Basquiat Painting Draws Top Price at Christie’s
By CAROL VOGEL
LONDON — An untitled 1982 painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat depicting two large figures surrounded by the artist’s graffiti-like scrawls sold at Christie’s here on Tuesday night for $29 million. The oilstick-on-panel, which had been expected to bring about $23 million to $30 million, was bought by an unidentified telephone bidder.
While it was a high price — especially compared with the $1.6 million the painting brought in 2002 when it was last up for sale, at what was then Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg — it was a far cry from the record $48.8 million achieved at Christie’s in New York less than a month ago for Basquiat’s “Dustheads,” a seven-foot-tall canvas also painted in 1982.
The Basquiat was the top seller at the first in London’s weeklong series of postwar and contemporary art auctions. The Christie’s salesroom was packed with a dedicated group of dealers and collectors who have been following the action from the New York auctions in May to the Venice Biennale and Art Basel in Switzerland. And while the best works at the Christie’s auction brought solid prices, it felt as though the steam was slowly starting to run out of the market.
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Read the whole story
· ·
| Jean-Michel Basquiat | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1960-12-22)December 22, 1960 Brooklyn, New York City, U.S. |
| Died | August 12, 1988(1988-08-12) (aged 27) Manhattan, New York City, U.S. |
| Nationality | Haitian-American |
| Field | Graffiti, painting, poetry, musician, producer |
| Movement | Neo-expressionism, Primitivism |
| Influenced by | Jean Dubuffet, Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly,Andy Warhol |
Jean-Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist.[1] He began as an obscure graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970s and evolved into an acclaimed Neo-expressionist and Primitivist painter by the 1980s.
Throughout his career Basquiat focused on "suggestive dichotomies," such as wealth versus poverty, integration versus segregation, and inner versus outer experience.[2] Basquiat's art utilized a synergy of appropriation, poetry, drawing and painting, which married text and image, abstraction andfiguration, and historical information mixed with contemporary critique.[3]
Utilizing social commentary as a "springboard to deeper truths about the individual",[2] Basquiat's paintings also attacked power structures and systems of racism, while his poetics were acutelypolitical and direct in their criticism of colonialism and support for class struggle.[3]
Early life[edit]
Jean-Michel Basquiat, born in Brooklyn, New York, was the second of four children of Matilda Andrades (July 28, 1934 – November 17, 2008)[4] and Gerard Basquiat (born 1930).[5] He had two younger sisters: Lisane, born in 1964, and Jeanine, born in 1967.[4]
His father, Gerard Basquiat, was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and his mother, Matilde Basquiat, ofAfro-Puerto Rican descent, was born in Brooklyn, New York. Matilde instilled a love for art in her young son by taking him to art museums in Manhattan and enrolling him as a junior member of the Brooklyn Museum of Art.[5][6] Basquiat was a precocious child who learned how to read and write by age four and was a gifted artist.[7] His teachers noticed his artistic abilities, and his mother encouraged her son's artistic talent. By the age of 11, Basquiat could fluently speak, read and writeFrench, Spanish, and English.[5][7]
In September 1968, when Basquiat was about 8, he was hit by a car while playing in the street. His arm was broken and he suffered several internal injuries, and he eventually underwent asplenectomy.[8] While he was recuperating from his injuries, his mother brought him the Gray's Anatomy book to keep him occupied. This book would prove to be influential in his future artistic outlook. His parents separated that year and he and his sisters were raised by their father.[5][9] The family resided in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, for five years, then moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1974. After two years, they returned to New York City.[10]
When he was 11, his mother was committed to a mental institution and thereafter spent time in and out of institutions.[11] At 15, Basquiat ran away from home.[5][12] He slept on park benches inWashington Square Park, and was arrested and returned to the care of his father within a week.[5][13]
Basquiat dropped out of Edward R. Murrow High School in the tenth grade. His father banished him from the household and Basquiat stayed with friends in Brooklyn. He supported himself by selling T-shirts and homemade post cards. He also worked at the Unique Clothing Warehouse in West Broadway, Manhattan.
