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Lot Essay
The graffiti-like appearance of Basquiat's 1988 painting Oreo as well the eponymous snack's ubiquity fills it with a contemporary currency. This is something that can be recognised and enjoyed by anyone. At the same time, the theme of the Oreo invokes the questions of race that were central to so many of Basquiat's greatest paintings. 'Oreo' has a slang connotation and is used to refer to a black person who in some way has turned against their African-American heritage-- who is, like an Oreo, white on the inside. For Basquiat, who was all too aware of his strange status as the lone black artist within a group of other contemporary figures and who all too often felt that his inclusion was somehow 'token', Oreo appears not only to be an indictment of people around him, but also perhaps some form of agonised and intense self-analysis and self-questioning.
This content is heightened by the searing Pop intensity of the picture, painted in the last year of Basquiat's troubled life. The symbol in the centre appears poster-like in its isolation, as though this were a logo for the popular snack, isolated within the green field: 'I like the ones where I don't paint as much as others, where it's just a direct idea' (Basquiat, quoted in H. Geldzahler, 'Art: from subways to Soho: Jean Michel Basquiat', pp. 18-26, Jean Michel Basquiat: Gemälde und Arbeiten auf Papier, exh. cat., Vienna 1999, p. 21). It is precisely the simplicity and directness of the image that make Oreo such a striking painting. At the same time, the gesturality of the paint undermines the Pop sheen so central to the works of Basquiat's friend and mentor, Warhol. This appears more critical than celebratory of consumer America. Indeed, this symbol appears not to be the Oreo logo itself: the antenna-like top of the logo of Nabisco, the makers of Oreos, appears imbued with some arcane power and significance in the hands of Basquiat. Black on the outside and red in the centre, this is not just an Oreo symbol but is instead some other mysterious sign from the artist's own personal lexicon, a strange hybrid hieroglyph of the modern day. In Oreo, Basquiat has managed to create a painting that is fuelled with the street intensity of graffiti while appearing beguilingly Pop, but one that also springs from the artist's own deeply personal concerns about race and identity.
Oreo (1988), by Kevin Young
Split open
like a lip,
a pea
coloured black
ground-
cream stock
to one side
tongue turnt
to dark-TRICK
BLACK SOAP.
The mouth washed out-
Unlock
the Magic© -
dipped in milk.
Coconut. White
in hands, black
devoured last-
Teeth uncleaned
like fish. Licked.
K. Young, To Repel Ghosts, five sides in B minor, Cambridge 2001, p. 278).
This content is heightened by the searing Pop intensity of the picture, painted in the last year of Basquiat's troubled life. The symbol in the centre appears poster-like in its isolation, as though this were a logo for the popular snack, isolated within the green field: 'I like the ones where I don't paint as much as others, where it's just a direct idea' (Basquiat, quoted in H. Geldzahler, 'Art: from subways to Soho: Jean Michel Basquiat', pp. 18-26, Jean Michel Basquiat: Gemälde und Arbeiten auf Papier, exh. cat., Vienna 1999, p. 21). It is precisely the simplicity and directness of the image that make Oreo such a striking painting. At the same time, the gesturality of the paint undermines the Pop sheen so central to the works of Basquiat's friend and mentor, Warhol. This appears more critical than celebratory of consumer America. Indeed, this symbol appears not to be the Oreo logo itself: the antenna-like top of the logo of Nabisco, the makers of Oreos, appears imbued with some arcane power and significance in the hands of Basquiat. Black on the outside and red in the centre, this is not just an Oreo symbol but is instead some other mysterious sign from the artist's own personal lexicon, a strange hybrid hieroglyph of the modern day. In Oreo, Basquiat has managed to create a painting that is fuelled with the street intensity of graffiti while appearing beguilingly Pop, but one that also springs from the artist's own deeply personal concerns about race and identity.
Oreo (1988), by Kevin Young
Split open
like a lip,
a pea
coloured black
ground-
cream stock
to one side
tongue turnt
to dark-TRICK
BLACK SOAP.
The mouth washed out-
Unlock
the Magic© -
dipped in milk.
Coconut. White
in hands, black
devoured last-
Teeth uncleaned
like fish. Licked.
K. Young, To Repel Ghosts, five sides in B minor, Cambridge 2001, p. 278).