Rusting Red Car in Kuau 1984

Jean-Michel Basquiat made this painting of a Rusting Red Car in Kuau, and the freehand drawing has a cool kind of intensity, doesn't it? The marks are put down raw, the paint is laid on thick and you can almost feel the scraping of the brush on the canvas. The palette is pared back, mostly the red of the car set against a brooding dark blue background, with pops of yellow suggesting street lights or some kind of glowing cityscape. The car seems to have been pulled from the shadows, its outline jagged and restless. See how those white lines cut through the red, lending a sense of movement. It is like a drawing of a memory, or a dream of a car, full of restless energy. For me, the clunky representation of the car is what's interesting, it's as if he is not trying to create a likeness but to get to the essence of what a car is. It reminds me a little of Picabia, who was always using the image of the machine to poke fun at the idea of progress.