| “ | SAMO (for "same old shit") marked the witty sayings of a precocious and worldly teenage mind that, even at that early juncture, saw the world in shades of gray, fearlessly juxtaposing corporate commodity structures with the social milieu he wished to enter: the predominately white art world. | ” |
— Franklin Sirmans, In the Cipher: Basquiat and Hip Hop Culture[3]
|
SAMO© color work at A´s, Arleen Schloss, 1979
In 1976, Basquiat and friend Al Diaz began spray-painting graffiti on buildings in Lower Manhattan, working under the pseudonym SAMO. The designs featured inscribed messages such as "Plush safe he think.. SAMO" and "SAMO as an escape clause." On December 11, 1978, the Village Voicepublished an article about the graffiti.[14] When Basquiat & Diaz ended their friendship, The SAMO project ended with the epitaph "SAMO IS DEAD," inscribed on the walls of SoHo buildings in 1979.[15]
In 1979, Basquiat appeared on the live public-access television cable TV show TV Party hosted byGlenn O'Brien, and the two started a friendship. Basquiat made regular appearances on the show over the next few years. That same year, Basquiat formed the noise rock band Test Pattern - which was later renamed Gray - which played at Arleen Schloss´s open space, "Wednesdays at A`s",[16]where in October 1979 Basquiat showed, among others, his SAMO© color Xerox work.
Gray also consisted of Shannon Dawson, Michael Holman, Nick Taylor, Wayne Clifford and Vincent Gallo, and the band performed at nightclubs such as Max's Kansas City, CBGB, Hurrah, and theMudd Club. In 1980, Basquiat starred in O'Brien's independent film Downtown 81, originally titled New York Beat. That same year, Basquiat met Andy Warhol, at a restaurant. Basquiat presented to Warhol samples of his work, and Warhol was stunned by Basquiat's genius and allure. The men later collaborated. Downtown 81 featured some of Gray's recordings on its soundtrack.[17] Basquiat also appeared in the Blondie music video "Rapture" as a nightclub disc jockey.[18]
In June 1980, Basquiat participated in The Times Square Show, a multi-artist exhibition sponsored byCollaborative Projects Incorporated (Colab) and Fashion Moda. In 1981, Rene Ricard published "The Radiant Child" in Artforum magazine,[19] which brought Basquiat to the attention of the art world.
From November 1982, Basquiat worked from the ground-floor display and studio space Larry Gagosian had built below his Venice home and commenced a series of paintings for a 1983 show, his second at Gagosian Gallery, then in West Hollywood.[20] During this time he took considerable interest in the work that Robert Rauschenberg was producing at Gemini G.E.L. in West Hollywood, visiting him on several occasions and finding inspiration in the accomplishments of the painter.[20] In 1982, Basquiat also worked briefly with musician and artist David Bowie.
In 1983, Basquiat produced a 12" rap single featuring hip-hop artists, Rammellzee and K-Rob. Billed as Rammellzee vs. K-Rob, the single contained two versions of the same track: "Beat Bop" on side one with vocals and "Beat Bop" on side two as an instrumental.[21] The single was pressed in limited quantities on the one-off Tartown Record Company label. The single's cover featured Basquiat's artwork, making the pressing highly desirable among both record and art collectors.
At the suggestion of Swiss dealer Bruno Bischofberger, Warhol and Basquiat worked on a series of collaborative paintings between 1983 and 1985. In the case of Olympic Rings (1985), Warhol made several variations of the Olympic five-ring symbol, rendered in the original primary colors. Basquiat responded to the abstract, stylized logos with his oppositional graffiti style.[22]
Basquiat often painted in expensive Armani suits and would even appear in public in the same paint-splattered suits.[23][page needed][24]
Final years and death[edit]
By 1986, Basquiat had left the Annina Nosei gallery, and was showing in the famous Mary Boonegallery in SoHo. On February 10, 1985, he appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazinein a feature entitled "New Art, New Money: The Marketing of an American Artist".[25] He was a successful artist in this period, but his growing heroin addiction began to interfere with his personal relationships.
When Andy Warhol died on February 22, 1987, Basquiat became increasingly isolated, and his heroin addiction and depression grew more severe.[15] Despite an attempt at sobriety during a trip toMaui, Hawaii, Basquiat died on August 12, 1988, of a heroin overdose at his art studio in Great Jones Street in New York City's NoHo neighborhood. He was 27.[15][26]
Basquiat was interred in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery.
Artistic styles[edit]
"Untitled (Skull)" (1984)
"Basquiat's canon revolves around single heroic figures: athletes, prophets, warriors, cops, musicians, kings and the artist himself. In these images the head is often a central focus, topped by crowns, hats, and halos. In this way the intellect is emphasized, lifted up to notice, privileged over the body and the physicality of these figures (i.e. black men) commonly represent in the world."
