JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT
IDENTITY AND THE ART OF (DIS)EMPOWERMENT
When Jean-Michel Basquiat died in 1988 at the age of twenty-seven he had only been painting professionally for seven years, yet the body of work that he left behind was prodigious. In a tribute at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York (Sept 21-Nov 23, 1996) his work was described as remarkable in its diversity of subject matter, materials and quality: