AI Art: Unbundled Artist: Jean-Michel Basquiat
Graffiti art on a concrete wall showing black athletic football player wearing a golden crown, spray paint, oil stick, acrylic, crayon
AI Text Prompts with Unbundling Techniques help AI Text Prompt Writers to avoid erasing human artists off all the search platforms and replacing the human artists with AI Art Generations. If you are a fan of a human artist’s work, learn more about what you like about their art practice so you can design your own unique art without erasing the artists off the internet with your own art.
The Unbundled AI Text Prompt Experiments with Images are at the end of this article.
References are the end of this article where you will find much more detailed articles about the life and work of Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Jean-Michel Basquiat (Brooklyn NY, 1960–1988) was a Contemporary Artist and Street Artist. He was important in the New York art scene in the 1980s when his graffiti gained international fame and he enjoyed success for seven years. Basquiat’s early drawings were based on comic books and cartoons. His mother encouraged his art practice and they often visited the local museums. He navigated prejudice, racism and poverty. When his friend and supporter Warhol died, Basquiat isolated himself, became depressed and died of a heroin overdose in his East Village apartment at the age of 27. Some of Basquiat’s quotes are on the website jean-michel-basquiat.org
“I don’t think about art when I’m working. I try to think about life.”
Jean-Michel Basquiat
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT INFLUENCES
- Comic Books
- Cartoons
- Basquiat’s mother
- Brooklyn Park Slope
- Brooklyn Museum
- Charlie Parker
- Jimi Hendrix
- Museum of Modern Art
- City-As-School public school in Manhatten
- Internal Injuries from being hit by a car when 8 years old
- Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body, colorized medical textbook
- Al Diaz
- John Cage “music that isn’t really music”
- Hip Hop Artists
- Child Artists
- Racism & Inequality in the USA
- Life experiences of being Black in America
- Opposition of overriding conservative, white narratives of Western painterly conventions.
- Rauschenberg
- Peter Max
- Picasso
- Anatomy
- Human Body Obsession
- Human Skulls
- Haitian traditions
- African traditions
- Fertility masks
- Alchemy
- Trash TV
- Typography
- Art History
- Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- Stan Peskett
- Henry Geldzahler
- Keith Haring
- Andy Warhol
- Annina Nosei
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT ARTWORKS
- Ashes 1981
- Bird on Money 1981
- Cadillac Moon 1981
- Fishing 1981
- Head 1981
- God, Law 1981
- Irony of Negro Policeman 1981
- La Hara 1981
- Skull 1981
- The Field Next to the 1981
- Boy and dog in a Jo 1982
- Cabeza 1982
- Donut Revenge 1982
- Dos Cabezas 1982
- Equals Pi 1982
- Dustheads 1982
- The Guilt of Gold Teeth 1982
- Obnoxious Liberals 1982
- Self Portrait 1982
- Tuxedo 1982
- Untitled 1982
- Untitled (Boxer) 1982
- Untitled (Skull) 1982
- Untitled (Head) 1982
- Warrior 1982
- King Alphonso 1982–1983
- Crown 1983
- Defacement 1983
- Hollywood Africans 1983
- Horn Players 1983
- In This Case 1983
- In Italian 1983
- Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta 1983
- Untitled (History of the Black People) 1983
- Aboriginal 1984
- Flexible 1984
- Glenn 1984
- Logo 1984
- Pez Dispenser 1984
- Trumpet 1984
- King Pleasure 1987
- Riddle Me This, Batman 1987
- To Be Titled 1987
- Victor 1987
- Eroica I 1988
- Eroica II 1988
- Exu 1988
- Riding with Death 1988
- The Dingoes That P 1988
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT STYLE
- Crown symbol to challenge notions of Western art history, race and power.
- Crown with copyright symbol
- sign of reclaiming authorship over how non-Western art was shown
- ironic attack on mechanisms of the art market
- Crown on Black People elevating them to Saint status:
- Athletes
- Musicians
- Writers
- Anatomy and Skulls
- belief that colors and words can be interchanged, used abstractly like music notes.
- Basquiat Version of Primitivism
- Repetition of Text: “Mississippi”, “Negroes” and “Mark Twain”
- hammering out deep trauma and painful history of slavery and racism in USA until the words are emptied of authority and meaning.
- Young, Black Heroic Figures
- asserting independence and strenght
- explore what it means to be black in America.
- Considers Artist as a “Fig.”
- artist places himself in the narrative of the piece, considering himself a ‘Fig.’
- recognition of his own rising fame and place within cultural history of the USA.
- implicit ability to forge alternative path transcending the narrative of slavery and oppression.
- Graphically equates man with animal meat
- ‘Per LB, 49c’
- Colors:
- black, white, gray
- black, white, teal, purple, red
- red, yellow, blue, pink, grey, black, white, green
- earth tones: yellow, red, black, green with teal, black, white
- black, yellow, teal, white, green
- black, orange, yellow, teal, white
- Attempts to be incomplete, abrasive, oddly beautiful
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT ART MEDIUMS
- Oil Sticks
- Spray Paint
- Crayons
- Acrylics
- Furniture
- Doors
- Walls
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT TECHNIQUES
- Fused words and colors with :
- Oil Sticks & Spray Paint
- Crayons & Acrylics
3 UNBUNDLED AI TEXT PROMPT EXPERIMENTS
As of January 29th 2023, I know that my local stable diffusion python scripts and the online AI Art Generators are not viable options for including specific text and fonts into the art I hope to generate, so I will not attempt to generate that strong aspect of Basquiat’s style into these experiments. I will attempt to design Unbundled AI Text Prompts that invoke his influences, style, techniques and subjects.
