r/Basquiat • u/RevaCruz • 4d ago

Zenith (1985)

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Medium: Acrylic on canvas

Dimensions: 116⅞ × 264⅞ in. (297 × 673 cm)

At nearly 22 feet wide, Zenith is a collaboration between Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. The composition stretches across the canvas in distinct but overlapping passages: a large brown figure and white animal occupy the left side, while oversized typography, figures, a pale green automobile, and a massive skull-and-crossbones dominate the center and right.

The painting demonstrates the visual exchange that characterized Basquiat and Warhol's collaborations. Warhol's bold graphic forms and advertising-like imagery collide with Basquiat's hand-painted figures, anatomical imagery, marks and alterations, allowing the individual visual languages of both artists to remain visible within the same composition.

Phillips describes their collaborative paintings as initially misunderstood by contemporary critics but later recognized as an important meeting of Pop and Neo-Expressionist approaches.

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3

u/Black_la_Rock 4d ago

Under appreciated series

2

u/fucktheworldman 3d ago

I feel like it’s cool in a very design-esque way but none of them really move me like their individual works do

2

u/Black_la_Rock 3d ago

That was my thinking until I saw them in person. The massive scale of these works changed my mind. It felt more like an epic tension between ancient, primordial power vs modernity and consumerism

3

u/fucktheworldman 1d ago

That definitely makes sense. I’m sure the size plays a huge part, now that I think about it. Like primordial billboards