Michel Basquiat Phooey
Condition reports and provenance available upon request
About This Work
In **“Phooey,”** Jean-Michel Basquiat channels his signature fusion of street-born urgency and art-historical awareness into a compact, incisive statement. The work’s raw mark-making—scribbled line, abrupt erasures, and punchy, declarative text—creates a visual cadence that feels at once improvised and rigorously composed. Basquiat’s iconographic shorthand suggests a mind moving faster than the surface can contain, where humor and exasperation (“phooey”) mask sharper cultural critique. Layered symbols and fractured forms evoke the collisions of language, identity, and power that define his practice, delivering an image of palpable immediacy and enduring resonance.
About the Artist
Jean-Michel Basquiat ( BAH-skee-AH(T), French: [ʒɑ̃ miʃɛl baskja]; December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the neo-expressionism movement. Basquiat first achieved notoriety in the late 1970s as part of the graffiti duo SAMO, alongsi...
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Contemporary Art • Hampstead, London
Established 1976 • 50 years of excellence in contemporary art • Professional authentication and provenance research