‘‘Drawing was an essential element in the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat. The artist had no hierarchical distinction between drawing and painting, and in fact, his paintings and drawings are often indistinguishable and only differ in the paper or canvas support.’’
—Richard Miller
Drawing was the foundation of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s artistic practice: a means to ‘channel’ his stream of consciousness into its visual form.i The artist’s works on paper are in no way preparatory studies, they are autonomous works of skilled draughtsmanship and form the foundation of his artistic practice. Executed in 1987, Untitled (Oxygen Destroyer) was completed shortly before the artist’s death in 1988. Basquiat’s works on paper are filled with graffiti-inspired tapestries of words, symbols, and signs; Untitled (Oxygen Destroyer) is therefore rare within the artist’s oeuvre for the apparent reduction of text and image to six elements. This affords greater potency to the symbols and text and an interplay between presence and absence is introduced. The negative space allows for more subjective interpretations by viewers as they try to decode the image.
‘‘But anything can act as an influence. If I see a painting from the Middle Ages, I can see the life, I can see how people were… like seeing a sculpture from Africa, I can see the tribe, I can see the life around it.’’
—Jean-Michel Basquiat
Death became a persistent theme in Basquiat’s late work, as the artist became more reclusive and disillusioned by the New York art scene. This feeling can be linked to the death of his friend and advocate Andy Warhol in February 1987. Untitled (Oxygen Destroyer) is a raw meditation on death and the artist’s struggles with identity and race. The work refers to the 1954 Godzilla film and the comic books, which were particularly popular through the 1980s in America. In Untitled (Oxygen Destroyer), the underlined block capitals ‘OXYGEN DESTROYER’ cites the deadly weapon used to stop Godzilla – an allegory of the death, destruction and existential horror caused by the American deployment of the Atomic bomb in 1945. Basquiat had previously featured Godzilla and other cinematic references such as Popeye in his work.
The artist drew and painted whilst watching television which allowed him to respond directly, instinctively and impulsively to new material. Basquiat saw in popular culture ‘a deeper reflection of society’s… erroneous representations of good and evil.’ii The X made up of two cones and the central zigzag, appear to be isolated cogs from a machine-like structure, which may be a reflection of Basquiat’s feelings of disillusionment and exploitation within the New York art world. The long-handled shovels and rakes evince the infamous chain gangs – rooted in the forced labour and slavery of African Americans in the aftermath of the American Civil War. Such an evocation could represent the artist’s feelings of entrapment with his newfound celebrity status and demonstrate the ingrained issues of race in a postcolonial society. Untitled (Oxygen Destroyer) exemplifies how Basquiat’s marriage of text and image discharges an intimate introspection into his popular culture references, stream of consciousness and issues with identity and race.