1983
1983 In this Case by Basquiat
2021 SOLD for $ 93M by Christie's
There is a tragic turning point in the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat after his two wonder years. As early as January 1983, he tells Geldzahler that his art is now 80 % anger.
In the first phase, the skull viewed through the head or in place of it was a mere artefact, just like the bones viewed through the skin. The two monumental "skull" views of 1982, one sold for $ 110M by Sotheby's in 2017 and the other for $ 57M by Christie's in 2016, use the skull for featuring a terrible and playful demon. Both paintings are untitled.
Also in 1982, an acrylic, oilstick and collage on canvas is titled Red Skull. It displays around that new theme Jean-Michel's signature explosions of seven bright colors. This painting 152 x 152 cm was sold for £ 16.5M by Christie's on October 6, 2017, lot 8.
The game becomes serious. On May 11, 2021, Christie's sold at lot 8 A for $ 93M In this case, acrylic and oilstick on canvas 198 x 187 cm painted in 1983. The April 26 press release had announced an estimate of $ 50M. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The skull occupies now the whole surface of the canvas, without a reference to a skin. A half of it is missing, evidencing the post death decay. The surrounding color is a very violent red. The cheek embeds a one-hand clock ticking the disaster of time and the precarity of black men in the US society. The single eye is yellow and the teeth are green.
This opus is considered convincingly as a tribute to the street artist Michael Stewart, beaten to death in September 1983 by the police while attempting to tag in the New York subway. The young African-American graffiti artist was a close friend of Jean-Michel of whom he was dating a previous girlfriend.
The title is a pun, of course. It does not refer to the trivial phrase nor to the cranial case but to the coffin of the friend, while also forwarding a desire of Jean-Michel to go to court against the brutality of the cops.
In the first phase, the skull viewed through the head or in place of it was a mere artefact, just like the bones viewed through the skin. The two monumental "skull" views of 1982, one sold for $ 110M by Sotheby's in 2017 and the other for $ 57M by Christie's in 2016, use the skull for featuring a terrible and playful demon. Both paintings are untitled.
Also in 1982, an acrylic, oilstick and collage on canvas is titled Red Skull. It displays around that new theme Jean-Michel's signature explosions of seven bright colors. This painting 152 x 152 cm was sold for £ 16.5M by Christie's on October 6, 2017, lot 8.
The game becomes serious. On May 11, 2021, Christie's sold at lot 8 A for $ 93M In this case, acrylic and oilstick on canvas 198 x 187 cm painted in 1983. The April 26 press release had announced an estimate of $ 50M. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The skull occupies now the whole surface of the canvas, without a reference to a skin. A half of it is missing, evidencing the post death decay. The surrounding color is a very violent red. The cheek embeds a one-hand clock ticking the disaster of time and the precarity of black men in the US society. The single eye is yellow and the teeth are green.
This opus is considered convincingly as a tribute to the street artist Michael Stewart, beaten to death in September 1983 by the police while attempting to tag in the New York subway. The young African-American graffiti artist was a close friend of Jean-Michel of whom he was dating a previous girlfriend.
The title is a pun, of course. It does not refer to the trivial phrase nor to the cranial case but to the coffin of the friend, while also forwarding a desire of Jean-Michel to go to court against the brutality of the cops.
1983 Wax on Flag by Jasper Johns
2014 SOLD for $ 36M including premium
Artistic creation has no limits in New York in 1954. Very young artists endeavor to reject into the past the Abstract Expressionism that was yet barely ten years old.
After meeting Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, aged 24, had one of the most successful intuitions of modern art. Duchamp had introduced the ready mades in artistic creation. Johns will remove the object under its own appearance.
The three colors of the American flag are to Johns an incentive for new art. His flags identical to the official pieces are painted on all kinds of materials including newspapers.
