Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mona

Hatoum and their Diaspora

Identities
Written by Kartini Handoko

ean-Michel Basquiat and Mona Hatoum are two very uniquely

different artists. Basquiat was one of the youngest artist that rose to
fame from an ordinary street-based art while living as an AfricanAmerican during his time. In contrast to that, Hatoum is an artist
that had her childhood taken away by an exile during the civil War
and visualizes this experience as pieces of her contemporary art.
Hence, their different backgrounds and living environment had
portrayed different influences in the style of their works. In the art
industry, their artworks will hardly ever intersect one another, as the
similarities in their work are very limited and difficult to observe in a
brief analysis. This is because Basquiats works are messy, complex,
colorful and gives off a chaotic vibe, whereas, Hatoums works are
clean, refined, structured and gives a simplistic feel. However, in
between the vast differences of the two artists, there lies a
complexity that embodies the reality and experience of exile. They
use their art to visualize the search of their true self-identity by
incorporating the different cultures that are inter-related with their
lives. Basquiat and Hatoum both speak to the experience of exile to
challenge or interrogate the notions of identity and homeland.
Rather than a singular identity, they use their art to represent their
diasporic identity.

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Basquiat

was a young artist that climbed his way from a

street artist in NYC to a top-shelf gallery artist. Having gone through
the struggles of being an African-American that rose to fame, he had
lost a little of the younger him, his true identity, and became
overwhelmed by all the drastic changes in his life. However,
Basquiat was never that in touch with black culture. He had more
white friends and girlfriends in his life, segregating him from his own
black roots. He never experienced the racial segregation, except
from his own culture. Hence, he had lived his own diasporic identity
of being a black figure that minimally acquaints with black people.
Even so, in the art industry, he had always been labeled as the
black artist instead of the famous artist that he wanted to
become (Hoban). In addition to that, the interpretation of his style of
art and his background gave his audiences a stereotypical
perception that he is a rebellious character with a wild child
personality. His work incorporates influences from his suggestive
and contrasting interpretations of political, social and cultural issues
of society. Sadly, his career ended at its peak due to his death of
drug overdose. His work mainly focuses on issues that intentionally
or unintentionally referenced to all kinds of black African-American
history. As his career grows, his work slowly transitioned to a
platform for him to represent the voices of black identity throughout
history.

One of his works in which this is very prominent is a painting titled

Defacement from the year 1983.

Defacement, 1983
Defacement was a painting done by Basquiat in honor of the
death of Michael Stewart, a fellow street artist in New York City
(Nielson). Basquiat saw this incident as a reflection of himself as an
African-American artist as he too was once a young artist pursuing
his dream on the streets. The death of Michael Stewart shook him in
a way that made him think that such brutality could have happened
to him too. Hence, his painting was made to raise awareness of the
police brutality against the black African-American artists that
pursue their art in public spaces.
The painting shows a black figure and two other white policemen
carrying a baton and beating the black person in the middle. Though
the painting shows significant details of the policemens features,
uniforms and weapons, the black figure in the middle is defaced; it is
represented as a shadow with no features or distinct shapes. This
gives the audience a sense of it being invisible, like a shadow
emphasizing the idea that black identities are often undervalued
and overlooked in the society. This represents how BASQUIAT
identifies himself as a black artist in the society where he might be
disregarded and recognized only as an exotic identity because of
his race. This also correlates to how he is seen by the world, as a

well-known artist, but more specifically, a well-known black artist.

In fact, while at the peak of his career, people started calling him
black Picasso in which he responded in an interview that no matter
how honored he feels about being co-related to Picasso the artist, he
felt that it was demeaning to him that his race had to be brought up
(class video). Just like the painting that shows how obvious the black
figure is in contrast to the rest of the painting, which is of light
colors, it is showing that, all that defines Basquiat as an artist was
his race, his black identity.
The defaced black figure on the painting also hints the ambiguity of
whom it represents. It could be Basquiat himself, because of the
similarity of their hairstyle, it could be Michael Stewart, because of
the story behind it, or it could be a woman, because it looks genderneutral. This defacement gives a sense of something that is
powerful but intangible. It is telling the audience that the Michael
Stewart incident could happen to anyone, but most likely to those
with black as their identity. This emphasizes Basquiats diasporic
identity, as to everybody else, he is just another black face, another
defaced figure, but to himself, he is someone that would care less
about his race and have himself surrounded by white friends. In one
of Basquiats interview, Basquiat mentioned that he feels that
people were just racist to him, as the questions that people always
asked him were never related to his work, but instead, they were
questions interested more about his lifestyle and personality as if he
was a different type of human (Class Video).
Basquiat also uses emphasis in the colors, red, white and blue,
accompanied with accents of stars that accurately mimic the
American flag. This shows that Basquiat faces defacement even in
his own country, the United States of America. He finds a sense of
marginalization in being part of the black race, a margin that
separates the black and the white. He was unable to identify his
homeland as he does not find himself secure from protecting his
own culture and identity, he was always more safe when he was
with his white friends. His diasporic identity within his own country
accentuates the ambiguity of him being a black citizen and as an
artist.

