Blue Notes (Basquiat): Who's Who or a Pair of Aces #1

Source catalog description

This description refers to material held by Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visual details below describe the original material.

A mixed media portrait titled Blue Notes (Basquiat): Who's Who or a Pair of Aces #1, by Carrie Mae Weems. The inkjet print features a blurred reproduction of Andy Warhol’s 1982 photographic portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat printed in muted blue-gray tones. Basquiat is shown in bust pose from the shoulders up. He is wearing a medium tone jacket over a lighter dress shirt with a dark tie. Basquiat’s proper left fingers are slightly curled and raised to his jaw line. Half of his short dreadlocks have been pulled up and tied into two thick pigtails on the top of his head and the rest of his dreadlocks are loose and sticking out at various angles around the bottom half of his head. At the center of the portrait, covering Basquiat’s eyes and forehead, is a screen printed solid red, rectangular block.

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