I SAY TO YOU HELLO THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE PAST WOULD BE TOMORROW WITH X-RAY EYES
THROUGH THE STONE-WALLS THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS OF FLESH THROUGH THE BRAIN PROJECTIONS SELF-INFLECTIONS
THROUGH ALL THE BOOKS OF MATHEMATICS
PHYSICS POLITICS
A. B. C
EX
WAY SAID TOMORROW WITHOUT SORROW THE BEAT CRAZY THE DRIVE LAZY
SUCH LIFE
DOWN-TOWN
KILL THE CLOWN
HIT
COME ON, BEGIN TO DRIVE TO THE SOURCES OF THE DARK RIVER CLEVER NEVERMORE FOR EVER DRIVE IN DANGEROUS FOR THE LIVER DEEPER THAN THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA HIGHER THAN HIGH GRASP THE BEAVER
OPEN THE BOX WITH THE MAD KEY TRUE WITH THAT LIE FALSE WITH THAT TRUTH TO WIT, TO WIN, TO DRAW
A NEW ARTIFICIAL LOW YOU CAN’T LOOSE BITE THE LION THROUGH THE NECK INVISIBLE DRECK
CHECK OUT THE POSSIBILITIES OF THE CREATIVE FIELD WITHOUT DEBT, WITHOUT GUILT FUCKING TIGER FUCKING RIVER
FUCKING JUNGLE
FUCKING BOAT A GALLERY BE CAREFUL BABY WHAT MEANS AUTOMATISM AFTER THE NIGHT BREAK THE FASCISM THE ORIGINAL CATACLYSM THE BIG SPLASH THE HARD CRASH BE TIDE ONLY WITH FEELING THE LAST THING WITHOUT A CRY
Jean-Michel Basquiat stands as one of the most provocative and infuential artists of the late 20th century. Emerging from the gritty, vibrant streets of New York City in the 1980s, Basquiat’s art transcended conventional boundaries, blending raw street culture with the refned aesthetics of the gallery world. His works, characterized by their frenetic energy, poignant symbolism, and an unfinching exploration of identity, race, and social commentary, continue to resonate profoundly within the art community and beyond.
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s legacy is not confned to his tragic death at the age of 27. Instead, his infuence continues to grow, inspiring new generations of artists and art lovers. His work challenges us to confront uncomfortable truths and to fnd beauty in the chaos of the world around us.
In presenting this book, our goal is to offer a nuanced and comprehensive portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Through careful analysis, personal anecdotes, and scholarly insights, we hope to celebrate his enduring impact on the art world and honor the brilliance of his vision. Basquiat’s art is a testament to his belief in the transformative power of creativity, and it is in this spirit that we invite you to explore his life and works.
NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED OR TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS, ELECTRONIC OR MECHANICAL, INCLUDING PHOTOCOPY, RECORDING, OR ANY OTHER INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEM, OR OTHERWISE WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE PUBLISHER.
ARTCENTER COLLEGE OF DESIGN
COMMUNICATION DESIGN 3
FACULTY: CARO TRIGO
DESIGNER: AGNES LEE
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WALLS OF FAME
Beginnings
EARLY LIFE
December 22, Jean-Michel Basquiat born at Brooklyn Hospital, New York. His father, Gerard Basquiat, born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti; his mother, Matilde Andrades, born in Brooklyn of Puerto Rican parents. The Basquiats live in Park Slope, Brooklyn. At an early age, Basquiat shows an affnity for drawing, often using paper his father brings home from the accounting frm where he works to make drawings inspired by television cartoons. His mother has a strong interest in fashion design and sketching, and she frequently draws with Basquiat. With his mother, Basquiat often
visits The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. His mother continues to encourage his interest in art and emphasizes the importance of education. Basquiat attends kindergarten at a Head Start Project school.
The Basquiat family moves to East 35th Street in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Sister, Jeanine, is born. Basquiat continues to make cartoonlike drawings inspired by Alfred Hitchcock flms, automobiles, comic books, and the Alfred E. Newman character from Mad.
Left to right: Basquiat at 14 months, Basquiat at 4 years, Lisane, Jean-Michel, and Jeanine Basquiat.