Mona Hatoum

Mona Hatoum

was born in Beirut, Lebanon, to a

Palestinian family that became exiles in the 1948 civil war. Having
been exiles in Lebanon, they were never able to obtain Lebanese
identity cards (Hatoum 1952). This stripped her family from the
identity of being Palestine. Furthermore, Mona Hatoums diaspora
identity became more convoluted because of an unexpected trip to
London that forced her into exile once again, from Lebanon to
London due to another civil war that erupted at Beirut. Her diaspora
identity made it difficult for her to identify herself and her homeland.
This is clearly represented in her works as she uses all kinds of
presentations to vocalize her sense of exile. As scholar Edward
W.Said said, Her work is the presentation of identity as unable to
identify with itself. Thus is exile figured and plotted in the objects
she creates. Her work enact the paradox dispossession as it takes
possession of its place in the world. This explains her conflicting
styles in which she is Palestinian and not at the same time, by
putting objects that is significant but also useless in her work.
Hatoums work has greatly been influenced by the conflict in
her exile experience. In one of her interviews with Janine Antoni,

Hatoum said [The] fact that I grew up in a war-torn country; the

fact that my family was displaced, a Palestinian family that ended up
living in exile in Lebanon, has obviously shaped the way I perceive
the worldThe feeling of not being able to take anything for
granted, even doubting the solidity of the ground you walk on. This
style of her was particularly outstanding in her artwork title Keffieh
as she recreates the Palestinian scarf with her hair.

Keffieh, 199399
Keffieh is a name for scarves worn mostly by and those
associated with rural Palestinian men. Keffieh(s) are most popularly
known worn by Yasser Arafat, which is a freedom fighter of the
Palestinian but a master terrorist by the Israelis in the IsraelPalestine war (Short essay). Hatoum has transformed the ordinary
keffieh with the addition of her own hair woven into fabric. By
adding her hair into the scarf, she went through the labor-intensive
work by weaving each strand. Hatoum shows a strong sense of
longing of a homeland, to be part of the Palestinian culture she was
supposed to have if not for the wars and exile. The fluidity of the
hair and the cloth binds together into one, signifying her acceptance

of her diasporic identity by incorporating her own mixed cultures

and interweaving them in the traditional Palestinian scarf.
Furthermore, the grid lines of the Keffieh also show the rigidness of
Hatoums artwork in contrast to the fluidity of the cloth and the
strands of her hair. The grid signifies her demand for structure, in
which, in this case translates to Hatoums demand for a structured
and simple identification, a clear belonging that puts her in a
position with no ambiguity. Yet, the lack of concreteness of the hair
forming the concreteness of the grid enforces the diaspora and
ambiguity of Hatoums life after exile. It highlights the ambiguity of
Hatoums identity that resists its definition but longs for one,
especially a Palestinian one.

he bridge between the conflicting works of Basquiat and

Hatoum lies in this sense of diaspora in their complex identity. Their

identities are constantly defying itself and its definitions. They are
both not there there, continuously conflicting themselves. This
ambiguity is represented by the black figure in Defacement and by
Hatoums hair and its grid lines in Keffieh. In Defacement, the
black figure in contrast to the rest of the painting, stands out
obviously in the center of the painting, however, its defacement of
the black figure made it otherwise at the same time. This results in it
being significant and insignificant at the same time. To an audience
that looks at it from up close, the black person seems to be
highlighted and outstanding, however, to an audience that looks at
it from a distance, the black person seems like it is at the back,
almost insignificant. This contradiction further proves the conflicting
diasporic identity that Basquiat himself perceive himself. Meanwhile,
in Keffieh the role of this ambiguity is largely contributed by the
interweaving of Hatoums hair herself into rigid lines recreating the
traditional Palestinian scarf, keffieh. The universality of what her hair
represent is conflicted by the particularity of the Palestinian keffieh,
whereas the structured placement and weaving of the hair gives a
sense of versatility but also restrictions at the same time. Similarly
to defacement, there is a difference in the perceptions of the
audience. Up close, into the work, the details of the hair is

accentuated, translating into the representation of the mixed culture

that Hatoum embodies in the use of her own hair. However, a few
steps back from the work accentuate the white spaces and the rigid
grid lines of the Keffieh that translates the restrictions of defining
her identity as a Palestinian. Just like how the hair insists and resists
binding together with the cloth, Hatoum resists defining her
diasporic identity as a Palestinian, but not.

Citations
Antoni, Janine. Bomb. BOMB MagazineMona Hatoum by Janine Antoni.
Web. 13 Oct. 2015.
Hatoum, Mona *1952 Lebanon. Hatoum, Mona *1952 Lebanon. Web. 13
Oct. 2015.
Hoban, Phoebe. THE NOT-SO-BRAVE NEW ART WORLD. Basquiat: A Quick
Killing in Art. New York: Viking, 1998. Print.
Lamm, Kimberly. Seeing Feminism in Exile: The Imaginary Maps of Mona
Hatoum. Seeing Feminism in Exile; The Imaginary Maps of Mona Hatoum.
Ann Arbor, MI MPublishing, University of Michigan Library 2004. Web. 13 Oct.
2015.
Mona Hatoum :: Artist Mona Hatoum Essays. Mona Hatoum :: Artist Mona
Hatoum Essays. Web. 13 Oct. 2015.
Nielson, Erik. It Could Have Been Me: The 1983 Death Of A NYC Graffiti
Artist. NPR. NPR, 16 Sept. 2013. Web. 25 Oct. 2015.
Short Essay: How Have Contemporary Artists, Mona Hatoum and Yinka
Shonibare, Explored the Theme of Diaspora Identity? ArtMuse.
Wordpress.com, 3 May 2013. Web. 13 Oct. 2015.
Waterhouse, Eliza. Diasporic G Eographies and Migr Bodies : The Politics
of Identity in Mona Hatoums Measures of Distance. 1 Mar. 2014. Web. 13
Oct. 2015