Anatomy, View Of Base Of Skull
Anatomy, View Of Base Of Skull
Signed Print
Jean-Michel Basquiat
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77 x 56cm, Edition of 18, Screenprint
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Meaning & Analysis
As one of the Anatomy prints, View Of Base Of Skull was produced in 1983, a blockbuster year for the artist, which saw him participate in the landmark group exhibition entitled ‘Champions’ at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery alongside a number of his contemporaries including Keith Haring and Brett De Palma.
The anatomical sketch is concentrated in the bottom half of the image in View Of Base Of Skull. The base of the skull is drawn in Basquiat’s signature scrawl, and labelled liberally, indicating the medical names of body parts including the malar bone, the foramen magnum and the temporal bone. The specificity of the annotations exists in tension with the spidery, almost-indecipherable handwriting.
This compulsion to annotate his anatomical sketches to such an extent can be read as Basquiat’s attempt to explain its complicated modes of functioning. Having been severely injured in a vehicle accident as a youngster, and having to have significant surgery to resolve his injuries, he was fully conscious of the limits of the vulnerable human form.