected collectors. However, he found ways through his work to jab at

the conventions of racism and a cultural identity that had been constructed for him rather than by

him. Jean Michel Basquiat’s expressive visual language and use of text confronted the racist

traditions of the pious, as well as the value of the African-American cultural icon and individual,

thereby establishing his works as seminal in the ongoing dialogue about racial inequality,

especially when viewed through the lenses of Frantz Fanon’s Colonialism and Alain Locke’s

Atavism.

When the black body was cast in the role of the ontological “other”, and defined as primitive

either by aesthetics or otherwise, a quest for understanding of subjectivity is initiated. As 2

Africans, they were the exotic “other”, a subject of Western gazes with little to no negative

Ricard, Rene, "World Crown: Bodhisattva with Clenched Mudra." In Jean-Michel Basquiat. ed. Richard Marshall, 1

New York: Whitney Museum of American Art :, 1992.

Anthony B. Pinn. Why Can’t I Be Both?: Jean-Michel Basquiat and Aesthetics of Black Bodies Reconstituted." 2

Journal of Africana Religions 1, no. 1 (2013): 109-132. (accessed February 5, 2015).

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connotation because they could be used as a tool for the fostering of a new white ideology.

Where the early Modernists imitated the “primitive” styles of non-white cultures, it was done as

an act of “imperial generosity” . On the other hand, when described as Americans by the political 3

and social constructs under which they were forced to live, they became one dimensional and

individually irrelevant. They were a foundation of workers on which a larger and more profitable

capitalist structure could be built. For example, in the American-English lexicon, the use of the

word “negro” as a synonym for slave inherently cast the African American in the role of “other”.

A person was either white and privileged, or black and not, and the use of words such as “negro”

and “black” to denote a particular person became persistent stereotypes and verbal cliches that

were thoughtlessly repeated well after the abolition of slavery. 4

Furthermore, that the black man was largely excluded from the role of “master” in Western art

until the late 19th century substantiates a history of his relationship as proletariat to the white

ruling class. Images of the atrocities of the slave trade were in no short supply as literary

supplements, and it was common practice to photograph lynching subjects before, during, and

after the barbaric acts, but these were not acceptable for the art-buying public. Those affluent

enough to purchase art sought more ideal representations. In fact, the “ideal slave” was often

thought of as naked and kneeling, as in Thomas Ball’s bronze sculpture Emancipation (Fig. 1), a

monument which prompted Frederick Douglas to proclaim it as “a white man’s monument”. 5

Pinn, Why Can’t I, 117.3

McDowell, Deborah E. Racism in Art. Virginia Quarterly Review 67, no. 2 (Spring91 1991): 360-366. Psychology 4

and Behavioral Sciences Collection, EBSCOhost (accessed February 5, 2015).

Ibid.5

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The black man is free not because he is a human, but because a white man has proclaimed it. He

is still shirtless, wearing only a loin-cloth, and he is positioned beneath the white man. He does

not dare look up to the white man. His gaze holds fast ahead of him, cautiously taking in his

surroundings.

Even in Orientalist works of the late 19th century, the black man was rarely shown as a

dominant or aggressive being. Alternatively, their bodies were often hidden allowing viewers to

interpret the figures as impotent or emasculated, even while simultaneously emphasizing male

desire and sexual objectification of women. 6

The multiple roles created in which blacks were cast (and what eventually proved to be the

grist for Basquiat’s mill) and their subsequent push against the resultant stereotypes can be

explored through an examination of Frantz Fanon’s investigation of Colonialism and German

Idealism. To begin, the master-slave dialectic proposed in the German Idealism of Hegel claims

that the self-constitution and origin of the subject depend on the existence of an “other.” Namely,

once a slave has surrendered his physical body, he exists in his mind alone where he is

simultaneously aware of his enslavement and a desire to be free. The two ideas, diametrically

opposed to one another, allow the slave to understand himself as bound by master and free of

thought, bringing to consciousness what is and what ought to be. Thus, the slave’s desire for

Ibid.6

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freedom becomes expressed as a wish for recognition. For Fanon, this struggle for recognition 7

began with a struggle to regain authority.

Basquiat’s work invokes Fanon’s notions on the interrelatedness of struggle, recognition and

authority, and can be seen to manifest itself in his use of black cultural icons such as boxers and

musicians. For example, in the piece titled Per Capita (Fig. 2), the central black figure embodies

ideas of personal and spiritual freedom gained through struggle. To begin, he is clad in boxer’s

shorts, a signifier of a profession rooted in struggle. Through fighting, the boxer gains authority

literally in the ring over his opponent, and metaphorically through his culture as someone who

has excelled in his profession and is unafraid of others. As he continues to fight, he becomes

increasingly recognized for his physical prowess and thereby gains value as an individual and as

a commodity. The boxer is, for the most part, autonomous and chooses to fight or not to fight,

thereby creating and maintaining his own value.

