The Bias of Art by Devin Cooney

Today, we will be switching gears from behavioral science to the humanities. Many people view the humanities as an opinion-based subject. Using two opinion articles concerning artist Jean Michel Basquiat, you can see that one person’s opinion can catapult them to superstardom while what another person sees would have probably destroyed him.

The first article that I chose was the article “Artforum, Basquiat, and the 1980’s”. This article argues that Basquiat’s elevation was mainly due to Artforum’s 1981 review. His “packaging of ethnicity, street background, and artistic style matched seamlessly with Ingrid Sischy’s agenda of art, culture, and race…” This means that they used his style as a way to promote their own ideas. This shows that one group’s opinion could shape art and culture.

Because of Artforum, an art community staple since the 1960’s, and their review of Basquiat, people automatically hopped on the bandwagon. While Artforum began as a traditional art magazine, Sischy aimed to change the magazine’s focus. Her own personal opinion on what art should be changed the landscape of art during the 1980’s. She interwove art and popular culture. She saw Basquiat as a medium to portray her own personal view. This highlights the bias of art.

Sischy’s personal agenda, combined with the importance of art writers to propel an artist to stardom, put Basquiat on the fast track to fame. Art writing generates exposure for the artist that you would not see otherwise. Artists such as Michelangelo and Da Vinci became famous because writing generates “recognition, prominence, and longevity.” If no one writes about or analyzes a piece of work, no one is talking about it, and more importantly, no one is buying the artwork. The fact that Artforum was the main magazine for art made it so that the platform that they pushed for was the one that was recognized. Because of this, Basquiat’s career was “launched into orbit.” The article that did this launching was “The Radiant Child.” Rene Richard compared him to Vincent Van Gough, and at the end of the article pegged him an “art star.” Within two years of this article, he became a superstar.

Richard’s review opposes the opinion of Time Magazine’s writer Robert Hughes. In Hughes’ article “The Purple Haze of Hype,” he opposes Richard’s claim of Basquiat being a superior talent and a superstar. Rather, he says he “just scribbled and jotted, picking up stylistic pointers from older artists he admired, among them Cy Twombly and Jean Dubuffet.” He argues, “Basquiat was made a cult figure by a money-glutted, corrupt and wholly promotional art-marketing system.” This goes right in line with the claim that Artforum made Basquiat into a star because of him fitting their own personal platform. However, he sees this as a negative, showing that he would have viewed Basquiat differently than Artforum.

Using the two differing reviews as examples, it becomes obvious that art writers can positively, and negatively, shape the career of an artist. If Robert Hughes wrote for Artforum, who knows how Basquiat’s career would have turned out. What do you kids think? A picture of one of his works is displayed for you. Different people can see it in different ways. How do you see it?



























FUN LINKS!!!
“Artforum, Basquiat, and the 1980’s” by: Cynthia A. Gadsden: http://etd.ohiolink.edu/send-pdf.cgi/Gadsden%20Cynthia%20A.pdf?acc_num=ohiou1217965257

“The Purple Haze of Hype” by: Robert Hughes: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977017-2,00.html

“Untitled” by Jean Michel Basquiat: http://www.askart.com/AskART/photos/SNY20070515_4211/15.jpg