View of Base of Skull, from the Anatomy portfolio by Jean-Michel Basquiat is the most labelled image in the series — the skull seen from below, its underside mapped with ten anatomical terms radiating outward from the central drawing. It is the view that is only possible when the skull is separated from the body entirely, the base of the cranium exposed and annotated, the hidden architecture of the structure that supports the face made visible from underneath.

The foramen magnum — the great opening at the base of the skull through which the brainstem passes — sits at the centre of the drawing, the single aperture connecting the brain to the rest of the nervous system, the point on which everything depends. Ramus of Mandible, the first print in the portfolio, labelled the face from the front. View of Base of Skull turns it over and labels what is underneath — the surface that rests on the atlas vertebra, the connection between the brain and the spine, the foundation that the visible structure of the head is built on.

That Basquiat includes both views — the face and the base, the seen and the unseen — is the portfolio's deepest formal argument. The body presented from every angle, including the angles that require it to be dismantled to access, the knowledge built from positions that the living subject can never occupy. It is the same argument as the lateral view, the posterior view, the opened shoulder joint — that complete understanding requires moving to positions of observation that the subject of that understanding cannot itself take up. In 1982, making this portfolio in Annina Nosei's basement, Basquiat understood that condition from the inside.

For more information or to buy View of Base of Skull, from the Anatomy portfolio by Jean-Michel Basquiat, contact our specialists using the enquiry button above.