Like Cézanne, he works within the contours as in a cloisonné. Unlike Pollock and Rothko, the first meticulous gesture must be the right one. Any dripping is therefore intentional, which requires a fast drying : Johns painted in wax.
Leo Castelli understands how much the art can be changed by this innovation. Favoring the material instead of shape and color, Johns anticipates Manzoni's achromes and Ryder's white on white while his treatment of a recognizable object is announcing the pop art.
Castelli owned until his death in 1999 one of the earliest Flags by Johns. It was sold in private sale to Steve Cohen in March 2010. Details were not released but the price of $ 110M has not been denied.
On November 11 in New York, Sotheby's sells a small Flag 30 x 45 cm, lot 9 estimated $ 15M. Painted in 1983, it is a rare example of encaustic painting on an actual silk flag mounted on canvas. Its regular configuration in 6 rows of 8 stars was obsolete since 1959, confirming that the process of Johns is much more artistic than patriotic.
I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's.
After meeting Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, aged 24, had one of the most successful intuitions of modern art. Duchamp had introduced the ready mades in artistic creation. Johns will remove the object under its own appearance.
The three colors of the American flag are to Johns an incentive for new art. His flags identical to the official pieces are painted on all kinds of materials including newspapers.
Like Cézanne, he works within the contours as in a cloisonné. Unlike Pollock and Rothko, the first meticulous gesture must be the right one. Any dripping is therefore intentional, which requires a fast drying : Johns painted in wax.
Leo Castelli understands how much the art can be changed by this innovation. Favoring the material instead of shape and color, Johns anticipates Manzoni's achromes and Ryder's white on white while his treatment of a recognizable object is announcing the pop art.
Castelli owned until his death in 1999 one of the earliest Flags by Johns. It was sold in private sale to Steve Cohen in March 2010. Details were not released but the price of $ 110M has not been denied.
On November 11 in New York, Sotheby's sells a small Flag 30 x 45 cm, lot 9 estimated $ 15M. Painted in 1983, it is a rare example of encaustic painting on an actual silk flag mounted on canvas. Its regular configuration in 6 rows of 8 stars was obsolete since 1959, confirming that the process of Johns is much more artistic than patriotic.
I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's.
1983 The Funny Wizard
2018 SOLD for $ 31M including premium
At the end of 1982 Jean-Michel Basquiat is probably not satisfied with his art from the two years that brought him the fame. With his full color control by the oilstick he had lined up funny characters and skeletons that virulently campaign for the African-American cause. The humorous tags that were revealing his street training eventually disappeared.
Visitors to his exhibitions might believe that he is a visual artist rather than a thinker. He begins a monumental composition related to the prophetic meaning of life. Identified under the title Flesh and Spirit, it is divided into two 184 x 368 cm canvases adjacent one above the other. The whole surface 368 x 368 cm is broken down into four quadrants to be read from left to right and from top to bottom like a page of comic strips.
The first three images show an alchemy interweaving the skull and the bones, the brain and the fleshy limbs, with repetitions of words that guide the path of thought and are sometimes crossed out for avoiding the errors. For the first time in the art of Jean-Michel the word is everywhere and the color is rare.
The last quadrant is completed with a black rectangle in which the interaction between Flesh and Spirit is expressed in a diagram of the greatest simplicity and clarity. Just below it the artist figured a derrick with the word Petrol to announce that the control of the anatomical mystery opens the next phase which is the fight against the consumer society.
Flesh and Spirit is finished just in time for an exhibition in New York in January 1983. It is immediately bought by Dolores Ormandy Neumann who finds in this artwork an achievement of the street art and states with sagacity that she may consider it as Basquiat's Rosetta stone.
Flesh and Spirit will be sold by Sotheby's in New York on May 16 as lot 24. The press release of March 28 announces an estimate in the region of $ 30M.
Basquiat continues in 1983 with this new style of narrative figuration. Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta was sold for $ 23.7M including premium by Sotheby's on May 14, 2014. Brother's Sausage was sold for $ 18.6M including premium on November 17, 2016, also by Sotheby's.
Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Visitors to his exhibitions might believe that he is a visual artist rather than a thinker. He begins a monumental composition related to the prophetic meaning of life. Identified under the title Flesh and Spirit, it is divided into two 184 x 368 cm canvases adjacent one above the other. The whole surface 368 x 368 cm is broken down into four quadrants to be read from left to right and from top to bottom like a page of comic strips.
The first three images show an alchemy interweaving the skull and the bones, the brain and the fleshy limbs, with repetitions of words that guide the path of thought and are sometimes crossed out for avoiding the errors. For the first time in the art of Jean-Michel the word is everywhere and the color is rare.
The last quadrant is completed with a black rectangle in which the interaction between Flesh and Spirit is expressed in a diagram of the greatest simplicity and clarity. Just below it the artist figured a derrick with the word Petrol to announce that the control of the anatomical mystery opens the next phase which is the fight against the consumer society.
Flesh and Spirit is finished just in time for an exhibition in New York in January 1983. It is immediately bought by Dolores Ormandy Neumann who finds in this artwork an achievement of the street art and states with sagacity that she may consider it as Basquiat's Rosetta stone.
Flesh and Spirit will be sold by Sotheby's in New York on May 16 as lot 24. The press release of March 28 announces an estimate in the region of $ 30M.
Basquiat continues in 1983 with this new style of narrative figuration. Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta was sold for $ 23.7M including premium by Sotheby's on May 14, 2014. Brother's Sausage was sold for $ 18.6M including premium on November 17, 2016, also by Sotheby's.
Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1983 The Chronicle of the Mississippi Delta
2014 SOLD 23.7 M$ including premium
The art of Jean-Michel Basquiat changed radically in 1983. During the previous two years, he had achieved fame by building a pantheon of gods and fierce warriors shown in close-up with a subtle humor.
His art becomes political, endeavoring to support black people against racial injustice and opposing the consumerism of the whites. He painted large murals on canvas, interspersed by either understandable or obscure words that altogether constitute a wild message.
He wants to shock, up to sometimes even glorifying Papa Doc, the dictator hated by the whites. The use of collage enables the indescribable jumble of a newspaper in which the search for the meaning forces the viewer to make a long stop.
On May 14 in New York, Sotheby's sells an artwork composed of five joined canvases in an overall format 1.25 x 4.71 m, lot 20 in the catalog.
Reading goes from left to right. The first painting is like a title page, writing "Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta". It is not a reference to the origins of the artist whose father was from Haiti and mother from Puerto Rico. Mississippi Delta is here the emblem of the last bastion of racial segregation.
The next two sections abound in allusions to the hated mechanisms of consumerism with three dates that I have not decoded, somehow like the Australian Aboriginal paintings in which artists retain the memory of battles deliberately forgotten by the whites.
The design is simplified in the fourth chapter highlighting a reference to Mark Twain. The nonconformist writer had dared to use with sympathy the dialect of the slaves in his Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. On the last picture, the conclusion is the apotheosis of Negroes who overcame the cotton slavery.
POST SALE COMMENT
Very good result for this epic and activist painting that was no longer from the most creative period of the artist: $ 23.7 million including premium.
His art becomes political, endeavoring to support black people against racial injustice and opposing the consumerism of the whites. He painted large murals on canvas, interspersed by either understandable or obscure words that altogether constitute a wild message.
He wants to shock, up to sometimes even glorifying Papa Doc, the dictator hated by the whites. The use of collage enables the indescribable jumble of a newspaper in which the search for the meaning forces the viewer to make a long stop.
On May 14 in New York, Sotheby's sells an artwork composed of five joined canvases in an overall format 1.25 x 4.71 m, lot 20 in the catalog.
Reading goes from left to right. The first painting is like a title page, writing "Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta". It is not a reference to the origins of the artist whose father was from Haiti and mother from Puerto Rico. Mississippi Delta is here the emblem of the last bastion of racial segregation.