Fred Hoffman hypothesizes that underlying Basquiat’s sense of himself as an artist was his "innate capacity to function as something like an oracle, distilling his perceptions of the outside world down to their essence and, in turn, projecting them outward through his creative acts."[2] Additionally, continuing his activities as a graffiti artist, Basquiat often incorporated words into his paintings. Before his career as a painter began, he produced punk-inspired postcards for sale on the street, and became known for the political–poetical graffiti under the name of SAMO. On one occasion Basquiat painted his girlfriend's dress with the words "Little Shit Brown". He would often draw on random objects and surfaces, including other people's property. The conjunction of various media is an integral element of Basquiat's art. His paintings are typically covered with text and codes of all kinds: words, letters, numerals, pictograms, logos, map symbols, diagrams and more.[28]
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. The years 1984-85 were also the main period of the Basquiat–Warhol collaborations, even if, in general, they weren't very well received by the critics.
A major reference source used by Basquiat throughout his career was the book Gray's Anatomy, which his mother gave to him while he was in the hospital at age seven. It remained influential in his depictions of internal human anatomy, and in its mixture of image and text. Other major sources were Henry Dreyfuss Symbol Sourcebook, Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks, and Brentjes African Rock Art.
Basquiat doodled often and some of his later pieces exhibited this; they were often colored pencil on paper with a loose, spontaneous, and dirty style much like his paintings. His work across all mediums displays a childlike fascination with the process of creating.[29]
Representing his heritage in his art[edit]
| “ | Like a DJ, Basquiat adeptly reworked Neo-Expressionism's clichéd language of gesture, freedom, and angst and redirected Pop art's strategy of appropriation to produce a body of work that at times celebrated black culture and history but also revealed its complexity and contradictions. | ” |
— Lydia Lee[3]
|
According to Andrea Frohne, Basquiat’s 1983 painting Untitled (History of the Black People) "reclaims Egyptians as African and subverts the concept of ancient Egypt as the cradle of Western Civilization".[30] At the center of the painting, Basquiat depicts an Egyptian boat being guided down the Nile Riverby Osiris, the Egyptian god of the earth and vegetation.[31]
On the right panel of the painting appear the words “Esclave, Slave, Esclave”. 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."[31] On the left panel of the painting Basquiat has illustrated two Nubian-style masks. The Nubians historically were darker in skin color, and were considered to be slaves by theEgyptian people.[32]
Throughout the rest of the painting, images of the Atlantic slave trade are juxtaposed with images of the Egyptian slave trade centuries before.[32] The sickle in the center panel is a direct reference to the slave trade in the United States, and slave labor under the plantation system. The word “salt” that appears on the right panel of the work refers to the Atlantic Slave Trade, as salt was another important commodity to be traded at that time.[32]
Another of Basquiat’s pieces, Irony of Negro Policeman (1981), is intended to illustrate how African-Americans have been controlled by a predominantly Caucasian society. Basquiat sought to portray how complicit African-Americans have become with the “institutionalized forms of whiteness and corrupt white regimes of power” years after the Jim Crow era had ended.[32] Basquiat found the concept of a “Negro policeman” utterly ironic. It would seem that this policeman should sympathize with his black friends, family, and ancestors, yet instead he was there to enforce the rules designed by "white society." The Negro policeman had “black skin but wore a white mask”. In the painting, Basquiat depicted the policeman as large in order to suggest an “excessive and totalizing power”, but made the policeman's body fragmented and broken.[33]
The hat that frames the head of the Negro policeman resembles a cage, and represents how constrained the independent perceptions of African-Americans were at the time, and how constrained the policeman’s own perceptions were within white society. Basquiat drew upon his Haitian heritage by painting a hat that resembles the top hat associated with death and the dead in vodou.[33] and guardian of However, Kellie Jones, in her essay Lost in Translation: Jean-Michel in the (Re)Mix, posits that Basquiat's "mischievous, complex, and neologistic side, with regard to the fashioning of modernity and the influence and effluence of black culture" are often elided by critics and viewers, and thus "lost in translation."[27]
Exhibitions[edit]
Basquiat’s first public exhibition was in the group "The Times Square Show" (with David Hammons,Jenny Holzer, Lee Quinones, Kenny Scharf and Kiki Smith among others), held in a vacant building at 41st Street and Seventh Avenue, New York. In late 1981, Basquiat joined the Annina Nosei gallery in SoHo; his first one-person exhibition was in 1982 at that gallery.[34] By then, he was showing regularly alongside other Neo-expressionist artists including Julian Schnabel, David Salle, Francesco Clemente, and Enzo Cucchi. He was represented in Los Angeles Gagosian and throughout Europe byBruno Bischofberger.
