ASSIGNMENT 3
In part three of our Creative Arts Today course we studied some interesting topics about re-appropriation in art. We were asked to research them and note down our findings by focusing on a specific example. Re-appropriation is using an existing piece of work from a previous artist as a medium to build onto or as inspiration for a new artwork with loose or sometimes no reference to the original. Re-appropriation as a term or as a movement is not new in art at all: all artists learn one way or another by copying and using styles and techniques that came before their time.
After thorough research to find an inspiring re-appropriation example, it was a painting by a late American artist that caught my attention: A Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump (oil on canvas) by Jean Michelle Basquiat (1982).
As the painting’s title indicates, the artwork is about a thin (skeletal) black boy and his dog enjoying a shower from an open fire hydrant. If we look at the picture, we can see someone who might look like Basquiat (the boy’s hairstyle suggests so), along with his companion, his dog, enjoying a water spray with open hands, like he is embracing it, a fact that makes us realize he is having a pleasant time. The colours of the painting are vivid and vibrant, implying the summer heat.
As with his other artworks, his painting was denounced for making non-living distorted human or dog shapes with skeletal figures. His unique style, influenced by his Caribbean heritage as well as his life as a poor boy growing up in the streets of New York, didn’t fit into any existing trend at that time. Basquiat’s work has also been criticized for being overlooked and overpriced, with his handwriting being more of a fashion trend than an original piece of art. No matter the unique way he expressed himself through his work, he was considered a scruffy graffiti artist. On the other hand, his art market value remained unaffected; his second-highest-grossing work, The Boy and Dog in Johnny Pump, caused a global sensation when it was sold for $100 million to Ken Griffin in 2020, and it is now housed in the Art Institute of Chicago.
The truth about Basquiat is that he was unique: after so many years of his death from a heroin overdose at the age of 27, Jean Michelle Basquiat’s esoteric, illusion-inspired paintings have reached a large audience, placing him as the highest-selling American artist of all time and making him one of the most influential painters of the 20th century.
Banksy (the anonymous British artist from Bristol), seeming to be a huge fan of Basquiat, took advantage of a show about the late artist at the Barbican Gallery in London and paid a tribute to his work by demonstrating the same character: a boy with a dog, but this time being interrogated and patted on the body by police officers, who also seem to be taking his details. He created his provoking work on the walls of the Barbican, where, as Banksy says, they tend to clean all graffiti off of them! It is so ironic, provocative, and subversive that Banksy’s artwork has the same body stance as Basquiat’s, but it has been used to demonstrate a boy being interrogated by police officers, and it seems to be one of supplication and surrender instead of a thrilling experience and amusement. The provocative artist wanted to point out racism and human rights being violated.
For the record, Basquiat’s exhibition was a huge success: more than 250 thousand people attended the show. Banksy was his best ambassador. His work on the wall of the Barbican still speaks about it.
What, unwillingly, Jean-Michelle had revealed to the world was the corruption and the lack of diversity in the art universe. Up to that point, there was no effort from the world of art to make more diverse artefacts, embrace different cultures, and highlight them. The Boy with the Dog in a Johnnypump is a great example of that phenomenon. Banksy seems to understand this, and he used a very clever way to show it. In Banksy’s terms, the police (authority) is ruling people’s lives and patronizing them. What were pure joy and fun for Basquiat becomes a reason for submission and interrogation for Banksy: Basquiat is “very welcomed” by the metropolitan police and “invited” by the art critics as well. Banksy also became ironic regarding the privileges of being famous: instead of having your graffiti taken away when your work goes under the spotlight, it becomes a reference point and a permanent fixture. To conclude, I would say that, Jean Michelle’s work as well as Banksy’s art have been used as a magnifying glass of this occurrence and worked completing each other.
Because of choice, background, or even political views, each artist has a different approach. Jean Michelle’s Bohemian handwriting was the reason for his work being in the spotlight; a person of colour, a unique artist, who had paved the path for others to follow. Banksy leaves his sensational work to speak for himself. He is political, satirical, and ironic. Only a few people know who he really is. He is a shadow, a ghost. But the writings on the walls are the only things that count to him. The re-appropriation of Banksy’s case revealed a new ankle to me. A serious piece of work can be used as a medium to protest and denounce. His clever manipulating choice of art proved that sometimes the paths of street art with fine art merge.
We all live in a universe of shadows carved by pioneering mavericks. Every time we search for artwork copy and paste it for our own purposes, we do exactly what Banksy did. We are engaging with someone else’s work, sometimes without even realizing it. This innocent action is what makes art move on; it creates new paths for others to walk into and take their ideas even further and makes the world progress and become the wonder of human presence today.
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References:
Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump (2022). Wikipedia. Available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_and_Dog_in_a_Johnnypump
(Accessed: 7 August 2022).
Koidl N. (2018) ‘Banksy’s Snarling Collaboration with Jean-Michel Basquiat’,fineartmultiple,2018. Available at https://fineartmultiple.com/blog/banksy-jean-michel-basquiat-collaborate (Accessed: 7 August 2022).
Jean Michelle Basquiat(2022). Wikipedia. Available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Michel_Basquiat
(Accessed: 15 August 2022).
BANKSY (2022). Wikipedia. Available at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy
(Accessed: 15 August 2022).
Wainwright, Lisa S. “Jean-Michel Basquiat”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 18 Dec. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Michel-Basquiat. Accessed 18 January 2023.
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Andy Warhol”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 9 Nov. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Andy-Warhol. Accessed 18 January 2023.
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