Basquiat

We went to see the Basquiat exhibit this morning with our friends who tried to go with us last night. I liked it. Actually Sonia and I both liked it and our husbands both didn't. We all had our different opinions about his art. I could appreciate it, although I didn't see him as a classical artist. Of course he's not because it's modern art but even in modern art you sometimes see the classical art underneath. This was a different type of art.

It was the art of an activist who was highly intelligent and instead of writing his thought he showed them to us in art. I've never seen an artist use so many words in their art too. I'm sure there are others but I personally haven't seen too many use words the way Basquiat does. He was a writer that expressed it in drawings, symbolism, words, is how I summed it up. The other three didn't really agree with me but that's my interpretation at least.

That's the beautiful thing about art. We can interpret it in so many different ways. The sad thing about an artist dying is that you read all these different interpretations of his various portraits and you can't help but wonder if that's what they artist really meant to say. He's not around to tell us if that's what he meant.

One of my favorite painting/drawings (because I can't remember which one it is) is by Salvador Dali in the Chicago Art Institute. Alongside the painting is a framed letter from the artist himself explaining the symbolism in his art. I think that is really cool when an artist does that and isn’t so full of himself that he wouldn’t want for us to understand him. I thought of that letter when I was looking at Basquiat’s exhibit and I often wish all artists did the same thing.