Major exhibitions include “Jean-Michel Basquiat: Paintings 1981–1984” at the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (1984), which traveled to the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, in 1985); the Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover (1987, 1989). The first retrospective was the "Jean-Michel Basquiat" exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Artfrom October 1992 to February 1993. It subsequently traveled to the Menil Collection, Houston; theDes Moines Art Center, Iowa; and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Alabama, from 1993 to 1994. The catalog for this exhibition,[35] edited by Richard Marshall and including several essays of differing styles, was a groundbreaking piece of scholarship into Basquiat's work and still a major source. Another exhibition, “Basquiat”, was mounted by the Brooklyn Museum, New York, in 2005, and traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.[22][36]
"Basquiat speaks articulately while dodging the full impact of clarity like amatador. We can read his pictures without strenuous effort—the words, the images, the colors and the construction—but we cannot quite fathom the point they belabor. Keeping us in this state of half-knowing, of mystery-within-familiarity, had been the core technique of his brand of communication since his adolescent days as the graffiti poet SAMO. To enjoy them, we are not meant to analyze the pictures too carefully. Quantifying the encyclopedic breadth of his research certainly results in an interesting inventory, but the sum cannot adequately explain his pictures, which requires an effort outside the purview oficonography... he painted a calculated incoherence, calibrating the mystery of what such apparently meaning-laden pictures might ultimately mean."
In literature[edit]
In 1991, poet Kevin Young produced a book, To Repel Ghosts, a compendium of 117 poems relating to Basquiat’s life, individual paintings, and social themes found in the artist’s work. He published a “remix” of the book in 2005.[38]
In 2005, poet M.K. Asante, Jr. published the poem "SAMO," dedicated to Basquiat, in his bookBeautiful. And Ugly Too.
In film[edit]
Basquiat starred in Downtown 81, a verité movie that was written by Glenn O’Brien and shot by Edo Bertoglio in 1981, but not released until 1998.[39] In 1996, seven years after the artist's death, abiopic titled Basquiat was released, directed by Julian Schnabel, with actor Jeffrey Wright playing Basquiat. David Bowie played the part of Andy Warhol. Schnabel was interviewed during the film's script development as a personal acquaintance of Basquiat. Schnabell then purchased the rights to the project, realizing that he could make a better film.[40]
A 2009 documentary film, Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child, directed by Tamra Davis, was first screened as part of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and was shown on the PBS seriesIndependent Lens in 2011.[29]
In music[edit]
Both Jay-Z and Kanye West made reference to Basquiat on their 2011 collaborative album Watch The Throne. In "Illest Motherfucker Alive", Jay-Z raps "Basquiats, Warhols serving as my muses". In his verse on Lil Wayne's song "John", Rick Ross raps "Red on the wall, Basquiat when I paint". In the song "Ten Thousand Hours" Macklemore raps "I observed Escher, I love Basquiat" and on his song "Victory Lap" raps "unorthodox, like Basquiat with a pencil". In his song "Die Like a Rockstar", about overdosing, Danny Brown raps "Basquiat freestyle" to hype himself up. ASAP Rocky also mentions Basquiat in his song "Phoenix", rapping "Painting vivid pictures, call me Basquiat Picasso". In his song "Look Like Basquiat", Robb Banks raps "Bitch I look like Basquiat". Korean rapper Jazzy Ivy released single album "Jean & Andy" inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. In the song "Rich N****z" on J. Cole's sophomore album he references Basquiat saying, "It's like Sony signed Basquiat". Referencing his parent label, Sony, and how he compares to Basquiat, being someone who can express his emotions in a way nobody before him was ever able to.
Collections[edit]
Notable private collectors of Basquiat's work include most famously Swizz Beatz, Mera and Donald Rubell, Steven A. Cohen, Laurence Graff, John McEnroe, Madonna, and Leonardo DiCaprio.[41]
Art market[edit]
Basquiat sold his first painting in 1981, and by 1982, spurred by the Neo-Expressionist art boom, his work was in great demand. In 1985, he was featured on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in connection with an article on the newly exuberant international art market; this was unprecedented for an African-American artist, and for one so young.[39] Since Basquiat’s death in 1988, his market has developed steadily — in line with overall art market trends — with a dramatic peak in 2007 when, at the height of the art market boom, the global auction volume for his work was over $115m. Brett Gorvy, deputy chairman of Christie’s, is quoted describing Basquiat’s market as "two-tiered. [...] The most coveted material is rare, generally dating from the best period, 1981-83."[42]
Until 2002, the highest money paid for an original work of Basquiat's was US$3,302,500, set on November 12, 1998 at Christie's. In 2002, Basquiat's Profit I (1982), a large piece measuring 86.5"/220 cm by 157.5"/400 cm, was set for auction again at Christie's by drummer Lars Ulrich of theheavy metal band Metallica. It sold for US$5,509,500.[43] The proceedings of the auction are documented in the film Some Kind of Monster.
