Basquiat is only influential because Warhol took a liking to him, otherwise no one would even know who he was. Without Warhol, he would be just another graffiti artist in New York.
Chris meanwhile has a deep rabbit hole full of lore that sucks you in and makes you glad that you are not him. He has thousands upon thousands of people watching his every move. If he tweets, it’s on here. If he has another breakdown like he did at Too Many Games, that’s Youtube gold for a few weeks and new people who find out about Chris and get sucked into his story.
Like it or not, Chris is a fixture in internet history that will still be discussed long after he is gone. So in that sense, he is like Basquiat and Warhol in that people know who he is and has even become a minor celebrity.
Plus, it’s the art scene. Anyone with a known name make can make a lot off of money off of a shitty painting or a display.
Case in point, here is a display by Andrew Hemmingway. A guy who has made a career out of painting and taking pictures of toilet paper rolls just because he saw some kind of meaning behind them.
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Chris’s early work has a lot of meaning to it, because it let us in on what type of person he was and had people wondering what he was going to reveal about himself next.
Then there is the art he produced while he was transitioning which let us have a glimpse into his mindset at the time.