The Commodification of Jean-Michel Basquiat

"Of course, Basquiat is not alone in such a transformation. Rather, he is the exemplar of a marketing strategy that has seen countless artists transmuted (sometimes willingly, other times not) into featureless, deracinated, and depoliticized products. As Elliot Safra details, museums and galleries in recent years have significantly expanded their retail wings while new companies, like home goods company Ligne Blanche, have arisen solely to market artist-branded products (predictably, the company has a Basquiat line). Perhaps no artist has exemplified the era of art-as-collectible better than KAWS, whose sales of art toys have revolutionized the art retail market in recent years.

In our contemporary cultural scene, the ideology of branding reigns and merchandising is generally understood to be integral to any aesthetic."

read the piece by James Rushing Daniel

The Commodification of Jean-Michel Basquiat