Warhol

Artist:  Andy Warhol

Birth-Death:  8/6/1928 – 2/22/1987

Movement:  Pop Art

Bio:  Andy Warhol was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1928.  His parents were both working class emigrants from Miko (now called Mikova), and his father worked in a coal mine.  In third grade, Warhol had chorea, a disease that causes involuntary movements of the extremities.  Following this, he became a hypochondriac, developing a fear of hospitals and doctors.  Throughout his school years, he was often bed-ridden, which led to his being considered an outcast.  When he was thirteen, his father tragically died in an accident.  In 1949, he moved to New York and began his career in magazine and advertisement art, which quickly led to his fame in the pop art movement.

What is interesting about Andy Warhol is that, after crossing the line between working class and high class, he began to dominate the latter throughout the better part of the 1960s.  The Factory was a rejection of expressionism – a place of mechanical creativity: of setting standards for the masses by way of mass production.  How is it possible, though, that someone who was not born into sophistication can suddenly deem what is and is not "high art?"  If the art world is the epitome of "civilized" living, but an "uncivilized" person can break into and subjugate it, does "civilization" even exist?  That is, the idea of an elite group. 

I think it's funny (and ironic) that Andy Warhol's work merged the real and fake by portraying actual objects and people in repeated – fake – ways…and now there is a group of people deciding which Warhols are real and fake.  I can hear Andy now, "Oh, gosh…how marvelous…"

Basquiat

Artist:  Jean-Michel Basquiat

Birth-Death:  2/22/1960 – 8/12/1988

Movement:  Neo-expressionism

Bio:  Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1960 to Gerard Basquiat, a Haitian, and Matilde Andrades, a Puerto Rican.  Basquiat learned how to read and write by the age of four, and was encouraged by his mother to express himself artistically.  By the age of eleven, he could fluently speak, read, and write English, French, and Spanish.  At the age of seven, Basquiat was hit by a car and underwent a month-long recovery in the hospital, where his mother brought him a copy of "Grey's Anatomy," which later influenced his art.  That same year, his parents separated and his father raised him.  At fifteen, Basquiat began running away from home and sleeping on park benches.  Basquiat dropped out of high school in the tenth grade, and then his father kicked him out of the house.  He spent much time living in friends' houses and supporting himself by selling T-shirts and postcards.  Soon after, his professional art career began.

     Obviously, Basquiat was not raised a sophisticated aristocrat.  In fact, even after his art became well known and he was successful, he was still not an aristocrat.  This did not mean he wasn't intelligent, educated, or extremely talented – only that he was not part of the elite art world.  Basquiat came from a broken home, and had an arguably troubled youth.  He often modeled much of his work on graffiti-style painting, and even painted graffiti as SAMO.  In many ways, his art was the opposite of "class" and "etiquette" because it culminated so many other forms of art that had been born on the street, like graffiti.  But, he also seemed to blend the "uncivilized" with the "civilized," such as his re-creations and interpretations of classic works by Da Vinci and other artists.  His work is representative of the blurred line between the two statuses that he transcends.  Interestingly, he transcends these statuses because of his capacity to blur the line, which obscures it once again.



What are the differences between the way the narrator talks about Jean-Michel Basquiat and the way he talks about himself?  How do these differences reflect the supposed status of each man?

Purpose

The purpose of this blog is to examine the role of the "uncivilized" person in "civilized" society.  For this reason, I have chosen to take a close look at several artists who may fit this status. 

The art world is considered to be one of the most "civilized" realms of interest; those who are well versed in the topic and collect fine art seem to be praised for their knowledge and sophistication.  Moreover, to a common person – a philistine, as some art collectors may refer to them – this big, cultural, artistic engine seems to be what separates the "civilized" from the "uncivilized."  It is constantly pumping and churning and repeating tiny combustions of brilliance to determine what the civilized person thinks about; how he should be thinking; why he should think about such things.  Following this logic, common people have no say in what is acceptable and civilized.  They merely adhere to societal guidelines determined by a more elite group. 

In this cultural structure, artists are the ones who provide the ideas and concepts about which to be thought.  Does this mean that artists are part of the elite group at the top of the civilization chain, turning the heads of those down below?  In fact, they are not.  They are nails in the floor, sticking out with the rest of us.  The difference is that they do not care if they are pounded down; they are not part of the civilized system of culture.  Because of their apathy, and in many cases rebellion, toward the systematic ideas trickled down to us, they are not pounded down, but instead lifted out of the floor completely – transcending the other nails.

To label artists "uncivilized" would be to discredit them entirely; great artists typically avoid labeling themselves as anything other than themselves.  I do not wish to label anyone.  Instead, I am posing the questions, "Were they uncivilized?" and, "What would make a 'civilized' person think of them as 'uncivilized,' if not for their art?"  My goal is not to prove the irony of a "lesser" person's ideas becoming culturally sophisticated, or to renounce the absolute brilliance of artistic icons.  My goal is to open the readers' eyes and allow them to see just how equal they are to those at the top.  After all, there cannot be a proverbial top without a bottom.