“His mother got him started and she pushed him. She was actually a very good artist.” (Gerard Basquiat)
In May, while playing ball in the street, Basquiat is hit by an automobile. He breaks an arm, suffers various internal injuries, and has to have his spleen removed. He is hospitalized at King’s County Hospital for one month. While recovering, he receives a copy of Gray’s Anatomy from his mother. The book makes a lasting impression; its infuence is found in Basquiat’s later work with anatomical drawings and prints and in the name of the band he co-founded in 1979, Gray.
Gerard and Matilde Basquiat separate. The seven-year-old Basquiat lives with his father and two sisters in East Flatbush.
Gerard Basquiat and his three children move to the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn. Basquiat leaves St. Ann’s for public school, P.S. 181, the frst of many New York City public schools he will attend, including P.S. 6, 101,45, and I.S. 293.
Due to a job promotion and relocation, Gerard Basquiat moves with his three children to Mira Mar, Puerto Rico, near San Juan, where Basquiat attends an Episcopalian school.
Basquiat runs away from home, staying for a few hours at a local radio station until the employees call his father, who immediately brings him home.
“Jean-Michel did not like obedience. He gave me a lot of trouble.”
(Gerard Basquiat)
On Thanksgiving Day, after a job transfer, Gerard Basquiat and his three children return from Puerto Rico to live in their Boerum Hill brownstone. Basquiat resumes schooling at Edward R. Murrow High School.
After a few weeks, he transfers to the City-as-School, a progressive school in Manhattan. Part of the New York City public school system, the City-as-School is an alternative high school where work-study internships are accepted as credit toward a high school degree. Designed for gifted and talented children who fnd the traditional educational process diffcult, it is based
on John Dewey’s theory that students learn by doing. At City-as- School, Basquiat meets Al Diaz, a grafftist from the Jacob Riis Projects on the Lower East Side; they become close friends and early artistic collaborators.
In December, Basquiat again runs away, this time for about two weeks, hanging out in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, a place he and Diaz would often frequent. After much searching, Gerard Basquiat fnds him and brings him home. Basquiat proclaims,
Through the City-as-School, Basquiat becomes involved with an Upper West Side drama group called Family Life Theater. During this time, he creates a fctional character named SAMO (Same Old Shit), who makes a living selling a fake religion. Basquiat and Diaz, among the most popular students at City-as-School, both very creative and with a knack for getting into a lot of trouble, begin collaborating on the SAMO project as “a way of letting off steam.”
They begin spray-painting aphorisms on the D train of the IND line and around lower Manhattan. The writings consist of witty philosophical poems: SAMO as an end to mindwash religion nowhere politics, and bogus philosophy,” “SAMO saves idiots, Plush safe he think; SAMO.
Nora Fitzpatrick begins residing with Gerard Basquiat. She becomes a maternal fgure, and friend, to the younger Basquiat.
At Diaz’s graduation from the Cityas-School in June, Basquiat, on a dare, prepares a box full of shaving cream, and while the principal is speaking he runs up to the podium and dumps the box on his head. Although only a year away from graduating, Basquiat feels there is “no
point in going back.” In June, Basquiat leaves home for good. Gerard Basquiat, with some trepidation, gives his son money with the understanding that he will try his best to succeed.
Basquiat’s fascination with stardom and “burning out” is a recurring subject in his life. Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, two people whose work and artistic achievement Basquiat admires, had both died of drug overdoses at the age of twenty- seven in 1970. His admiration for musicians, singers, and boxers like Joplin, Hendrix, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Joe Louis is shown later in various paintings.
Basquiat stays at the homes of various friends, frequently at the Canal Street loft of British artist Stan Peskett, who throws parties that bring the uptown grafftists, including Fred Braithwaite and Lee Quinones, downtown, although more for the exchange of musical ideas than art. At these parties, Basquiat also meets Michael Holman, a future member of Gray, and Danny Rosen, who immediately becomes a companion on the downtown club scene. Basquiat, Rosen, Holman, and Vincent Gallo, who would also join Gray, are referred to as the “baby crowd” at the clubs.
Basquiat begins to sell hand-painted postcards and T-shirts to make a little money. He approaches Andy Warhol and Henry
Geldzahler inside the SoHo restaurant WPA; he sells a postcard to Warhol but Geldzahler dismisses him as “too young.”
Basquiat begins dating Alexis Adler and the two often stay together at friends’ houses in downtown Manhattan. They live for a while in the apartment of their close friend Felice Ralster, until Basquiat becomes unbearable because he writes and draws over everything in the apartment.
