Sotheby's chose to sell this piece within the Asian market, despite having auction centres in both the US and UK, underlining how the artist now enjoys international acclaim. That region also has a growing number of people interested in collecting famous art, partly due to the booming economies within China as well as further south in the Middle East. Western art is now very much in demand, and Basquiat offers an interesting blend of cultures within his own career. Logo is dominated by a wealth of red paint which surrounds some symbolic elements such as a portrait of a young black man, portrayed in a similar manner to the logos of certain smoking products, with a looped signage around his portrait. Further below is a wealth of chaotic detail which comes from the artist's expressive nature.
Basquiat aggressively throughout his opinions and worries about US society within his paintings, attempting to create conversations that needed to be had, however uncomfortable in might have been. Of course, US policing was something he referred to regularly, but there were also a number of other issues which impacted his life, or that of his community, which he wanted to raise through his art. The art industry up to that point was dominated by white, middle class people and so this offered an alternative view which over time has become seen as refreshing. Art has a long history in bringing in a freedom of expression of new ways of thinking, and so it would adapt to this faster than other communities or industries may have been able to. Today he is rightly praised for his technical brilliance, but also the important impact that he made in American society, and the West as a whole.
This was an artist who used his fame to try to open a conversation about several important social matters, most of which held a racial element to them. He understood that few people from his background had a voice as strong as his, and so he should speak out for those unable to. Many of his paintings were chaotic, leading some to miss the messages of his paintings but plenty who understood his work better would be able to decipher the different words and objects scrawled across his various paintings and drawings in order to get a fairly accurate understanding of his original intentions. Today his best work, such as Pez Dispenser, Obnoxious Liberals and Hollywood Africans would command extraordinary valuations whenever they come up for sale, but most owners are looking to hold on to their collections for the time being as prices continue to soar. His work feels entirely relevant to modern day politics, a good four decades after he put them together.
