Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Liberty, from the Daros Suite, is a densely packed and intellectually charged composition that interrogates the foundations of freedom, value, and power through the artist’s unmistakable fusion of anatomy, economics, and history. Split into contrasting zones of pale ground and aggressively worked red fields, the work reads as a visual autopsy of liberty itself—examined, measured, and exposed.

On the left, diagrammatic drawings of teeth, jaws, glands, and skeletal fragments are annotated with scientific language and arrows, evoking medical textbooks and systems of classification. These clinical references are undercut by phrases such as “FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE,” “LEVERAGE OF THE JAW,” and “LET THEM EAT DIRT,” collapsing bodily anatomy into economic and political metaphor. Liberty is framed not as an abstract ideal, but as something extracted, leveraged, and consumed.

The right side intensifies in color and urgency, dominated by deep reds and yellows and references to extraction and empire: “PETROL,” “PLUTO,” “LEAD,” “RADIUM,” and mythological or geographic markers. Anatomical forms reappear as fragmented organs and skulls, suggesting contamination and decay, while check marks beside words like “TRUE” and “FALSE” mock binary systems of judgment and authority. The recurring salivary gland imagery hints at hunger, appetite, and desire—forces that drive both bodies and empires.

Throughout Liberty, Basquiat blurs the boundaries between the physical and the ideological. Power is shown as something that passes through bodies, currencies, and resources alike, leaving residue and damage in its wake. In screen-printed form, the work retains the immediacy of Basquiat’s hand while sharpening the clarity of its symbols, resulting in a searing meditation on freedom as a contested, conditional, and deeply compromised construct. For more information on Jean Michel Basquiat's Liberty for sale, contact our New York and London galleries via the form below.