“Censorship is to art
what lynching is to justice.”
-Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 1990
Two of the most prominent African-American painters of their respective
generations, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Michael Ray Charles make works that
draw from complex cultural sources. Some of these sources are shared— the
heritage of Africa, and the American black experience of slavery,
exploitation, and racism— and some are unique to each. They are both
informed and energized by resistance to persistent colonial stereotyping.
Basquiat, a controversial figure who painted for only eight years, is of
Caribbean ancestry, a New Yorker who participated in the street culture of
the graffiti artists (he was SAMO), and soared to fame in the high-rolling
80s, dying at the age of 27. The debate is open that questions who
expolited whom. Was the market-driven art world of the 80s duped by the
infant terrible or did that art world, in which money and the cult of personality
can so easily become focal, create and then turn its back on Basquiat the victim?
Charles is keenly aware of the dangers of exploitation. But unlike
Basquiat, whose reactions seem to beat an immediate gut level, Charles
analyzes the traditions and sources of sterotypes. He does meticulous
research into sources to find the origins of the caricatured images. He
uses the imagery of advertising that puts forth black figures — athletes,
entertainers — to sell products, bringing into question the role of a double-edged
exploitation, of both the consumer and the figure used to sell the product.
Stylistically, the two artists are diametrically different. Basquiat,
working in an intentionally primitivist manner, is close to the abstract
expressionists in his use of paint and the directness with which he goes
from feeling to canvas and in the texts that emerge from free association.
Charles uses the skills and strategies of the graphic tradition he draws on,
making pastiches of circus banners, and advertising signage with a
relentless wit. His unmasking of visual and textual stereotypes turn
intention and meanings against themselves. Like other black artists of his
generation, he challenges the audience by keeping the often insulting
stereotypes before our eyes so that they continue to be the subject of
analysis. His work does not romanticize or apologize for these images,
rather his work puts them under a microscope to seek the roots of racism
rather than to hide its persistence.
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