In 2008, at another auction at Christie's, Ulrich sold a 1982 Basquiat piece, Untitled (Boxer), for US$13,522,500 to an anonymous telephone bidder.[44] Another record price for a Basquiat painting was made on in 2007, when an untitled Basquiat work from 1981 sold at Sotheby's in New York for US$14.6 million.[45] In 2012, for the second year running, Basquiat was the most coveted contemporary (i.e. born after 1945) artist at auction, with €80m in overall sales.[46] That year, hisUntitled (1981), a painting of a haloed, black-headed man with a bright red skeletal body, depicted amid the artist’s signature scrawls, was sold by Robert Lehrman for $16.3 million, well above its $12 million high estimate.[47] A similar untitled piece, also undertaken in 1981 and formerly owned by theIsrael Museum, sold for £12.92 million at Christie's London, setting a world auction record for Basquiat’s work.[48]
Authentication Committee[edit]
The Authentication Committee of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat was formed by the gallery that was assigned to handle the artist's estate.[49] Between 1994 and 2012, it reviewed over 2,000 works of art; the cost of the committee's opinion was $100.[49] The committee was headed by Gerard Basquiat. Members and advisers varied depending on who was available when a piece is being authenticated, but they have included the curators and gallerists Diego Cortez, Jeffrey Deitch, John Cheim, Richard Marshall, Fred Hoffman, and Annina Nosei (the artist’s first art dealer).[50]
In 2008 the authentification committee was sued by collector Gerard De Geer, who claimed the committee breached its contract by refusing to offer an opinion on the authenticity of the paintingFuego Flores (1983);[51] after the lawsuit was dismissed, the committee ruled the work genuine.[52]In early 2012, the committee announced that it would dissolve in September of that year and no longer consider applications.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Graham Thompson, American Culture in the 1980s, Edinburgh University Press, 2007, p67. ISBN 0-7486-1910-0
- ^ a b c The Defining Years: Notes on Five Key Works, by Fred Hoffman, from the book Basquiat, edited by Marc Mayer, 2005, Merrell Publishers in association with the Brooklyn Museum, ISBN 185894287, p. 129-139
- ^ a b c d In the Cipher: Basquiat and Hip Hop Culture, by Franklin Sirmans from the book Basquiat, edited by Marc Mayer, 2005, Merrell Publishers in association with the Brooklyn Museum, ISBN 185894287, p. 91-105
- ^ a b "In Loving Memory: Matilde Basquiat", Lodge Communications 185, Harry S Truman Lodge No.1066, F.&A.M., December 4, 2008. New York, NY. Sad Tidings for Brother John Andrades.
- ^ a b c d e f Hyped to Death by The New York Times (August 9, 1998)
- ^ Kwame, Anthony Appiah; Gates, Henry Louis (2005). Africana: Arts and Letters : An A-to-Z Reference of Writers, Musicians, and Artists of the African American Experience. Running Press. p. 69. ISBN 0-7624-2042-1.
- ^ a b Basquiat at Houston's Museum of Fine Arts. ARTINFO. November 20, 2006. Retrieved 2008-04-21
- ^ Basquiat by Leonhard Emmerling, p. 11
- ^ Basquiat's Estate Sells at Sotheby's by Lindsay Pollock (March 31, 2010)
- ^ What Price Glory? by Marilyn Bethany, p. 39
- ^ Fretz, Eric. Jean-Michel Basquiat: A Biography. Greenwood Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-313-38056-3. Cf. p.xv
- ^ Bethany, p. 37
- ^ Bethany, p. 39
- ^ Faflick, Philip. “The SAMO Graffiti… Boosh-Wah or CIA?” Village Voice, December 11, 1978: p. 41.
- ^ a b c Cf. Fretz, pages 46-47.
- ^ "Jean Michel Basquiat Test Pattern". Mutual Art Inc.
- ^ Andy Kellman. Downtown 81 Original Soundtrack. Retrieved January 16, 2008
- ^ "Jean-Michel Basquiat: Artist Biography-Early Training". The Art Story Foundation. 2011. Retrieved 12 October 2011.
- ^ Rene Ricard. "The Radiant Child", Artforum, Volume XX No. 4, December 1981. p. 35-43
- ^ a b Fred Hoffman (March 13, 2005), Basquiat's L.A. - How an '80s interlude became a catalyst for an artist's evolution Los Angeles Times.
- ^ "Rammellzee vs. K-Rob 12" single produced by Jean-Michel Basquiat". Retrieved January 13, 2012.
- ^ a b Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol: Olympic Rings, June 19 - August 11, 2012 Gagosian Gallery, London.
- ^ Phoebe Hoban (2004). Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art. Penguin USA. ISBN 0-14-303512-6.
