Nikia Banks, a 19-year-old African studies student at the University of Pennsylvania, drove more than six hours for a one-hour lecture. She traveled from Philadelphia to Niagara Falls to attend a discussion of '80s art giant Jean-Michel Basquiat , given by Southern Illinois University at Carbondale professor Najar Abdul-Musawwir .

Musawwir, who is also an artist, art activist and seasoned lecturer, spoke at Niagara University's Castellani Art Museum about Basquiat's work and that of other historic and contemporary African-American artists .

“Basquiat played a major role in the 1980s,” Musawwir said. “He had a short-lived career. He hit the scene so fast and so hard that people are still trying to figure out what happened.”

Although Basquiat himself was reluctant to explain and interpret his artwork, Musawwir explored the artist's use of symbols, contours and words within the context of his African and Haitian heritage .

“Jean-Michel Basquiat has been viewed by the art world as the greatest African-American artist of the 1980s,” Musawwir said. “The love-hate relationship with his career can be measured by the very words he produced.”

In his lecture, titled “Lost In His Own Back Yard,” Musawwir said the themes and patterns expressed in Basquiat's paintings can be traced to the nomadic and uncertain lifestyle of early American slaves .

“Some African-American artists became individuals without a culture,” he said. “Basquiat was one of them.”

This, according to Musawwir, fueled not only the originality that propelled the artist's work, but also the isolation and contempt he felt.

“Basquiat's life was a result of America's cultural dilemma, what W.E.B. Dubois referred to as ‘double consciousness',” he said, in reference to Dubois' 1903 collection of essays, “The Souls of Black Folk.”

In discussing the aesthetics of Basquiat's paintings and drawings , Musawwir examined a 1981 piece called “Jimmy Olsen,” which is owned by the NU museum and is on display through the end of May.

He said the images Basquiat drew and painted - always simplistic, occasionally childlike - stemmed from the ruthlessness of the '80s art world . Although he attributed the crude and primitive graphic representations in Basquiat's work partially to his origins as a street graffiti artist , Musawwir also pointed to a key scene in the 1996 film “Basquiat.”

When asked by a reporter (played by Christopher Walken) why his artwork was so unrefined, Basquiat (played by Jeffrey Wright) replied that “most of the people I know tend to be pretty crude.”

“He said that the people he was dealing with, most of the people he came in contact with, were crude people,” Musawwir said. “So he kept the images crude.”

The lecture occurred in conjunction with an ongoing photo exhibit by Basquiat contemporary Nick Taylor. “Jean-Michel Basquiat: An Intimate Portrait” is a series of black and white photographs taken by Taylor in 1979, and is on display at the museum until May 31.

“Definitely I'm glad I came,” said Banks, before heading into the next room to view Taylor's photos. “The way he tied (Basquiat's) heritage and his roots to the work he painted brings it all into perspective.”

patricksawers@buffalo.com