Additionally, Basquiat makes use of the halo and torch (similar to that held by the Statue of

Liberty) as signifiers of the boxer’s authority. The halo re-casts the boxer as an icon and moral

compass while the torch (and the light from it) places him the strata of the intellectuals. Thus, he

possesses both the knowledge and the authority to lead his people. That these qualities are

emphasized at all further lends Basquait’s work to the tenets of Fanon’s philosophies as Fanon

insisted, along with Hegel and Kant, that the individual is constituted in part by his adherence to

Bird-Pollan, Stefan. 2012. Fanon: Colonialism and Critical Ideals of German Idealism. Critical Horizons: A 7

Journal of Philosophy & Social Theory.

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an ideal, and that this self-constitution was the very notion of moral law. Therefore, the boxer is 8

the very realization of Fanon’s desire for freedom expressed as a wish for recognition and begun

with a struggle for authority.

Furthermore, just as Fanon understood that reversing the flow of fear and fascination that

resulted from viewing the black subject as exotic , Basquiat was well aware of the significance 9

of the African cast in the role of the Primitive, and he understood the implications of using the

mask of the “savage” to endow his paintings and their subject matter with strength and

conviction. Often, through his use of what Western art may refer to as a “primitive” aesthetic,

Basquiat pushes the viewer towards the unknown, often times making the viewer feel as though

the subjects of their gazes are alarmingly indifferent to their presences.

Evidence of this can be seen in his 1984 painting, Grillo (Fig. 3). The piece consists of four

panels, each approximately eight feet tall and four feet wide. On the first and third panels, are

located two dark-skinned figures. They are drawn as transparent, evidenced by the visibility of

their internal organs, and are positioned parallel to the viewer; we see them as frontal figures.

Their heads are large compared to the rest of their bodies, the eyes are elongated ovoid shapes

and the mouths, in what has become somewhat of a trademark of Basquiat’s figures, open to bare

rows of teeth. To an uninitiated viewer, the figures are giant and terrifying. But the figures don’t

interact with the viewer, only each other. The figure on the left holds one arm up, perhaps in a

Ibid., 381.8

Hebige, Dick, “Welcome to the Terror Dome: Jean-Michel Basquiat and the “Dark” Side of Hybridity” In Jean-9

Michel Basquiat. ed. Richard Marshall, New York: Whitney Museum of American Art :, 1992.

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salutation to the figure on the right, perhaps in an offering (he appears to be holding something).

Either way, he is inconsiderate of the viewer’s presence, and will have not have himself

determined by a spectator. The other figure is adorned with a crown and has both arms up,

perhaps responding to the salutation of the other. Again, the figure is behaving without concern

for the presence of the viewer.

Of course, as is frequently the case with Basquiat’s work, a deeper inspection of the piece

offers another possibility, with nearly identical results. In both panels containing figures, Baquiat

has surround the subjects with text and symbols, in particular the phrase “half nelson” is repeated

in blocks of text multiple times. The half nelson is a wrestling move in which one wrestler

thrusts his arm under the arm of his opponent and then brings his hand back up to grasp the back

of the next. An extension of this, the full nelson, sees a wrestler weave both of his arms under the

arms of his opponent and then clasp both hands together behind the neck, leaving the opponent

with both arms in the air and unable to break the hold through force. Basquiat illustrates the

figures subdued in both a half nelson and a full nelson hold, but he does not show their subduers.

The figures in the painting do not appeal to the spectator for help, they do not impart feelings of

complicity in the viewer, they merely are. It is a statement of fact, regardless of what the viewer

feels.

Further evidence of this dichotomy between subject and viewer can also be seen in the New

York Times Magazine’s cover photo of Basquiat (Fig. 4), posed barefoot in his suit. Despite the

clean, articulated presence of the artist and his stereotypically posed studio space, a frequently

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overlooked element of the photo is the black specter, cast as a shadow, on the wall beside the

artist. Its line of teeth grins as it peers out of a single eye at the viewer, knowingly and

menacingly. Its head bookends with Basquiat’s own to form a duality of suave modern hipster

and terrifying “other”, ready to assault the very “master” that brought it into being in the first

place. It is the embodiment of Africa and the black subject that colonialism and racism have 10

tried time and again to erase and reconstruct, and it is still entirely unconcerned with its own

rewritten history.