- ^ Randy P. Conner, David Hatfield Sparks, Queering Creole Spiritual Traditions, Haworth Press, 2004, p. 299. ISBN 1-56023-351-6
- ^ Cathleen McGuigan, “New Art, New Money” New York Times Magazine, February, 2005.
- ^ Brothers, Thomas (2001). Artists, Writers, and Musicians: an Encyclopedia of People Who Changed the World 4. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 16. ISBN 1-57356-154-1.
- ^ a b Lost in Translation: Jean-Michel in the (Re)Mix, by Kellie Jones, from the book Basquiat, edited by Marc Mayer, 2005, Merrell Publishers in association with the Brooklyn Museum, ISBN 185894287, p. 163-179
- ^ Berger, John (2011). "Seeing Through Lies: Jean-Michael Basquiat". Harper's (Harper's Foundation)322 (1,931): 45–50. Retrieved 18 July 2011.
- ^ a b Davis, Tamra. "Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child". Independent Lens. PBS. Retrieved 25 Oct 2011.
- ^ Frohne, Andrea. The African Diaspora: African Origins and New World Identities. 1st. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999. 448-449. Print.
- ^ a b Frohne, Andrea. The African Diaspora: African Origins and New World Identities. 1st. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999. p448. Print.
- ^ a b c d Frohne, Andrea. The African Diaspora: African Origins and New World Identities. 1st. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999. 439-449. Print.
- ^ a b Braziel, Jana Evans. Artists, Performers, and Black Masculinity in the Haitian Diaspora. 1st. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2008. 176-199. Print.
- ^ Jean-Michel Basquiat MoMA Collection, New York.
- ^ Marshall, Richard. Jean-Michel Basquiat, Abrams / Whitney Museum of American Art, 1992 (out of print).
- ^ Mayer, Marc, Hoffman Fred, et al. Basquiat, Merrell Publishers / Brooklyn Museum, 2005.
- ^ Basquiat, edited by Marc Mayer, 2005, Merrell Publishers in association with the Brooklyn Museum, ISBN 185894287, p. 50
- ^ Kevin Young, To Repel Ghosts (1st edition), Zoland Books, 2001.
- ^ a b Jean-Michel Basquiat, February 7 - April 6, 2013 Gagosian Gallery, New York.
- ^ "Meet the Artist: Julan Schnabel", lecture given at Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC, 13 May 2011
- ^ Georgina Adam and Gareth Harris (June 17, 2010), Basquiat comes of age The Art Newspaper.
- ^ Georgina Adam and Gareth Harris (17 June 2010), Basquiat comes of age The Art Newspaper.
- ^ Horsley, Carter. "Art/Auctions: Post-War & Contemporary Art evening auction, May 14, 2002 at Christie's". Retrieved 2008-01-17.
- ^ Judd Tully (November 12, 2008). No Bailout at Christie’s. ARTINFO. Retrieved 2008-12-17
- ^ "Huge bids smash modern art record". BBC. 2007-05-16. Retrieved 2007-05-16.
- ^ Charlotte Burns and Julia Michalska (October 11, 2012), Artprice survey reveals the twin peaks of power, The Art Newspaper.
- ^ Carol Vogel (May 10, 2012), Basquiat Painting Brings $16.3 Million at Phillips Sale New York Times.
- ^ Souren Melikian (June 29, 2012), Wary Buyers Still Pour Money Into Contemporary Art International Herald Tribune.
- ^ a b Daniel Grant (September 29, 1996), The tricky art of authentication Baltimore Sun.
- ^ Liza Ghorbani (September 18, 2011), The Devil on the Door New York Magazine.
- ^ Kate Taylor (May 1, 2008), Lawsuits Challenge Basquiat, Boetti Authentication Committees New York Sun.
- ^ Georgina Adam and Riah Pryor (December 11, 2008), The law vs scholarship The Art Newspaper.
Further reading[edit]
- Buchhart Dieter, O'Brien Glenn, Prat Jean-Louis, Reichling Susanne. Jean-Michel Basquiat, Hatje Cantz, 2010. ISBN 978-3-7757-2593-4
- Deitch J, Cortez D, and O’Brien, Glen. Jean-Michel Basquiat: 1981: the Studio of the Street, Charta, 2007. ISBN 978-88-8158-625-7
- Fretz, Eric. Jean-Michel Basquiat: A Biography. Greenwood, 2010. ISBN 978-0-313-38056-3
- Hoban, Phoebe. Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art (2nd ed.), Penguin Books, 2004.
- Marenzi, Luca. Jean-Michel Basquiat. Charta, 1999. ISBN 978-88-8158-239-6
- Marshall, Richard. Jean-Michel Basquiat, Abrams / Whitney Museum of American Art. Hardcover 1992, paperback 1995. (Catalog for 1992 Whitney retrospective, out of print).