Basquiat and Adler move into a small apartment at 527 East 12th Street, his frst fxed address. During this time, he becomes a regular among a crowd of flmmakers, musicians, and artists that hang out at the “new” downtown spots: the Mudd
Club, Club 57, CBGB’s, Hurrah’s, and Tier 3. Along with Patti Astor, co-founder of the Fun Gallery, David Byrne, Blondie, Madonna, Tina Lhotsky, the B-52s, John Lurie, Diego Cortez, Edit DeAk, Ann Magnuson, and John Sex, Basquiat regularly makes the scene at the Mudd Club.
At the same time, a cultural aesthetic is fowering uptown in the streets of Harlem and the basements of the South Bronx: rap, graffti, and breakin’ -the roots of hiphop culture. Fred Braithwaite notes that “the scene downtown … was pretty much all white except for me, Jean-Michel, and a few other people.”
Shortly after the article in The Village Voice, Basquiat and Diaz have a falling out that ends the SAMO collaboration, and “SAMO is dead” begins appearing on various SoHo walls.
Basquiat concentrates on painting T-shirts and making postcards, drawings, and collages. They display a combination of graffti art and Abstract Expressionism, and focus on baseball players, the Kennedy assassination, and consumer items such as Pez candy. Basquiat collaborates on many of these with John Sex and Jennifer Stein, and sells the work in Washington Square Park, around SoHo, and in front of The Museum of Modern Art.
“Jean-Michel saw SAMO as a vehicle, the graffiti was an advertisement for himself.… all of a sudden he just started taking it over.” (Al Diaz)
Basquiat concentrates on painting T-shirts and making postcards, drawings, and collages. They display a combination of graffti art and Abstract Expressionism, and focus on baseball players, the Kennedy assassination, and consumer items such as Pez candy. Basquiat collaborates on many of these with John Sex and Jennifer Stein, and sells the work in Washington Square Park, around SoHo, and in front of The Museum of Modern Art.
In June, Basquiat’s art is publicly exhibited for the frst time in the “Times Square Show,” a group exhibition held in a vacant building at 41st Street and Seventh Avenue in the Times Square area of New York. The exhibition is organized by Colab (Collaborative Projects Incorporated), an artist-run group based on the Lower East Side, and Fashion Moda, a graffti-based alternative gallery space in the South Bronx. Like members of the two organizing groups, the conjunction of artists in the show represents two very distinct subcultures: the downtown avant-garde consisting of new wave and neo-pop, and the uptown avant-garde of rap and graffti.
Some of the other artists in the show are: John Ahearn, Jane Dickson, Mike Glier, Mimi Gross, David Hammons, Jenny Holzer, Joe Lewis, Candace Hill-Montgomery, Tom Otterness, Lee Quinones, Kenny Scharf, Kiki Smith, and Robin Winters.
The “Times Square Show” is enthusiastically received by the art world, an early step in legitimizing the artists of the East Village club scene. Basquiat creates a large SAMO installation on a single wall of the space and is one of a few artists
discussed in the review for Art in America. Encouraged by the recognition of his artistic talent, Basquiat announces that he is quitting Gray, and the band plays for the last time at the Mudd Club on August 3.
In June, Basquiat’s art is publicly exhibited for In February, Basquiat is included in “New York/New Wave,” an exhibition organized by Diego Cortez for the large gallery space at P.S. 1, Institute for Art and Urban Resources, in Long Island City. The show includes more than twenty artists, among them Edie Baskin, Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe, Kenny Scharf, Andy Warhol, and the graffti artists Ali, Crash, Dondi, Fab 5 Freddy (Braithwaite), Haze, Lady Pink, Seen, and Zephyr. Basquiat has high visibility in the show, with a wall on which he installs more than twenty drawings and paintings. These works attract the attention of dealers Emilio Mazzoli, Bruno Bischofberger, and Annina Nosei. The day after the opening of the show, Basquiat returns home to Brooklyn around six in the morning and proclaims, “Papa I’ve made it!” 24
Immediately after the P.S. 1 show, Haring organizes the “Lower Manhattan Drawing Show” at the Mudd Club, for which he selects more than seventy artists, including Basquiat, Charlie Ahearn, Donald Baechler, Fred Braithwaite, Crash, Jane Dickson, Futura 2000, Joe Lewis, Judy Rifka, Kenny Scharf, and Sir Rodney Sur In April, Braithwaite and Futura organize
an exhibition at the Mudd Club, “Beyond Words: Graffti Based-Rooted-Inspired Works.” The show includes the work of Basquiat (as SAMO), Tseng Kwong Chi, Daze, Dondi, Keily Jenkins, Phase II, Iggy Pop, Quick, Rammellzee, and Zephyr.