The next two sections abound in allusions to the hated mechanisms of consumerism with three dates that I have not decoded, somehow like the Australian Aboriginal paintings in which artists retain the memory of battles deliberately forgotten by the whites.
The design is simplified in the fourth chapter highlighting a reference to Mark Twain. The nonconformist writer had dared to use with sympathy the dialect of the slaves in his Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. On the last picture, the conclusion is the apotheosis of Negroes who overcame the cotton slavery.
POST SALE COMMENT
Very good result for this epic and activist painting that was no longer from the most creative period of the artist: $ 23.7 million including premium.
1983 Discography Two by Basquiat
2018 SOLD for $ 21M including premium by Christie's
Link to catalogue.
November 1983 Flash in Naples by Basquiat
2021 SOLD for $ 20M by Christie's
Link to lot 24A.
1983 Stuck between Sausage and Liberty
2016 SOLD for $ 18.6M including premium
A frieze of panels by Jean-Michel Basquiat looking like a disgruntled mural passed at Christie's on November 10, 2009 in the midst of one of the worst crises of the art market. It is now estimated $ 15M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on November 17, lot 36.
I discussed it as follows in 2009.
In 1981 Basquiat achieved fame in New York City. The former graffiti activist was producing large size paintings depicting African American heroes and symbols. In 1983, aged 23, he structures his message to make it more political in his desire to fight the all-white power and to denounce the consumerism. He met Warhol in the same year.
He now expresses his violence on canvas panels covered in part with paper collages and hinged together in a sort of comic strip. A great example is Brother's Sausage, composed of six parts for a total size of 122 x 476 cm.
Starting from the left is a big bad wolf disguised in Uncle Sam who claims the virtues of a brand of 'famous' sausages. The story ends on the right by the mockery of a coin, openly criticizing the so-called Liberty.
Between these two sides, three of the central panels are covered with xeroxes of typical Basquiat sketches mingled in a mess like a graffiti wall in a disadvantaged suburb. There is also a blue sky area looking like a void in a fence.
I discussed it as follows in 2009.
In 1981 Basquiat achieved fame in New York City. The former graffiti activist was producing large size paintings depicting African American heroes and symbols. In 1983, aged 23, he structures his message to make it more political in his desire to fight the all-white power and to denounce the consumerism. He met Warhol in the same year.
He now expresses his violence on canvas panels covered in part with paper collages and hinged together in a sort of comic strip. A great example is Brother's Sausage, composed of six parts for a total size of 122 x 476 cm.
Starting from the left is a big bad wolf disguised in Uncle Sam who claims the virtues of a brand of 'famous' sausages. The story ends on the right by the mockery of a coin, openly criticizing the so-called Liberty.
Between these two sides, three of the central panels are covered with xeroxes of typical Basquiat sketches mingled in a mess like a graffiti wall in a disadvantaged suburb. There is also a blue sky area looking like a void in a fence.
1983 Craig by Lichtenstein
November 18, 2021 SOLD for $ 20.4M by Sotheby's
1983 Untitled IV by de Kooning
2021 SOLD for $ 19M by Sotheby's
Throughout his career, Willem de Kooning resolutely set himself apart from all schools. At his beginnings, he removes the border between figurative and abstraction. In the 1970s, shapes and colors become abundant. In the 1980s, they are simplified without becoming minimalist. The formats remain very large, at the limits of the physical possibilities of the aging artist.
The Untitled IV of 1983, oil on canvas 224 x 196 cm, was sold for $ 19M from a lower estimate of $ 10M by Sotheby's on November 15, 2021, lot 17. The artist poses undulating shapes in two pure colors over a white background. A tridimensional effect is created in this flat composition by the fact that no scarlet red element comes overlapping a blue.
