#jean-michel-basquiat

#jean-michel-basquiat

I wanted to be a great artist, not in the slang use of 'great,' but fantastic—reaching the soul of other people. This ambition drove Pat Steir throughout her life.

"The first step towards a cure is admitting you have a problem," artist Josh Kline writes, highlighting the inequities in New York City's real estate market and its impact on art.

Joshua Johnson, born around 1763 in Maryland, was the first Black professional artist in the United States, overcoming the challenges of his early life as an enslaved person.

The work of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning wound up as part of a secret CIA program during the height of the Cold War, aimed at promoting American ideals abroad.

KAWS has shown an uncanny ability to connect with a wide variety of people. Younger buyers clamor for his $50 Uniqlo T-shirts, while trophy-hunting collectors shell out millions for paintings.

Kamrooz Aram is everywhere this year, from Mumbai Art Week to the Whitney Biennial, and critic Aruna D'Souza is grateful. She pens a beautiful meditation on his work, reading his abstract paintings as not simply a denunciation of Western modernism nor a reassertion of Islamic visual motifs, but something else entirely - something gestural, exuberant, riotous, and incomparably his own.

The 2026 Whitney Biennial opened at the beginning of the month, providing a snapshot of current trends and curatorial interests in the art world.

Many of these posters are the only surviving proof of certain shows, with no recordings of plays, and certain films, having been lost over time. They offer a history of Black Americans trying to counter harmful stereotypes and provide vital and humanizing contributions to a growing Black culture.

When a 22-year-old Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-88) was asked how he typically began a piece, his answer was simple: "I suppose I would start with a head." That instinct-almost a reflex-sits at the core of a remarkable group of early works on paper that remained largely unseen during his lifetime. The Basquiat: Headstrong exhibition, which opens this month at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, is set to become the first comprehensive showing devoted to the artist's depictions of the human head.

I work outside, carving and shaping the stone. Outside my house, I have a table, an extension cord, and tools. It's very cold and I have to wear all my winter clothes. When it's too cold, I do the filing and finishing work inside after I shape it outside. I listen to all kinds of music. I listen to Eminem all the time; his albums are all my favorites. For drawings, I work at Kinngait Studios or at home on my kitchen table.

Mornings are best for concentrated work. In the winter, I turn on the heat at 8am and get started around 10am. Summer, I start around 9am. I have two areas in the studio for projects. The large, heavy wood sculptures are carved in the front section of the studio, closest to the roll-up wide door. Smaller sculptures are placed on a hydraulic workbench. Before I start, I focus, connect with the Source, and ask for guidance.