In May, Basquiat travels to Europe for the frst time, for his frst one-artist exhibition, at the Galleria d’Arte Emilio Mazzoli in Modena, Italy. The work is shown under the name SAMO.
Basquiat is invited by Annina Nosei to participate in the group show “Public Address” at her gallery in September. Sociopolitical content is the focus of the exhibition, with works by Bill Beckley, Mike Glier, Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, and Peter Nadin. Basquiat is given the entire rear gallery for his paintings, whose subjects include policemen, rabbis, and Native Americans. Following this exhibition, Nosei becomes Basquiat’s primary dealer and, knowing he has no studio space of his own, invites him to use her gallery basement space as a studio.
Original exhibition poster to the seminal early 1980s show curated by Keith Haring, Futura & Fab 5 Fred Braithwaite at The Mudd Club; 77 White Street New York, NY; April 9-24, 1981.
Jean-Michel Basquiat in his studio, New York 1982.
The frst extensive article on Basquiat, “The Radiant Child,” by Rene Ricard, appears in the December 1981 issue of Artforum. The detailed essay examines the emerging New York artists from the Mudd Club shows, the “Times Square Show,” and “New York/New Wave.” Some of the other artists discussed are John Ahearn, Fred Braithwaite, Francesco Clemente, Dondi, Futura 2000, Keith Haring, Lady Pink, and Judy Rifka.
Basquiat stays at the Chateau Marmont and at friends’ houses for about six months. He likes the Los Angeles climate and club scene and is given a friendly initial reception among Los Angeles collectors; Eli and Edythe Broad, Douglas S. Cramer, and Stephane Janssen become early collectors of Basquiat’s work. He returns to Los Angeles at least two or three times a year for the rest of his life.
In June, Basquiat, at age twenty-one, is the youngest of 176 artists invited to participate in the international exhibition “Documenta 7” in Kassel, West Germany. His work is shown with that of such established artists as Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, A. R. Penck, Gerhard Richter, Cy Twombly,
and Andy Warhol, in addition to that of younger artists Francesco Clemente, Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Lee Quinones, and David Salle. Among the paintings shown are Acque Pericolose (Poison Oasis) and Arroz con Pollo.
In January, Basquiat moves with Suzanne Mallouk to 151 Crosby Street in SoHo, an apartment that Nosei arranges for Basquiat.
Basquiat meets Shenge Kapharoah, an artist from Barbados. The two become inseparable friends, sharing interests in African ideologies and the concerns of artists within the African diaspora, subjects that were not of interest to many of Basquiat’s friends. Basquiat has his frst one-artist exhibition in the United States at the Annina Nosei Gallery. Paintings in this show include Arroz con Pollo, Self-Portrait, Untitled (Per Capita), and Untitled (Two Heads on Gold). The exhibition is a huge success. In April, Basquiat travels to Los Angeles for his solo show at the Larry Gagosian Gallery, arranged by Gagosian with Annina Nosei. Paintings exhibited include Six Crimee, Untitled (LA Painting), and Untitled (Yellow Tar and Feathers).
“I’m always amazed by how people come up with things. Like Jean- Michel. How did he come up with those words he puts all over every-thing.? Their aggressively handmade look fits his peculiarly political sensibility …. Here the possession of almost anything of even marginal value becomes a token of corrupt materialism…. The elegance of Twombly is there but from the same source (graffiti) and so is the brut of the young Dubuffet.” (Rene Ricard)
Basquiat creates his frst portfolio of prints, titled Anatomy. It consists of eighteen silkscreens on paper in an edition of eighteen with seven artist’s proofs, printed by Jo Watanabe and published by the Annina Nosei Gallery.
His frst one-artist exhibition at the Galerie Bruno Bischofberger in Zurich opens in September. This exhibition marks the frst showing of Basquiat’s exposed corner crossbar paintings. Bischofberger becomes his exclusive dealer in Europe.
