Untitled (Pollo Frito), 1982
Jean-Michel Basquiat (* 22 December 1960 in New York City; † 12 August 1988 ibid.)
Acrylic, oil and enamel on canvas
From the exhibition BASQUIAT. THE RETROSPECTIVE at the Albertina Museum in Vienna
"In his 1982 diptych Untitled (Pollo Frito), Basquiat created a key work that established a link between the rough life and dangers of the streets of New York, his "Studio of the Street" of the years 1980/81, and the subsequent work phase. Like warning signs in public space, he writes DANGER and BROKEN GLASS in the wet acrylic paint on the right side of the picture. Underneath a monumental head on the left panel of the painting, he scratches ASBESTOS into the black paint deeply enough to make flashes of the bright orange of the primer shine through - a reference to the highly heat-resistant and superbly insulating, but carcinogenic material, whose hazardousness was very much present in US media in the year the painting was created. The asbestos products manufactorer Johns Manville Corporation was forced to file for bankruptcy due to the victims' liability claims. The clash of gestural-painterly and figurative elements, letters and words as opposed to running acrylic paint and sprayed-on lines leads to a dynamized pictorialness, a web of markings and meanings, a mirror of vibrant downtown Manhattan and its art scene." (Information text in the museum)
Untitled (Pollo Frito), 1982
Jean-Michel Basquiat (* 22 December 1960 in New York City; † 12 August 1988 ibid.)
Acrylic, oil and enamel on canvas
From the exhibition BASQUIAT. THE RETROSPECTIVE at the Albertina Museum in Vienna
"In his 1982 diptych Untitled (Pollo Frito), Basquiat created a key work that established a link between the rough life and dangers of the streets of New York, his "Studio of the Street" of the years 1980/81, and the subsequent work phase. Like warning signs in public space, he writes DANGER and BROKEN GLASS in the wet acrylic paint on the right side of the picture. Underneath a monumental head on the left panel of the painting, he scratches ASBESTOS into the black paint deeply enough to make flashes of the bright orange of the primer shine through - a reference to the highly heat-resistant and superbly insulating, but carcinogenic material, whose hazardousness was very much present in US media in the year the painting was created. The asbestos products manufactorer Johns Manville Corporation was forced to file for bankruptcy due to the victims' liability claims. The clash of gestural-painterly and figurative elements, letters and words as opposed to running acrylic paint and sprayed-on lines leads to a dynamized pictorialness, a web of markings and meanings, a mirror of vibrant downtown Manhattan and its art scene." (Information text in the museum)