Basquiat: Taschen

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988) was an icon of 1980s New York, first gaining attention with his graffiti tag “SAMO” before launching his studio practice and achieving rapid fame at the age of 20. Though his career spanned just a decade, Basquiat remains a cult figure of artistic social commentary, a trailblazer in bridging graffiti and gallery art.

His work drew on diverse sources and media, creating a distinct and urgent artistic vocabulary that critiqued structures of power and racism. Merging abstraction with figuration, poetry with painting, Basquiat was influenced by Greek, Roman, and African art, French poetry, jazz, and the work of contemporaries like Andy Warhol and Cy Twombly. The result was a vivid and visceral mixture of words, African symbols, cartoonish figures, and bold splashes of color.

This book presents Basquiat’s short yet prolific career, delving into his unique style and his profound engagement with issues of integration, segregation, poverty, and wealth.

The author
Leonhard Emmerling received his doctorate from the University of Heidelberg for a thesis titled Jean Dubuffet’s Art Theory. He is head of the South Asia regional program at the Goethe-Institute in New Delhi and was previously active as a curator at various art institutions in Germany. His publications include TASCHEN’s Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jackson Pollock.

• Hardcover, 21 x 26 cm
• 0.61 kg
• 96 pages
• ISBN 978-3-8365-5980-5
• Edition: English