In October, an Art in America article by Suzi Gablik entitled “Report from New York: The Graffti Question” features Basquiat, Braithwaite, Futura 2000, Haring, and Quinones, among others, identifying them as part of the new “graffti movement” and discussing the emergence of the Lower East Side art scene. The piece is an early attempt to label artists of the 1980s. Basquiat, however, was not a representative graffti artist because his written messages as SAMO did not share the formal concerns of graffti artists, namely, their colorful palette. Nevertheless, because he is young and because he is black, Bas-
quiat’s paintings and drawings encourage the recognition of graffti art within the art world. By this time, the Lower East Side arts scene has graduated from exhibitions in clubs to small storefront alternative gallery spaces that exhibit hundreds of young artists from the downtown club scene, artists who were rarely accepted by the larger art community of New York. Among these alternative venues are the Fun Gallery, East Seventh Street Gallery, Kenkeleba House, Gracie Mansion, B-Side, Area-X, and Civilian Warfare.
By the fall of 1982, personal differences have brought Basquiat’s relationship with Annina Nosei almost to an end. He works feverishly in his studio apartment on Crosby Street.
In November, Basquiat has a one-artist exhibition at the Fun Gallery, located at 254 East 10th Street and run by Bill Stelling and Patti Astor. Paintings in the show are severely underpriced with no regard for Basquiat’s present market value. This show, held contrary to the advice of Annina Nosei marks the end of Basquiat’s association with his frst American dealer. The canvases reveal a terrifc rawness in a crowded installation designed by Basquiat. The “messy” character of the installation may have been Basquiat’s response to criticism that, with his rising international fame and “cleaner” shows in the more fnished
spaces of SoHo galleries, his work had lost some of its originality. The paintings in this show, the fruit of his hermetic season in the Crosby Street loft, prove the critics wrong. The show included approximately thirty
works, among them Cabeza, Charles the First, Jawbone of an Ass, Three Quarters of Olympia Minus the Servant, and Untitled (Sugar Ray Robinson), which were among his favorites.
“Gut emotions lie behind the phrases and images, not the desire to make neo-expressionist commodities …. Basquiat makes paintings, but eschews the medium’s traditional rules.”
In 1982, Basquiat released Anatomy, his inaugural series comprising 18 silkscreen prints, each produced in editions of 18.
BLACK ART
In March, Basquiat returns to Los Angeles for his second show at the Larry Gagosian Gallery. Paintings include Untitled (Sugar Ray Robinson), Jack Johnson, Horn Players, Eyes and Eggs, Hollywood Africans, and All Colored Cast (Parts I and II). They feature texts and images related to famous boxers, musicians, and Hollywood flms and the roles played by blacks in them.
Also in March, Basquiat is included in the 1983 Biennial Exhibition” at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. The exhibition includes more than forty artists, many being shown for the frst time at the Museum, among them Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, David Salle, and Cindy Sherman. Basquiat, at age twenty-two is one of the youngest artists ever to be included in a Whitney Biennial. In May, Basquiat, Toxic, and Nick Taylor leave New York for a week in Jamaica, where Basquiat often draws in his hotel room and carries notebooks and writing tablets that he flls with cryptic notes and small drawings.
On August 15, Basquiat moves into 57 Great Jones Street, a building he leases from its owner, Andy Warhol. Their relationship fowers, though it prompts much
discussion of white patronization of black art. Warhol and Basquiat work out together, paint each other’s portraits, attend art events, and regularly discuss philosophies of life and art, as well as Basquiat’s family experiences.
In March, Basquiat has his second one-artist show at the Mary Boone Gallery. In the exhibition catalogue, Robert Farris Thompson speaks of Basquiat’s art in terms of an Afro-Atlantic tradition, a context in which this art has never been discussed. Paintings in the show include Gold Griot, Grillo, Flexible, and Wicker.
“Because he is black and because he is young some critics will not be able to resist the temptation to link Basquiat to the more obvious forms of New York black and Puerto Rican street art …. In his hands black vision becomes at once private, public, didactic, playful, serious, sardonic, responsible, and, above all, deliberate …. Basquiat’s blues typography, at once interruptive and complete, makes visual black song, with equivalents to pause, shout, spacing, and breath …. Yet even here we must be wary of the claim that Basquiat signals a synthesis of the Afro-Atlantic and European artistic traditions, when his actual biography seems to speak of a grafftist sensibility of the naif that has been sophisticated by a SoHo savvy audacity” (Robert Farris Thompson).
