PEZ DISPENSER

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Pez Dispenser 1984

Jean Michel Basquiat

IN THE DIALOGUE

• Remind me the PEZ candies as when we were childrens

• The crown remind me of symbol that the knights wore in the Middle Ages is as if the dinosaur was going to fighht against another kingdom
• The painting looks like a child's drawing. It's funny and weird

• The colours is softens the "mean" image of the dinausaures

IN REALITY

• The dinosaur is a motif reminiscent of childhood toys, the dinosaur appeared in Basquiat’s Snakeman (1983) as well as in the world-famous Pez Dispenser — a simple work drawn in 1984.

• There are several opinions and assumptions about this artwork.

• In the artwork Pez Dispenser Jean Michel Basquiat refers to the to popular American culture.

• This little dinosaur of the painting which, certainly, shows the teeth and opens red eyes, is like a nod to the world of childhood.

• «The crown of Jean-Michel has three points, one for each of its three royal lineages: the poet, the musician and the boxing champion», said Francesco Clemente, artist and friend of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

• The title Pez Dispenser refers to the Pez candy dispenser that has a large place in American consumption. Some have theorized that Basquiat seeks to alert on the harmful nature of capitalism with suggestive dichotomies.

• Pez was particularly popular in the US because of the imaginative plastic dispensers in which it was sold.

• Basquiat elevated the symbol of the crown to a deep and archetypal status and that for him it was a symbol of the class struggle and financial inequality that he documented throughout his life.

• This suggests that with this artwork, Basquiat makes a link between American popular consumer culture (carried out by well-known big companies like Pez) with social class oppression and social inequality.