The Figure II
The Figure II
Unsigned Print
Jean-Michel Basquiat
122 x 81cm, Edition of 85, Screenprint, 2023
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Meaning & Analysis
The Figure II is a screen print in colours released by the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat in 2023, in an edition of 85. It presents a standing figure with a blue, skull-like head and a broad red and orange body, set against a white ground covered in letters, numbers and diagrams. It is the second of five prints in The Figure Portfolio.
The head is drawn in heavy blue lines, with bared teeth, round eyes and hair radiating outwards in a scribbled mass. A red pipe projects from the side of the face. The body is square and frontal, its arms held stiffly at its sides, while a dark blue panel at the chest and black boots anchor the figure to the lower half of the sheet. As in Head, there is a sense of looking through the body, not only at it, with the torso left partly open to reveal the lines beneath.
Around the figure, Basquiat sets out fragments of a coded system. “EIGHT” is written in the top left beside a column of “R”s, and an arc of numbers to the right resembles a measuring scale. A triangle with blue dots sits in the lower right, and a spiked oval below the figure encloses a row of tooth-like marks. Along the bottom edge, a string of large green and black characters includes the year 1963. Basquiat frequently borrowed the visual language of maps, charts and diagrams, and here these elements surround the figure without explaining it, leaving the viewer to piece together their relationship.