“We got tickets for the opening of the New Art show at the Whitney, the Biennial. And the show is just like the sixties …. These kids are selling everything-Jean-Michel Basquiat’s show sold out in Los Angeles.”
“One thing that affected Jean-Michel greatly was the Michael Stewart story…. He was completely freaked out. It was like it could have been him. It showed him how vulnerable he was.”
(Keith Haring)
GROWING TENSIONS
In October, Basquiat and Warhol leave New York for Milan. Basquiat spends time in Madrid and Zurich as well as a week in Tokyo with dealer Bruno Bischofberger to attend a November exhibition of his work at the Akira Ikeda Gallery.
Basquiat returns to New York in November. He, Warhol, and Francesco Clemente begin working on collaborative paintings in New York, an endeavor arranged by Bruno Bischofberger. Basquiat and Warhol also execute their own collaborative paintings.
Basquiat returns to Los Angeles in December, where he stays at L’Ermitage Hotel and spends time with Madonna, an acquaintance from the East Village and the Mudd Club. Through Larry Gagosian and Fred Hoffman, Basquiat rents a studio on Market Street in Venice, California, where he begins a series of paintings on wood panels, assisted by Matt Dike, a friend and Los Angeles dj. These paintings, later shown at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York, include Flexible, Water-Worshipper, and Gold Griot.
By the end of the year, Bischofberger in Switzerland is Basquiat’s only prima-
ry dealer. Problems with dealers have become a recurrent feature of Basquiat’s career. Basquiat returns to New York in March. Although skeptical about affliating himself with another dealer he joins the Mary Boone Gallery.
Boone and Bischofberger become Basquiat’s primary dealers. Boone is also the dealer for Eric Fischl, David Salle, and Julian Schnabel, while Bischofberger, European dealer for Andy Warhol, also represents the European Neo-ExpressionistsSandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, and Gerhard Richter. Boone and Bischofberger organize joint exhibitions for Basquiat.
In May, Basquiat has his frst one-artist exhibition at the Mary Boone Gallery. Paintings include Bird as Buddha, Brown Spots, Eye, Untitled (Africa), and Wine of Babylon. The show was met by mixed reviews and reactions.
Basquiat’s deteriorating health becomes more noticeable, particularly the dark spots on his face. These discolorations may have been caused by the removal of his spleen, which kept his body from cleaning out the toxins from the drugs.
In September, sixteen collaborative paintings by Basquiat and Warhol are shown at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery. At Shafrazi’s suggestion the two artists pose together in boxing trunks and gloves for a poster advertising the show. Unfavorable reviews cause tension in and, ultimately, weaken the Warhol-Basquiat friendship.
In January, Basquiat travels to Los Angeles for two weeks for his last show at the Larry Gagosian Gallery. Paintings in the show include Peruvian Maid, J’s Milagro, and Link Parabole. The following month he travels to Atlanta, his frst and only trip to the South, for an exhibition of his drawings at the Fay Gold Gallery.
In August, Basquiat, accompanied by Jennifer Goode and her brother Eric, travels to Africa for the frst time. He is joined there by Bruno Bischofberger, who, at Basquiat’s urging, has arranged for a show in
Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Relations with Mary Boone take a turn for the worse, and by the end of the year Basquiat is again without a primary dealer in New York. Problems between the equally charismatic Basquiat and Boone have been a constant part of their two-year relationship. Bischofberger continues to represent him in Europe, while trying to arrange for another New York dealer.
Late in the year, Jennifer Goode and Basquiat break up. She has often complained to friends about Basquiat’s abuse of heroin, and it precipitates her decision to end their relationship. In addition to malicious gossip about Basquiat’s problems circulating through friends, growing negative criticism of his work from members of the art community does not make the situation better.
“Jean-Michel was really upset about the spots and asked me and lots of other people for advice about dermatologists and treatments. I told him that if his blood was pure they’d go away. He thought it was sadly funny that Andy’s oxidation portrait of him had given him spots like those on his face …. You can see lots of self-fulfilling prophesies in his work, or in the work of anybody whose work runs deep” (Glenn O ‘Brien)
“The death of Warhol made the death of Basquiat inevitable, somehow Warhol was the one person that always seemed to be able to bring Jean- Michel back from the edge. Always when Jean-Michel was in the most trouble it seemed that Andy Warhol was the person who he would approach …. After Andy was gone there was no one that Jean-Michel was in such awe of that he would respond to.”
