Hollywood Africans In Front Of The Chinese Theatre With Footprints Of Movie Stars
Hollywood Africans In Front Of The Chinese Theatre With Footprints Of Movie Stars
Unsigned Print
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Screenprint, 1983
Unsigned Print Edition of 60
H 97cm x W 214cm
Critical Review
Hollywood Africans In Front Of The Chinese Theatre With Footprints Of Movie Stars is a screen print in colours, and attests to the influence of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s decampment from New York to Los Angeles in late 1982. His new environs presumably cultivated his interest in Hollywood as a subject, as underlined by one of the artist’s best-known paintings, the similarly-titled Hollywood Africans.
The different pace of life in Los Angeles offered fresh perspectives and a re-invigorated approach. Fred Hoffman writes: “Although this served his incredible capacity to process the world around him, it did not serve his stability or physical well being. In the removed environment of Venice, he seemed to find a security and solitude. Away from New York, this emergent talent was able to get on with his mission with significantly less distraction.”
In this print, we see Basquiat depicted together with close friends Toxic and Ramellzee. The image, with its exaggerated stereotypes of Blackness, point to the restrictive and demeaning depictions of people of colour in the history of American film.
