On the occasion of his fiftieth birthday, the Fondation Beyeler is devoting the first large exhibition ever held in Europe to the outstanding American draftsman and painter, Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Comprising over 100 works, it traces Basquiat's unique artistic development and reflects his place in art history. Independent collector members of ARTKABINETT social network visiting Art Basel will be attending this amazing and important art event.
Conceived as a retrospective, the exhibition also enables a rediscovery and re-evaluation of one of the most fascinating personalities in the history of recent art.
Basquiat History
Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist and is cited by Graham Thompson as the first painter of African descent to become an international art star.He started as a graffiti writer in New York City, and in the 1980s produced Neo-expressionist painting.
In the late 1970s, at age 16, Basquiat began to spray aphoristic graffiti on Manhattan walls under the pseudonym of SAMO©. The sale of homemade postcards and painted T-shirts provided a source of income. Basquiatís breakthrough as an artist came with his prominent participation in "New York/New Wave," a show at the already legendary P.S. 1, which opened in February 1981 and included prestigious artists like Keith Haring and Robert Mapplethorpe.
Basquiat dropped out of high school in September 1978, at the beginning of his senior year. He decided to leave his home and began living with friends, earning money by selling T-shirts and postcards on Manhattan's streets, and working in the Unique Clothing Warehouse on Broadway. By 1979, Basquiat had appeared on Glenn O'Brien's live public-access cable show TV Party.
In the late 1970s, Basquiat formed a band called Gray with Shannon Dawson, Michael Holman, Nick Taylor, Wayne Clifford. Gray performed at nightclubs such as Max's Kansas City, CBGB, Hurrahs, and the Mudd Club. Basquiat starred in an underground film Downtown 81 which featured some of Gray's recordings on its soundtrack. He also appeared in Blondie's video "Rapture" as a club disc jockey.
In June 1980, Basquiat participated in The Times Square Show, a multi-artist exhibition, sponsored by Collaborative Projects Incorporated (Colab) and Fashion Moda. In 1981, Rene Ricard published "The Radiant Child" in Artforum magazine, which brought Basquiat to the attention of the wider art world.
In late 1981 he joined the Annina Nosei gallery in SoHo. By 1982, Basquiat was showing regularly, and alongside Julian Schnabel, David Salle, Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi, became part of what was called the Neo-expressionist movement. He was represented in Los Angeles by the Larry Gagosian gallery, and in Europe by Bruno Bischofberger.
He started dating then-aspiring performer Madonna in autumn 1982. That same year, Basquiat met Andy Warhol, with whom he collaborated in 1984-1986.
By the mid 1980s, he had left Annina Nosei gallery, and was showing in the famous Mary Boone gallery in SoHo. On February 10, 1985, Basquiat appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in a feature entitled "New Art, New Money: The Marketing of an American Artist". He was a phenomenally successful artist in this period, but increasing drug use began to interfere with his personal relationships.
Basquiat incorporated words into his paintings. Before his career as a painter began he produced punk-inspired postcards for sale on the street, and become known for the politicalñpoetical graffiti under the name of SAMO. On one occasion Basquiat painted his girlfriend's dress, with the words a "Little Shit Brown".
The untitled head ("untitled (skull)," 1984) is an example of his early 80's work. This is shown upper right.
A middle period from late 1982 to 1985 featured multi-panel paintings and individual canvases with exposed stretcher bars, the surface dense with writing, collage and imagery. 1984-85 was also the main period of the BasquiatñWarhol collaborations.
A major reference source used by Basquiat throughout his career was the book Gray's Anatomy which he was given in the hospital as a child. It remained influential in his depictions of internal human anatomy, and in its mixture of image and text. Other major sources were Dreyfuss' Symbol Sourcebook, Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks, and Brentjes African Rock Art. Representing heritage in his art
Basquiatís 1983 painting "Untitled (History of the Black People)", according to Andrea Frohne, "reclaims Egyptians as African and subverts the concept of ancient Egypt as the cradle of Western Civilization". At the center of the painting he depicts an Egyptian boat being guided down the Nile by Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead. On the right panel of the painting appear the words ìEsclave, Slave, Esclaveî. Two letters of the word "Nile" are crossed out and Frohne suggests that, "The letters that are wiped out and scribbled over perhaps reflect the acts of historians who have conveniently forgotten that Egyptians were black and blacks were enslaved."
Another of Basquiat's pieces, "Irony of Negro Policeman" (1981, seen here), is intended to illustrate how African Americans have been controlled by white society. Basquiat sought to portray how complicit the African American community had become with the institutionalized forms of whiteness and corrupt white regimes of power after years of prejudice.
Basquiat found the idea of a "Negro policeman" utterly ironic. He drew upon his Haitian heritage by painting a hat that resembles the top hat associated with the Haitian trickster lwa, leader of the Gede family of lwas and guardian of death and the dead in vodou
After Andy Warhol's death in 1987, Basquiat became increasingly isolated, and his drug use and depression increased.
After attempting to quit heroin use during a trip to Hawaii, Basquiat died of a heroin overdose in his New York studio at the age of 27
About Beyeler Foundation
Over a period of fifty years, in parallel to their successful activity as gallery owners, Hildy and Ernst Beyeler built up an exceptional collection of works by modern masters. Their collection, which was transferred to a foundation in 1982, was first publicly exhibited in its entirety at the Centro de Arte Reina SofÌa in Madrid in 1989.
Currently comprising around 200 works, the Beyeler Collection documents a very personal view of modern art and an unerring ability to recognize quality.
The opening of the Fondation Beyeler in October 1997 provided the Beyeler Collection with a public museum. The building was designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano.
Works by modern masters such as Cézanne, Picasso, Rousseau, Mondrian, Klee, Ernst, Matisse, Newman, Bacon, Dubuffet, Baselitz are displayed alongside, and in direct interaction with, 25 objects from Africa, Alaska and Oceania.
