Highlights - Lee Jaffe - Author of “Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossroads” - Artist, Musician, Poet

Highlights - Lee Jaffe - Author of “Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossroads” - Artist, Musician, Poet

/

Artist, Musician, Poet
Author of Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossroads

Jean-Michel Basquiat's combination of words and images, this visual poetry, just from a cultural standpoint has been so important. When I met him in 1983, black people were not allowed in the art market, pretty much. And you see that he broke down this barrier, which opened the door for all this multiculturalism within the art market. And you can't diminish the importance of that at all. It's helped to give a voice and an audience to all these incredible artists that might not have had that.

Lee Jaffe - Author of “Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossroads” - Artist, Musician, Poet

Lee Jaffe - Author of “Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossroads” - Artist, Musician, Poet

/

Artist, Musician, Poet
Author of Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossroads

Jean-Michel Basquiat's combination of words and images, this visual poetry, just from a cultural standpoint has been so important. When I met him in 1983, black people were not allowed in the art market, pretty much. And you see that he broke down this barrier, which opened the door for all this multiculturalism within the art market. And you can't diminish the importance of that at all. It's helped to give a voice and an audience to all these incredible artists that might not have had that.

(Highlights) HELEN HARRISON

(Highlights) HELEN HARRISON

/

Director · Pollock-Krasner House & Study Center

Well, a lot of graduate students in art history I don't think they really relate that well to the artists, on a personal level. They often don't really know the techniques from having done them. I think it's wonderful when graduate students also take studio art so that they can get a sense of what's involved in actually making something. It's not that easy.

HELEN HARRISON

HELEN HARRISON

/

Director · Pollock-Krasner House & Study Center

Jackson Pollock said it himself. “It's energy and motion made visible.” So these are things that come spontaneously from his own feelings, but they're based on, first of all, observation, the natural world around him, all the forces of nature that were so influential. And then, processing that and figuring out how to create a visual language that expresses those feelings. And some of those feelings can be very complicated.

The technique, the means of expression is dictated by what those feelings are. It's not the other way around. People think – Oh, he used the liquid material and then he sort of danced around and that kind of gave him ideas. – No.