Jean-Michel Basquiat: Context, Culture, and Creation

In this unit, students will study the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat as a non-literary body of work that can be paired with a literary text for the IB Individual Oral (IO).

Basquiat’s artwork explores powerful global issues such as racism, inequality, identity, colonialism, violence, mental health, and the commodification of culture. His work blends text, symbols, anatomy, history, graffiti, and street culture to communicate how marginalized voices experience power and oppression.

Students will analyze Basquiat through key IB concepts:

• Identity – how Black identity, heritage, and selfhood are represented and challenged
  
  

• Culture – how African, Caribbean, and American histories are remixed and reclaimed
  
  

• Creativity – how art becomes resistance, voice, and survival
  
  

• Perspective – whose stories are told, whose are silenced, and how Basquiat centers marginalized viewpoints
  
  

• Representation – how Black bodies, history, trauma, and power are visually portrayed
  
  

• Communication – how meaning is created through symbols, text, color, and visual chaos
  
  

• Transformation – how Basquiat reshapes historical images, language, and stereotypes into new meaning

Students will also explore Basquiat’s use of artistic techniques, including:

• Symbolism (crowns, skulls, griots, money, anatomy)

• Text and layering

• Repetition and fragmentation

• Neo-Expressionism (raw emotion, distortion, chaos, urgency)