ZHONG CHENG

Born in New York, America. Basquiat was an American artist. He began as an obscure graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970s and evolved into an acclaimed Neo-expressionist and Primitivist painter by the 1980s. From 1980 onwards, Basquiat started to take part in art exhibi- tions and in 1981, the poetartist Rene Ricard introduced Basquiat in Anforum Magazine with a major article entitled "The Radiant Child".In 1982, he was featured in the international show Trasavanguardia: Italic/America curated by Achille Monito Oliva and was also invited to exhibit in the Whitney Biennial and Germany's Documenta.Basquiat's subjects were typically autobiographical, centering around black heroes, characters from comics and cartoons, anatomy, graffiti, and graffiti-related signs and symbols such as the royal crown, and the copyright mark.