It is also constructive to view Basquiat’s work outside of the social and political constructs of

colonialism and the master-slave dialectic and approach it instead from the more intrinsically

comprehensive viewpoint of atavism. The early to mid 20th century philosopher, Alain Locke,

was among a group of intellectuals that proposed that black culture was invested “…With

historically continuous cultural traits, such as spirituality and attachment to the simplicity of

nature…” which gave the individuals and their artworks an inherent value different from that of 11

typical Western art. Whether Locke’s atavistic views are considered strong or weak in their

conviction is debatable, but what stands is that he believed that habits and social tendencies of

races functioned in the shaping of self identity and respect. That is, the traits that were

emblematic of a culture or race exemplified its essence. His belief in these essential

characteristics evidence Locke’s belief in a unique racial ontology.

Ibid.10

Harris, Leonard. 1988. Identity: Alain Locke's Atavism. Transactions of the Charles S.Peirce Society 24, (1): 11

65-83.

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As these traits apply to African art specifically, Locke asserted that they offset “…the

banalities of sterile, imitative classicism and the superficialities of literal realism. They

emphasize intellectually significant form, abstractly balanced design, and formal simplicity…” 12

Certainly, any one of Basquiat’s works would substantiate this claim, and investigation into both

heritage and identity allude to the idea that he felt bound to his forefathers by historic and racial

bonds alike, evidenced by his use of cultural icons such as Muhammad Ali and Charlie Parker.

Locke had stated, “Negro art is the result of the interaction of American factors on the

Negro…” While Basquiat’s work would probably not qualify as typical “negro art”, there is 13

evidence to suggest that his work was informed by a variety of American factors, namely the

social constructs to which he and other black Americans were confined. He was able to see that

those constructs and the subsequent fulfillment of various roles by blacks were established and

proliferated by whites, and even in cases where a black athlete or entertainer had seemingly

broken a race barrier, it was whites who allowed it to happen and whites who profited from it the

most.

If we explore again Basquiat’s painting Per Capita, this time from Locke’s atavistic viewpoint,

we can find evidence of alternative but equally significant ideas. First of all, as with all of

Basquiat’s work, there is no attempt at realism, nothing mimetic about his work, and nothing that

indicates an attempt to assimilate into the canons of Western art from an aesthetic viewpoint. The

piece is abstractly balanced through its use of color and mark, each holding a purposeful place in

Ibid., 72.12

Ibid., 73.13

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the image, but there is nothing contrived about the piece; it is simply presented but

simultaneously rigorous in its concept.

An iconographic view of the content will identify the boxer specifically as Muhammad Ali

(who traditionally wore white trunks). He was a man of strength literally, as well as spiritually

and one who lived a relatively simply lifestyle, always eager to help those in need. Additionally,

the term “e pluribus” written out of the top translates to “out of many”, further identifying the

man in the image as a significant person who embodies the characteristics essential to his people.

Of course, “e pluribus” also references the American motto most often found printed on our

currency, and the dollar amounts listed in the upper left of the work correlate to this as well.

Even the title of the work which translates “to each” or “for each head” is often associated with

income. Therefore, it makes sense to conclude that Basquiat is using money and income, which

has characteristically been lower for blacks, to indicate a type of bond from which his hero, the

boxer Muhammad Ali, is attempting to free his people. Basquiat sees money as a construct of

white society and it has primarily served to imposition blacks who have limited access to it, thus

cementing their place at the lower end of the social hierarchy. To further signify the boxer as a

spiritual leader and thus place the work within the atavistic analysis, it is important to note that

the boxer is not elevated to sainthood as a result of the white men’s greed. Rather, he was already

an icon and his transcendence of the violence, greed, and temptation wrought upon him by

whites only cements his inherent spirituality.

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The work Grillo can be read through a similar lens as well. To begin, Basquiat has depicted the

torsos of his figures as transparent, showing the viewer the internal organs of each. This reminds

the spectator that the figures are humans, above all else, but it also alludes to their occupation

and awareness of internal and external space simultaneously, coaxing the viewer into the

possibility that perhaps these figures are of a spiritual nature as well. The green panel in this

piece, located between the two figures, can also be seen as significant in understanding the work

through an atavistic lens. It includes the silhouette of a figure (presumably black because the

shape of the eyes and the head mimic that of the other figures) and a structure that looks similar

to an apartment building. The location of this figure and the presence of the building can be seen

to locate this particular panel in a contemporary setting where the other figures are more easily

read as pre-colonial. The correlation between the large figures and the green panel thus implies a

link across time, a reference to the essential traits that Locke insisted were emblematic to a

culture or race. It is these same characteristics that Basquiat imbued so many of his figures with

in order to establish an ontological significance for his race and to examine his own identity.

