In many of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s energetic, hyper-detailed paintings and drawings, it can be difficult to know where to look. The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is focusing our gaze with drawings he made in 1981–83 that depict the human head (30 January–17 May). These oilstick-on-paper works were highly personal to Basquiat – works in their own right rather than preparatory studies, they were discovered only after his death – and, given the absence of text, symbols and other characteristics of his best-known work, present a different side of the artist. Most startling is the variety of perspectives he brings to bear on the head: sometimes he emphasises skeletal elements, other times he seems more interested in musculature or the nervous system. The works run the gamut from affable to fantastical to downright disturbing: one Untitled (Head) from 1982 appears to be a literal representation of dissociation, its subject’s face coming unstuck from its underlying structure.
Find out more from the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art’s website.
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