(Donald Rubell)
“It put him into a total crisis…. He couldn’t even talk.”
(Fred Braithwaite)
In January, Basquiat has a one-artist exhibition of twelve paintings at the Galerie Daniel Templon in Paris. Some works in the exhibition are Gin Soaked Critic, Gri Gri, Mono, and Sacred Monkey.
On February 22, Andy Warhol dies. Though their friendship had suffered greatly in the last year, Basquiat appears to be devastated by this loss. Basquiat paints Gravestone, a memorial to Andy Warhol.
Basquiat has always been resistant to drug abuse treatment programs. In an apparent attempt to kick drugs, Basquiat
leaves New York and stops in Dallas and Los Angeles before continuing on the way to his ranch in Hawaii.
He leaves Hawaii for New York at the end of June, stopping for a week in Los Angeles. Brian Williams, his former assistant in Los Angeles, remarks that Basquiat seems overwhelmingly happy and is proclaiming that he has kicked drugs for good.
On Friday, August 12, Jean-Michel Basquiat dies in his Great Jones Street loft at age twenty-seven. The autopsy report from the offce of the Chief Medical Examiner, Manhattan Mortuary, lists cause of death as “acute mixed drug intoxication (opiatescocaine).”
On August 17, a private funeral is held at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on Madison Avenue and 81st Street. The funeral is attended by the immediate family and close friends, including Keith Haring, Francesco Clemente, Paige Powell, and others. Jeffrey Deitch delivers the eulogy. Basquiat is buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn.
On November 5, about three hundred of Basquiat’s friends and admirers attend a memorial gathering at St. Peter’s Church at Lexington Avenue and 54th Street. Music is played by Gray and others, poetry is recited, including a particulary moving reading by Suzanne Mallouk of A.R. Penck’s “Poem for Basquiat.”
Keith Haring painted A Pile of Crowns for Jean-Michel Basquiat as a tribute to the late artist. Haring said the following
in the obituary he wrote for Vogue: “In just ten years, he produced a lifetime’s worth of art. Greedily, we speculate about what other works he may have produced and what masterpieces his passing has denied us access to, but the truth is that he has left behind a body of work that will continue to fascinate future generations. Just now are people starting to realize how signifcant his contribution was.”
“Jean-Michel lived like a flame. He burned really bright. Then the fire went out. But the embers are still hot.”
I SAY TO YOU HELLO THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE PAST WOULD BE TOMORROW WITH X-RAY EYES
THROUGH THE STONE-WALLS THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS OF FLESH THROUGH THE BRAIN PROJECTIONS SELF-INFLECTIONS
THROUGH ALL THE BOOKS OF MATHEMATICS PHYSICS
POLITICS
A. B. C EX WAY SAID TOMORROW WITHOUT SORROW THE BEAT CRAZY THE DRIVE LAZY
SUCH LIFE DOWN-TOWN KILL THE CLOWN HIT
COME ON, BEGIN TO DRIVE TO THE SOURCES OF THE DARK RIVER CLEVER NEVERMORE FOR EVER DRIVE IN DANGEROUS FOR THE LIVER DEEPER THAN THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA HIGHER THAN HIGH GRASP THE BEAVER
OPEN THE BOX WITH THE MAD KEY TRUE WITH THAT LIE FALSE WITH THAT TRUTH TO WIT, TO WIN, TO DRAW A NEW ARTIFICIAL LOW YOU CAN’T LOOSE
BITE THE LION THROUGH THE NECK INVISIBLE DRECK
CHECK OUT THE POSSIBILITIES OF THE CREATIVE FIELD WITHOUT DEBT, WITHOUT GUILT FUCKING TIGER
FUCKING RIVER
FUCKING JUNGLE
FUCKING BOAT A GALLERY
BE CAREFUL BABY WHAT MEANS AUTOMATISM AFTER THE NIGHT BREAK THE FASCISM THE ORIGINAL CATACLYSM THE BIG SPLASH THE HARD CRASH BE TIDE
