Elizabeth Allen Lecture Series, Northern Illinois University

Television filtered into Jean-Michel Basquiat's paintings and drawings, even into his music, throughout his career. In this brief lecture I will examine Basquiat’s connections to screen and media culture --both via popular culture as well as the art world. I will look to his predecessors (e.g., Pop artists, who were engaged in media culture that emerged immediately before Basquiat). I will also consider Basquiat’s engagement with media —and consumer culture —in terms of his contemporaries, something that is not often done, since the artist tends to fall outside of most histories of art. By positioning the screen as apparatus (rather than simply as a passive surface onto which images are projected), I will also explore the artist’s engagement with celebrity and spectacle, his critique of consumer culture, and his hyper-awareness of the stereotypes circulating via television and film.

Advanced Registration Required:

https://niu-edu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIqc-GvrjwoEtf5SWnfHaB8xSRSIYLyR6c6