The Untitled XLVIII of 1983, of the same dimensions as the Untitled IV, was sold for HK $ 47M by Sotheby's on April 19, 2021, lot 1109. It is also made with only two pure colors, here red and yellow.
Seen more closely, the individual coherence of forms disappears. The yellow is bordered with red, but not everywhere. The space between two yellow elements becomes a ribbon. The yellow element at the bottom left is partially hollowed out. The red lines are broken, with a false invitation to connect the segments. The stretched red shapes carry reflections, which bring a three-dimensional illusion in contradiction with microbiology.
The artist is indeed not a follower of Kandinsky, Mondrian or Matisse even if the overall effect might be reminiscent of Kandinsky's late passion for microbiology.We may try a comparison with his compatriot Escher : In this XLVIII, de Kooning has transferred the impossibility of forms into a total abstraction.
The Untitled IV of 1983, oil on canvas 224 x 196 cm, was sold for $ 19M from a lower estimate of $ 10M by Sotheby's on November 15, 2021, lot 17. The artist poses undulating shapes in two pure colors over a white background. A tridimensional effect is created in this flat composition by the fact that no scarlet red element comes overlapping a blue.
The Untitled XLVIII of 1983, of the same dimensions as the Untitled IV, was sold for HK $ 47M by Sotheby's on April 19, 2021, lot 1109. It is also made with only two pure colors, here red and yellow.
Seen more closely, the individual coherence of forms disappears. The yellow is bordered with red, but not everywhere. The space between two yellow elements becomes a ribbon. The yellow element at the bottom left is partially hollowed out. The red lines are broken, with a false invitation to connect the segments. The stretched red shapes carry reflections, which bring a three-dimensional illusion in contradiction with microbiology.
The artist is indeed not a follower of Kandinsky, Mondrian or Matisse even if the overall effect might be reminiscent of Kandinsky's late passion for microbiology.We may try a comparison with his compatriot Escher : In this XLVIII, de Kooning has transferred the impossibility of forms into a total abstraction.
1983-1984 The First Five Elements
2020 SOLD for HK$ 114M including premium
Chu Teh-Chun arrived in Paris in 1955. Far from denying his origin, he wanted to draw inspiration from Western painting to modernize the Chinese art. He decided to use abstract art.
The Cultural Revolution had broken the ties between China and its diaspora. Liberalization terminates Chu's cultural isolation : he meets in Paris his former professor Lin Fengmian in 1979 and his old friend Wu Guanzhong in 1982. In 1983 Chu Teh-Chun and Zao Wou-Ki make separately a trip to China. Zao meets Zhang Daqian.
The trend is towards monumental paintings, which can take the form of polyptychs. The 2.80 x 10 m triptych painted in 1985 by Zao was sold for HK $ 510M including premium by Sotheby's on September 30, 2018.
On July 8 in Hong Kong, Sotheby's sells as lot 1014 a pentaptych 162 x 650 cm of oils on canvas by Chu Teh-Chun. It is dated 1983-1984, the period of reinvigoration of the Chinese culture of the artist. His most important works are the result of a development which can last several months, even several years. He does not have the creative impetuosity of Zao and enjoys working while listening to Beethoven's Hymn to Joy. Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
The title, Les Eléments confédérés, explains this division into five parts which is unique in the art of Chu. The five elements that constitute nature according to Chinese conception, wood, earth, water, metal and fire, are basically distinct, but there is nothing to attribute one of them to a specific panel. They create an undifferentiated harmony together, like yin and yang in a diptych. Green and blue, traditional colors of landscapes in Chinese art, are dominant.
One of the five elements is facetious : water, which can turn into falling snow and whiten the landscapes. In December 1985 the train in which Chu crosses the Swiss Alps is caught in a snowstorm. The artist will translate into his art this additional complexity of the world, which is not limited to a mere confrontation of the five elements. Vertige neigeux, diptych 2 x 4 m dated 1990-1999, was sold for HK $ 92M including premium by Christie's on November 26, 2016.
