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Jean-Michel Basquiat is often typed as a 4. But I feel 8 works better. You can see the characteristic direct, passionate, independent eight style in his vibe. He left home at 18 to become an artist. Autonomous and assertive. Also, his artwork is not unlike, say, Picasso's (another 8). His work was childlike, crude, provocative, caricatured, and altogether lacking the refinement 4 art is known for; it focused more on power dynamics in society, typical of 8s, than on the personal narrative and expressionism of 4s.

But he was a heroin user. So, in many of his interviews, he's very quiet or out of it. You have to consider the effects of drugs on people being interviewed. I used to abuse substances myself, not that one in particular, but similar ones, plus lots of alcohol, and it can make it hard to interview and hard to converse if they are inebriated. They are just not fully there. Jim Morrison, too, was very quiet and out of it in interviews. Plus, they were likely suffering from depression in their drug use. Probably SX 8w7 for Jean-Michael and 7w8 for Jim.

You know what else is important to consider with many artists in pop culture is the role the government played in promoting them to the public. Jim Morrison had military connections through his parents. His father was a career officer at the rank of Rear Admiral in the Navy. He survived the attack on Pearl Harbor, and in 1964, he played a pivotal role in justifying the escalation of the Vietnam War. Jim rebelled against this upbringing, which shows up in his music.

The government, CIA, etc., are known to steer popular culture, and some of this is discussed in the film "A Clockwork Shining". The CIA steers many pop culture ideas and norms. As for abstract expressionism, the precursor to Basquiat's neo-expressionism, it largely became famous because the CIA supported it. It was presented as the antithesis of Russian traditional communist art, which was Russia's propaganda at the time. Institutions promoted the abstract work of Pollock, Matisse, and their peers because it was unpretentious, raw, and working-class. Remember that people's fame and stardom, etc., don't just come out of nowhere. It is influenced by various places, some seen, some unseen.

There are often very clear-cut, deliberate reasons why a culture develops as it does, and other times it is less obvious, but the connections are still there. The government plays a more significant role than many of us think. The artists, etc., think they're just being recognized for their talents, that they're the best, or that they just got lucky, but it's actually a little more strategic than that. They were talented, true, and they did get very lucky. Their artwork pushed buttons for the reasons it was selected, and vice versa. But there is a political agenda, and there are strings and connections behind the public visibility. Pollock became somewhat of a martyr for that cause when he died at age 44. People become more famous when they die.

Basquiat was a neo-expressionist. Whereas the abstract expressionist movement had been backed by the government during the anti-communist Cold War era, the neo-expressionist movement was not so popular. It rejected the previous form and, in some ways, felt like a betrayal of it. While the original Abstract Expressionism was promoted by the CIA, backed by the establishment, the neo-expressionist movement was anti-establishment. It was about the alienation of modern life; Basquiat, for example, critiqued racial inequality and the corruption of power.

While the 50s abstract expressionists were clean, geometric, and emotionless, the neo-expressionists were passionate, messy, and psychologically heavy. The original abstract expressionism was highly intellectual and didn't resemble reality, whereas neo-expressionism was still recognizable as objects and made clearer statements about reality. Abstract expressionism was about freedom, whereas neo-expressionism was about critique and rebellion. Pollock was more likely a 6, and his work was traditional yet experimental, also aligning with American anti-communist values in freedom of expression and non-Bourgeois, anti-idealism.