Jean-Michel Basquiat was an influential abstract artist during the 1980s. He was born in Brooklyn to his Haitian and Puerto Rican parents. He first became known for his graffiti work in New York “ playing art with daddy’s money” and “9 to 5 clone.” In 1980, his work began to gain traction at an underground graffiti art show. 

Basquiat incorporated his experience with racism and took his reception into his work. He wanted to create a critique for the art world that celebrated his work and treated him as a member of a minority group as if they had been chosen that way- as a symbol of inclusion or compliance with regulations, or to avoid the appearance of discrimination or prejudice. Basquiat saw himself in the small art world, which was full of the American identity of exclusion, invisibility, and limits to a person’s or group’s liberty or autonomy- intended to promote their good. He used his work to call out injustices and hypocrisies. 

He was a prolific artist, creating about 1000 paintings and 2000 drawings. His art served as insights into the 1980s as a black person. His work also incorporates and celebrates black art, and black life which then influences the younger generation of artists. 

With the rise of social media comes more art exploitation. What is being seen most now is what the internet coins “Basquiat clones.” Most of them are young white men who almost directly copy Basquiat’s art style. 

“Basquiat clones” are whitewashing Basquiat’s work, because most of his work is about racial injustices that he experienced. It washes away the meaning of Basquiat’s art. With an over-saturation of Basquiat’s art style, his message gets lost, which is what made his work so powerful. 

With all of these Basquiat clones, it erase Basquiat’s artistry, making it more surface-level art that doesn’t make one think about the art and the meaning behind it. It creates the idea of the exploitation of taking art and whitewashing the ideas and the meaning, so it becomes more commercial and more trendy art. Then it can become more palatable for people to consume art like this. 

What others are worried about is that with the others creating art so similar to Basquiat’s work, young people will think that he is just another abstract modern artist like them, when he invented this style of art and was so influential during his time. 

Basquiat also called out how in the art world it is mostly made of rich kids with daddy’s money which was one of his tags when he was just starting out in New York City. So it’s ironic that all the people copying him are pretending to be poor, captioning their posts as “Revealing my art so I can afford food.” 

Those who copy Basquiat’s work so blatantly don’t understand what his art means, and they don’t understand why it is so wrong.