The Cultural Revolution had broken the ties between China and its diaspora. Liberalization terminates Chu's cultural isolation : he meets in Paris his former professor Lin Fengmian in 1979 and his old friend Wu Guanzhong in 1982. In 1983 Chu Teh-Chun and Zao Wou-Ki make separately a trip to China. Zao meets Zhang Daqian.
The trend is towards monumental paintings, which can take the form of polyptychs. The 2.80 x 10 m triptych painted in 1985 by Zao was sold for HK $ 510M including premium by Sotheby's on September 30, 2018.
On July 8 in Hong Kong, Sotheby's sells as lot 1014 a pentaptych 162 x 650 cm of oils on canvas by Chu Teh-Chun. It is dated 1983-1984, the period of reinvigoration of the Chinese culture of the artist. His most important works are the result of a development which can last several months, even several years. He does not have the creative impetuosity of Zao and enjoys working while listening to Beethoven's Hymn to Joy. Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
The title, Les Eléments confédérés, explains this division into five parts which is unique in the art of Chu. The five elements that constitute nature according to Chinese conception, wood, earth, water, metal and fire, are basically distinct, but there is nothing to attribute one of them to a specific panel. They create an undifferentiated harmony together, like yin and yang in a diptych. Green and blue, traditional colors of landscapes in Chinese art, are dominant.
One of the five elements is facetious : water, which can turn into falling snow and whiten the landscapes. In December 1985 the train in which Chu crosses the Swiss Alps is caught in a snowstorm. The artist will translate into his art this additional complexity of the world, which is not limited to a mere confrontation of the five elements. Vertige neigeux, diptych 2 x 4 m dated 1990-1999, was sold for HK $ 92M including premium by Christie's on November 26, 2016.
1983 The Secret Valley
2020 SOLD for $ 14.5M including premium
La Grande Vallée is a series of paintings made by Joan Mitchell in 1983 and 1984, expressing memories of childhood. But these memories are not those of the artist.
Children love to have a secret place away from adults, where they can personalize their world. Gisèle Barreau spent her childhood in Brittany, near Nantes, where she appropriated a hidden valley, used to graze cows in the middle of untouched woods, with abandoned barns and wild flowers.
Gisèle is a musician. She becomes Joan's assistant in Vétheuil for the work of everyday life.
Gisèle shared her secret with her cousin Jean-Philippe. The young man died in 1982 without having seen his valley again. In the same week, Joan lost her sister Sally Perry.
Since the 1950s Joan has been inspired by the colors of the French countryside. To face the double mourning and ward off death, she imagines with all the vibrant colors of happiness this Grande Vallée that she will never view.
The series consists of a single triptych, 5 diptychs and 15 single canvases. This set was built with a diversity of composition comparable to the Grandes Décorations by Monet. Monet's presence in Vétheuil from 1878 to 1881 certainly influenced Joan's installation in the same village in 1968. Joan expresses the confrontation of bright colors in abstract landscapes that are not based on any topographic reality, but the tendency to the abstraction in Monet's latest works could not leave her indifferent.
La Grande Vallée VII, diptych 260 x 260 cm overall painted in 1983, is estimated $ 10M for sale by Christie's in New York on July 10, lot 61.
The opus XIV, which is the only triptych, is at the Centre Pompidou. Dominated by the colors of the flowers, the opus XIII, 280 x 200 cm, was sold for € 3.6M including premium by Sotheby's on December 3, 2013. The opus XI predominantly blue, 200 x 180 cm, was sold for £ 2.6M including premium by Sotheby's on February 27, 2008.
Children love to have a secret place away from adults, where they can personalize their world. Gisèle Barreau spent her childhood in Brittany, near Nantes, where she appropriated a hidden valley, used to graze cows in the middle of untouched woods, with abandoned barns and wild flowers.
