With his extensive alphabet, he gives everything a name that belongs to no language and therefore can enter no official record. The events that inspired them answer to the names that he gives them, and the names collude with the events. There is mutual recognition. The paintings are very expressive and, at the same time, absolutely unpronounceable. They can be read silently or they can be remembered wordlessly or they can be replied to by another painting or by another direct action, but they can not be pronounced in official discourse. And their illegality is intimately connected to the fact that the vivid images celebrate the invisible. Thus no lie can net them; they are free. Indeed they are an exemplary demonstration of freedom! An incitement to freedom.
John Berger, “Seeing Through Lies: Jean-Michel Basquiat: Saboteur” (2011, via The Public Archive, previously shared on Twitter)
