Title: Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart) - Wikipedia
Headings: Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart)
Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart)
Contents
Background
Analysis
Exhibitions
See also
References
Further reading

Content: Analysis
Defacement depicts two pink-faced policemen in blue uniform, one with sharp predator teeth, with batons clobbering a black silhouette. The word "¿DEFACEMENT©?" is written above them. The shadowy figure is Stewart, but it could also represent any black man who has been brutalized by the police. The tags of graffiti artists Daze and Zephyr are on the artwork. While Stewart was still in a coma, artist David Wojnarowicz created a flyer for a rally protesting Stewart's then "near-murder" in Union Square on September 26, 1983. The flyer portrays the officers with skeletal faces beating a handcuffed black man with batons. It was taped all around downtown which may have inspired Basquiat's Defacement painting. In the years since Defacement was created, it has taken critical resonance with the Black Lives Matter movement. Exhibitions
Defacement was never sold and it's seldom displayed in public.