Gisèle is a musician. She becomes Joan's assistant in Vétheuil for the work of everyday life.
Gisèle shared her secret with her cousin Jean-Philippe. The young man died in 1982 without having seen his valley again. In the same week, Joan lost her sister Sally Perry.
Since the 1950s Joan has been inspired by the colors of the French countryside. To face the double mourning and ward off death, she imagines with all the vibrant colors of happiness this Grande Vallée that she will never view.
The series consists of a single triptych, 5 diptychs and 15 single canvases. This set was built with a diversity of composition comparable to the Grandes Décorations by Monet. Monet's presence in Vétheuil from 1878 to 1881 certainly influenced Joan's installation in the same village in 1968. Joan expresses the confrontation of bright colors in abstract landscapes that are not based on any topographic reality, but the tendency to the abstraction in Monet's latest works could not leave her indifferent.
La Grande Vallée VII, diptych 260 x 260 cm overall painted in 1983, is estimated $ 10M for sale by Christie's in New York on July 10, lot 61.
The opus XIV, which is the only triptych, is at the Centre Pompidou. Dominated by the colors of the flowers, the opus XIII, 280 x 200 cm, was sold for € 3.6M including premium by Sotheby's on December 3, 2013. The opus XI predominantly blue, 200 x 180 cm, was sold for £ 2.6M including premium by Sotheby's on February 27, 2008.
1983-1984 Untitled (Soap) by Basquiat
2021 SOLD for $ 13.2M by Christie's
Link to catalogue.
1983 Basquiat writes on Canvas
2013 SOLD 9.3 M£ including premium
Jean-Michel Basquiat became famous in less than two years, thanks to his artistic skill and despite his revolt. The following of his career is both complex and pathetic.
In 1983, he attempts to confirm that genius which is now recognized to him. Threatened by drugs, he does not find a way between the misery of the streets and the money of the celebrities. Finding back his instinct of a tagger, he covers his canvases by unrelated words amidst figurative drawings from his usual grammar.
In 1981, he was mystical, in support of his black community. In 1983, he becomes more political. He wants to be a voice for the revolutionaries.
On February 13 in London, Christie's sells an acrylic, oilstick and collage on canvas, 213 x 213 cm, entitled Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown), whose complex exegesis demonstrates the difficulty of understanding Basquiat at that time. The image is presented as a graffiti with vertical streaks indicating the influence of the other poet of writing in art, Cy Twombly.
Words collide. Museum is an aggressive comment on the price of art, including his own art. Papadoc, written in places of high visibility, is a tribute to Duvalier, certainly with no other purpose than to express his hatred of the whites. The word ORAPO, omnipresent, is not decrypted but sounds like a clandestine organization, anticipating by a quarter of century the Organización Revolucionaria Armada del Pueblo de Oaxaca.
Museum Security is estimated £ 7M. Here is the link to the catalog.
POST SALE COMMENT
This painting with a hermetic message is a very good indicator of the entry of Basquiat into into the difficult phase of his short life. It was sold £ 9.3 million including premium.
In 1983, he attempts to confirm that genius which is now recognized to him. Threatened by drugs, he does not find a way between the misery of the streets and the money of the celebrities. Finding back his instinct of a tagger, he covers his canvases by unrelated words amidst figurative drawings from his usual grammar.
In 1981, he was mystical, in support of his black community. In 1983, he becomes more political. He wants to be a voice for the revolutionaries.
On February 13 in London, Christie's sells an acrylic, oilstick and collage on canvas, 213 x 213 cm, entitled Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown), whose complex exegesis demonstrates the difficulty of understanding Basquiat at that time. The image is presented as a graffiti with vertical streaks indicating the influence of the other poet of writing in art, Cy Twombly.
