Dustheads
Jean-Michel Basquiat (1982)
Dustheads stages two electrified, mask-like figures lunging out of a saturated black field, their concentric eyes and bared teeth pumping with <strong>manic, nocturnal energy</strong>. The title’s nod to PCP (“angel dust”) fuses <strong>ecstasy and menace</strong>, turning the scene into a charged allegory of altered perception and survival in downtown New York, 1982 <sup>[1]</sup><sup>[6]</sup>.