UNBUNDLED AI TEXT PROMPT EXPERIMENT 1
The following images are only what the AI Art Generators. I did not do any of the usual editing that I typically do in my own art practice ( upscaling, adding hand drawn details, color grading, inpainting, resizing, etc).
ai text prompt: dalle2
Graffiti art on a concrete wall showing black athletic football player wearing a golden crown, spray paint, oil stick, acrylic, crayon
ai text prompt: local stable diffusion:
Graffiti art on a concrete wall showing black athletic football player wearing a golden crown, spray paint, oil stick, acrylic, crayon
ai text prompt: local stable diffusion:
Graffiti art on a concrete wall showing black athletic football player wearing a golden crown, spray paint, oil stick, acrylic, crayon, –v4, Super high details, 8k. hyper real, photorealistic, detailed –ar 16:9 –s 42000 –uplight, blur
UNBUNDLED AI TEXT PROMPT EXPERIMENT 2
The resulting images from experiment 1 have me wondering what colors were available and preferred by Basquiat in the 1980s and earlier with his chosen oil sticks, acrylics, crayons and spray paint. How can I include that info in new Unbundled AI Text Prompt? With a closer look at google images of “Basquiat Graffiti” I can find some answers and update the prior list of his techniques, styles, and mediums to include the colors that Basquiat usually used in his own work.
ai text prompt: dalle2
Graffiti art on a concrete wall showing black athletic football player wearing a golden crown, spray paint, oil stick, acrylic, crayon, black, white, teal, purple, red
ai text prompt: local stable diffusion:
Graffiti art on a concrete wall showing black athletic football player wearing a golden crown, spray paint, oil stick, acrylic, crayon, black, white, teal, purple, red
ai text prompt: local stable diffusion:
Graffiti art on a concrete wall showing black athletic football player wearing a golden crown, spray paint, oil stick, acrylic, crayon, black, white, teal, purple, red, –v4, Super high details, 8k. hyper real, photorealistic, detailed –ar 16:9 –s 42000 –uplight, blurUnbundled AI Text Prompt Experiment 2: Graffiti art on a concrete wall showing black athletic football player wearing a golden crown, spray paint, oil stick, acrylic, crayon, black, white, teal, purple, red
UNBUNDLED AI TEXT PROMPT EXPERIMENT 3
Experiment 2 provided interesting results. Both Experiment 1 and 2 provided results that I want to add my own hand drawn details to for another project after this UnBundling experiment is done. For Experiment 3, I want to try integrating the phrase ‘assemblage’ into my UnBundled AI Text prompt to see how the AI Generator responds.
ai text prompt: dalle2
Graffiti art on a concrete wall showing assemblage of black athletic football player wearing a golden crown, spray paint, oil stick, acrylic, crayon, black, white, teal, purple, red
ai text prompt: local stable diffusion:
Graffiti art on a concrete wall showing assemblage of black athletic football player wearing a golden crown, spray paint, oil stick, acrylic, crayon, black, white, teal, purple, red
ai text prompt: local stable diffusion:
Graffiti art on a concrete wall showing assemblage of black athletic football player wearing a golden crown, spray paint, oil stick, acrylic, crayon, black, white, teal, purple, red, –v4, Super high details, 8k. hyper real, photorealistic, detailed –ar 16:9 –s 42000 –uplight, blurUnbundled AI Text Prompt Experiment 3: Graffiti art on a concrete wall showing assemblage of black athletic football player wearing a golden crown, spray paint, oil stick, acrylic, crayon, black, white, teal, purple, red
CONCLUSION
Unbundling Jean-Michel Basquiat’s art style by looking at his influences, techniques and more has been an interesting exploration into the artist’s life and how he communicated his life experiences and views. I have a new appreciation for his art, a better idea of the issues he was navigating and his impact on the world that I can now notice as a result of today’s Unbundling experiments. I hope these experiments encourage more people to make the time and effort to UnBundle famous, not famous, favorite, not favorite, alive and not alive today Artists. If you do UnBundling Experiments , please do tag #UnBundledAIArt in your experiment results and I will do my best to share your your creations on social media too. I think acknowledging the artists that inspire the UnBundling techniques with a link to their art websites can also help push back on the corporations and individuals that are working hard to erase human artists names and replace them with AI Generations on all search platforms.
References
- Google Images : Basquiat Graffiti
- Iconic Artworks: Basquiat’s Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta
- https://magazine.artland.com/jean-michel-basquiat/
- Street Art: History of the Art Movement and the Artists That Turned Cities Into Open Sky Museums
If you find value in my articles about AI Art Generation, please comment with your own ideas and links to your own AI Text Prompt Experiments.