- Marshall, Richard. Jean-Michel Basquiat: In World Only. Cheim & Read, 2005. (out of print).
- Mayer, Marc, Hoffman Fred, et al. Basquiat, Merrell Publishers / Brooklyn Museum, 2005.
- Tate, Greg. Flyboy in the Buttermilk. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. ISBN 978-0-671-72965-3
External links[edit]
- Brooklyn Museum Excellent website of the 2005 Basquiat retrospective exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum.
- Basquiat.com Official site of The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat.
- Basquiat Biography. (Scholarly but accessible Basquiat website with bibliography, timeline, links to on-line images, school lesson-plans, list of Basquiat works recently at auction, and updated blog of current Basquiat-related events.)
- Basquiat at Artfacts (Commercial site giving listing of Basquiat exhibitions, and works currently on sale.)
- Emmerling, Leonhard. Jean-Michel Basquiat 1960-1988. Köln: Taschen Art Album, 2003.
- Hoban, Phoebe. “SAMO IS DEAD: The Fall of Jean-Michel Basquiat”. New York Magazine. Sept. 26, 1988. pp 36–44.
- Pearlman, Alison. Unpackaging Art of the 1980s.
- Powers, Nicholas. The Radiant Death, a review of the Brooklyn Museum's Basquiat exhibit
- Seed, John. Driving Mr. Basquiat.
- Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child, Documentary film by Tamra Davis, screened at Sundance Film Festival 2010
- Jean-Michel Basquiat at the Fun Gallery, excerpt from "Young Expressionists" (ART/New York #19), video, 1982.
- Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child site for Independent Lens on PBS
- Official Trailer for the 2011 documentary Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child
- Jean-Michel Basquiat: An Analysis of Nine Paintings by Michael Dragovic
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Basquiat, Jean-Michel |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | Artist |
| Date of birth | December 22, 1960 |
| Place of birth | Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Date of death | August 12, 1988 |
| Place of death | SoHo, New York, U.S. |
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Dear Editor,
It was interesting to read an editorial by Jairo Rodrigues, titled ‘The Brain Drain’ in ‘The Scene’ in Stabroek News on June 22nd, 2013. Rodrigues, an engaging young contributor to ‘The Scene’ no doubt, notices a “brain drain” intensifying in Guyana since the 1970s, but rather than continually cast blame he wants to identify why it is happening, and find ways to “slow it down.” Such an attitude puts him on the right track. But the reasons I am going to offer for this brain drain may deconstruct the initial interpretation that a brain drain actually exists at all, inserting rather that drastic, nationally damaging changes have occurred in independent Guyana since 1966, which gave another meaning to the term ‘brain drain’ from within Guyana, before it became associated with young citizens literally packing up and emigrating outward to the Caribbean, North America, Canada, Europe, etc.
First of all, those Guyanese in BG [British Guiana] who fought in the two World Wars and helped build the Panama Canal (like mostly other Caribbean citizens/labourers) were not contributing to a world foreign to Guyanese benefits (all Guyanese benefited through these involvements), that is because the European colonial foundation of Guyana back then, and now, did not involve only exploitive labour and economic dependence, but had a futuristic positive flipside, which involved high literacy, scientific training, broad cultural knowledge, the right to freedom of expression, etc. For example, apart from Guyanese migrating to find employment, better opportunities etc, long before the 1970s there is the fact that numerous Guyanese pharmacists, lawyers, architects, engineers, doctors, teachers, agriculturalists etc, of African, East Indian, Chinese, Portuguese and mixed race origin, existed in BG since the beginning of the 20th century. These people did not complete their studies for these vital professions in BG or the Caribbean, but mostly in England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, or the USA. So why were these people back in BG since a century ago working at their professions and helping to build the nation we see today? There were others who stayed abroad, since these developed countries were always interested in competent professionals they helped train. The foremost reason they returned, apart from family connections, was because they saw BG as going in the same educated and developed direction as those ‘metropolitan’ countries where they had studied. This direction began to change drastically and detrimentally after Independence in 1966, but did not really become the ‘brain drain’ exodus Rodrigues speaks about until around the mid 1970s. Since the early 1960s mainly social and political interpretations of Guyana’s future began to take precedence over the everyday (quotidian) intellectual and culturally developed necessities that ambitious Guyanese had been enjoying for decades prior to 1966. Even the exodus started from Guyana after the 1962-64 years of devastating arson, riots, political and social violence, which was Guyana’s worst period, never equalled or repeated since, thankfully, did not affect the attraction of young Guyanese for their homeland after they went abroad, since they returned in droves at the quickest opportunity throughout the ’60s and the first years of the ’70s. Why? Because except for skyscrapers, subways, highways, and huge supermarkets with many brands of diverse food, the exciting cultural experience of seeing the best classic and contemporary films from Hollywood, continental Europe (not just Britain) and India, and reading the best classic and contemporary literature in 9 city cinemas, 7 top quality bookstores, 3 poublic libraries, one local, one British and one American, could be had right here too, as in the foreign metropolis.