Words collide. Museum is an aggressive comment on the price of art, including his own art. Papadoc, written in places of high visibility, is a tribute to Duvalier, certainly with no other purpose than to express his hatred of the whites. The word ORAPO, omnipresent, is not decrypted but sounds like a clandestine organization, anticipating by a quarter of century the Organización Revolucionaria Armada del Pueblo de Oaxaca.
Museum Security is estimated £ 7M. Here is the link to the catalog.
POST SALE COMMENT
This painting with a hermetic message is a very good indicator of the entry of Basquiat into into the difficult phase of his short life. It was sold £ 9.3 million including premium.
1983-1984 Number Two by Brice Marden
2019 SOLD for $ 11M including premium by Sotheby's
Link to catalogue.
1983 The Doors of Venice
2019 SOLD for $ 9.5M including premium
Jean-Michel Basquiat made his first visit to Los Angeles in March 1983 for a solo exhibition of his works by Larry Gagosian in West Hollywood. He returns a few months later to work in a studio prepared for him in Venice by Gagosian. He will stay there for almost a year.
Gagosian understands that the young man will love being surrounded by boys and girls of his age. He gives him as assistant his collaborator Matt Dike who will later found an edition of hip hop records. Dike brings with him Tamra Davis who works in West Hollywood in another gallery.
On May 16 in New York, Phillips sells a self-portrait painted by Basquiat in Venice in 1983, lot 29 estimated $ 9M. It is discussed by Matt's brother in the video shared by Phillips
This artwork is the only example in Basquiat's career whose execution was recorded : Davis had come with her camera. The graphics are consistent with the artist's style but a fancy feature has been added : it has been made in oil, acrylic, oilstick, graphite and ink on papers that have been glued on two wooden doors recovered from I do not know where and which keep their knobs and lock.
As soon as the work was finished, Basquiat and Davis moved it to Dike's workshop. Davis inserted 27 years later some footage in her feature documentary film titled Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child.
The diptych is composed of two very dissimilar images, perhaps to display in front of the camera all the know-how of the artist. The left door, 202 x 76 cm, is a self-portrait with a visible skeleton, with the signature Jean-Michel's hairstyle seen in period photos.
A piece of plywood added at the top of the right door increases up to 246 cm the height of this panel. It is illustrated with disparate elements dominated by the mystical incantation 'Repel Ghosts'.
The recovery of furnishing wood undoubtedly amused Basquiat. A painting on horizontal stacked wood made in 1984 in Venice after dismantling the fence of his garden was sold for $ 45M including premium by Phillips on May 17, 2018.
Gagosian understands that the young man will love being surrounded by boys and girls of his age. He gives him as assistant his collaborator Matt Dike who will later found an edition of hip hop records. Dike brings with him Tamra Davis who works in West Hollywood in another gallery.
On May 16 in New York, Phillips sells a self-portrait painted by Basquiat in Venice in 1983, lot 29 estimated $ 9M. It is discussed by Matt's brother in the video shared by Phillips
This artwork is the only example in Basquiat's career whose execution was recorded : Davis had come with her camera. The graphics are consistent with the artist's style but a fancy feature has been added : it has been made in oil, acrylic, oilstick, graphite and ink on papers that have been glued on two wooden doors recovered from I do not know where and which keep their knobs and lock.
As soon as the work was finished, Basquiat and Davis moved it to Dike's workshop. Davis inserted 27 years later some footage in her feature documentary film titled Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child.
The diptych is composed of two very dissimilar images, perhaps to display in front of the camera all the know-how of the artist. The left door, 202 x 76 cm, is a self-portrait with a visible skeleton, with the signature Jean-Michel's hairstyle seen in period photos.
A piece of plywood added at the top of the right door increases up to 246 cm the height of this panel. It is illustrated with disparate elements dominated by the mystical incantation 'Repel Ghosts'.
The recovery of furnishing wood undoubtedly amused Basquiat. A painting on horizontal stacked wood made in 1984 in Venice after dismantling the fence of his garden was sold for $ 45M including premium by Phillips on May 17, 2018.