In another work, Flexible (Fig. 5), Basquiat presents a simple, but dynamic figure whose arms

are contorted to wrap above and around his head. The fluidity of the mark and structure of the

space convey movement, but we, as viewers, are not invited to watch. It is as though we

happened upon the scene, a ritual, perhaps. The same transparency that was visible in Grillo is

demonstrated here as well, and, in conjunction with the overall dynamism of the image, a sense

of magic or shamanism, perhaps, is conveyed.

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Like most things in our culture that convey authority and entitlement, the art world and the

tradition of painting specifically, have, for along time, been owned by white males. From the

centuries of mimetic art that brought the genres of still life and portraiture, to religious paintings

and even utilitarian art that has incited revolutions, it has all been recognized as significant by

the standards set forth by privileged whites. So, when we encounter the work of Jean-Michel

Basquiat and see that it is riddled with black males and inferences to racial hierarchies that were

imposed by white supremacists before our nation was independent, miscomprehension is to be

expected. Basquiat’s work didn’t present us with what we already knew, and it wasn’t a didactic

exercise meant to bring the proverbial fire down to anxious viewers. Instead, he used his own

knowledge of dualities such as ancestry and modernity or originality and appropriation to

confront viewers with what we already held in our subconscious; there was a severe imbalance in

how non-whites were able to pursue their inalienable rights. He focused the light on the shadows,

showing viewers degrees of conflict and misunderstanding that arise as soon as a black subject

seeks the same rights, powers, and dispensations as a white one. 14

Basquiat’s energetic and unfixed visual language challenged the blatantly unfair, unethical, and

immoral racist institutions that were labeled as tradition. Whether investigated using the tenets of

Frantz Fanon’s Colonialism or Alain Locke’s Atavism, his works continue to be relevant to the

ongoing dialectic surrounding racial equality. Further, when we examine Basquiat’s work

through the lenses of Fanon and Locke, we see that he was well aware of blackness as something

holy that has been exploited, as well as something dynamic and introspective. His work was part

Marshall, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 58.14

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rebellion against the colonizing white-walled gallery world and part reverence for a lineage of

energetic, authentic, and significant forms. Born out of his quest for self-identification and

governance as much as it was an attempt to once and for all take up the mantle for a race of

humans that had for so long been merely “the other”, Basquiat’s work continues to resonate in

the ongoing fight against inequality in art as well as in life.

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Bibliography

Anthony B. Pinn. Why Can’t I Be Both?: Jean-Michel Basquiat and Aesthetics of Black Bodies Reconstituted." Journal of Africana Religions 1, no. 1 (2013): 109-132. (accessed February 5, 2015).

Basquiat, Jean, and Gianni Mercurio. The Jean-Michel Basquiat Show. Milano: Skira, 2006.

Bird-Pollan, Stefan. “Fanon: Colonialism and Critical Ideals of German Idealism”. Critical Horizons: A Journal of Philosophy & Social Theory, (2012): 377-398. Accessed February 2015, doi: 10.1558 / crib. v1313.377.

Coutts-Smith, Kenneth. “Cultural Colonialism”. Third Text Vol.16, no. 1 (2010): 1-14. Accessed February 5, 2015, doi: 10.1080 // 09528820110120678.

Fanon, Frantz, and Jean Sartre. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press, 1965.

Harrison, Leonard. "Identity: Alain Locke's Atavism." Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, Vol. 24, no. 1 (1988): 65-83. Accessed February 5, 2015, jstor.org/stable/ 27794948.

Marshall, Richard, Robert Farris Thompson, et al. Jean-Michel Basquiat. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art:, 1992.

McDowell, Deborah E. Racism in Art. Virginia Quarterly Review 67, no. 2 (1991): 360-366. Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, Accessed February 5, 2015, http:// www.vqronline.org/racism-art.

Fanon, Frantz. ”On National Culture" In Art in Theory, 1900-2000: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, ed. Charles Harrison, 2nd ed. (Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2003), 710-715.

Schur, Richard. “Post-Soul Aesthetics in Contemporary African American Art”. African American Review Vol.41, no. 4 (2007): 641. Accessed February 5, 2015, jstor.org/stable/ 25426982.

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Fig. 1: Emancipation Memorial, Thomas Ball, Bronze, 1876, Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C.

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Fig. 2: Per Capita, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas, 80” x 150”, 1981.

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Fig. 3: Grillo, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mixed Media on Wood Panel, 96” x 211” x 18”, 1984, Private Collection; Galerie Fabien Boulakia, Paris.

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Fig. 4: New York Times Magazine Cover Photo, Lizzie Himmel, 1985.

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Flexible, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Acylic and Mixed Media on Wood Panel, 102” x 75”, 1984, Robert Miller Gallery, NY.