Jean-Michel Basquiat: Warrior Skateboard Decks
The Skateroom has collaborated with the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat to create this set of three screenprinted skateboard decks featuring Basquiat’s painting Warrior (1982).
The image, which extends from deck to deck, represents a skeletal male figure brandishing a sword in its right hand. Evoking Renaissance portraits of knights such as Vittore Carpaccio’s Young Knight in a Landscape (1510), the work was inspired in part by Ogun, the warrior deity of West Africa’s Yoruba people; it might also be seen as a self-portrait. Executed on a wood panel in a basement studio in Annina Nosei’s SoHo gallery, and first shown in Basquiat’s exhibition at Tokyo’s Akira Ikeda Gallery in 1983, Warrior draws on the raw energy of the artist’s street work, making its reproduction on skateboard decks particularly appropriate.
The decks are intended for decorative purposes, but can be assembled into functioning skateboards. One wall mount per deck is provided to hang the edition on the wall.
Producer: The Skateroom
Year: 2019
Material: 7-ply Canadian maple
Dimensions: each 31 × 8 inches (78.4 × 20.3 cm)
Signed: Printed signature
