A Panel of Experts
Artist
Jean-Michel Basquiat
New York 1960 – New York 1988
Title
A Panel of Experts
Date
1982
Materials
Acrylic and oil pastel on paper mounted on canvas
Dimensions
152.5 x 152 cm
Credits
Gift of Ira Young, inv. 1990.29
Collection
International Contemporary Art
Born to a Haitian father and a Puerto Rican mother, Basquiat left home at the age of sixteen and began to make graffiti under the tag name of SAMO (short for “same old shit”). His rise to critical success was meteoric, as was his life: he died of an overdose at the age of twenty-seven. This is a significant painting in that it embodies many of Basquiat’s characteristic subjects and techniques, and also refers to a specific event in the artist’s personal life. The fistfight at the top of the left rectangle is a stick-figure representation of an actual encounter between two women in a New York nightclub: Basquiat’s girlfriend Suzanne Mallouk (nicknamed Venus) and his lover the singer Madonna, who, despite the copyright symbol beside her name, was not yet a celebrity.
© Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat / SOCAN (2021)