Back then the entire ex-snackbar area of Bookers Universal (today’s Guyana Stores) and where Fogarty’s ground floor cafeteria is today, were bookstores of the highest quality and quantity, where the classic and modern literature of all Europe, the Americas, and Russia could be bought cheaply brand new, along with hard and softcover Art books on 20th century artists and movements, also African, Oriental, and Pre-Columbian art history. The works of Freud, Jung, Levi-Strauss, Kierkegaard, Ortega Y Gasset, Alan Watts, R D Laing, Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag, Marshal McCluhan, etc; the fiction of Proust, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Georges Simenon, Simone de Beauvoir, St Exupery, Alberto Moravia, Hemingway, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, LeRoi Jones, William Burroughs, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Arthur Miller, Samuel Beckett, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Marguerite Duras, Julio Cortazar, John Braine, etc; the illustrated film scipts of Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Lelouch, Eric Rohmer, Alain Resnais, Antonioni, Fellini, etc, were all easily available right here in Georgetown. In the best Georgetown cinemas, like Plaza, Globe, Empire, Metropole, and Strand de Lux, not only the films of these directors could be seen monthly during the 1960s, but their highly intelligent and social actors on screen, such as Jeanne Moreau, Monica Vitti, Catherine Deneuve, Anouk Aimee, Sophia Loren, Silvana Mangano, Elke Sommer, Romy Schneider, Alain Delon, Marcello Mastroianni, Victorio Gassman, Jean-Claude Brialy, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Jean-Paul Belmondo etc. Try finding such films or books in Guyana today, as you still can in ‘foreign’! Any Guyanese youth today who cannot and does not feed their intellect with such films and literature will not and cannot reach the same cultural and informative level as a past generation which had the opportunity to absorb such works in their nation during the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s.
Finally, the local future of young Guyanese writers/playwrights today is no different than that of their forebears since the 1940s, where, unlike Latin American writers, English speaking Caribbean writers will have little readership or sales, even if they have local publishers. They should keep in mind though that Edgar Mittelholzer ‒ still the greatest modern Guyanese writer in my estimation, along with Wilson Harris, and Denis Williams ‒ sent his first novel from Berbice to England and got published after several tries. Guyanese writers should think first about writing truly well, before thinking of publishing. Guyanese youths should also peruse the local newspaper archives for The Argosy, Daily Chronicle, Graphic and Evening Post from 1950 to 1969, if they want to see just how advanced in writing, criticism, fashion, film appreciation, history of Guyanese exists in those newspapers, not in much of today’s miopic axe-grinding academic reports. The Guyanese brain drain will probably become redundant when Guyanese professionals and their government (s) rejoin the international cultural community from their ‘brains’, first.
Yours faithfully,
Terry Roberts
Terry Roberts
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GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) — United States Ambassador Brent Hardt says the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI), now in its third year, is beginning to have an impact as a result of the many programmes implemented to fight crime in the region.
Hardt along with Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee on Monday, met with local and foreign senior security officials to discuss matters pertaining to the CBSI.
A government statement said the meeting, the second of its kind, is part of Guyana's recognition of the need for reform in the security sector and an important component of the CBSI Initiative.
It said that areas that Guyana will benefit from were discussed at the meeting and, according to Rohee, Georgetown remains optimistic about moving forward with the programme of cooperation under the CBSI which is fully funded by the US Government.
Guyana, through the Customs Anti Narcotics Unit, has been able to benefit from several of these programmes. The country now has the ability to track and identify criminals through its high-tech fingerprinting tool's which is one of the CBSI regional information-sharing programmes.
Hardt said that the initiative is a regional partnership launched by President Barack Obama in 2006, adding "what we developed was an initiative that would have seen us working more closely together to combat trafficking, promote citizen security, and strengthen the justice sector".
The US diplomat said that the team would continue to meet with regional groups and senior officials to define what is being done and diagnose where improve-ments are needed.
On an official visit to Haiti where he met President Michel Martelly, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Tuesday (June 25) that he would consider an asylum request by U.S. fugitive Edward Snowden, who has claimed responsibility for leaking details about secret U.S. surveillance programmes to news media.
Maduro's comments came as he exchanged gifts with Martelly, amid speculation Snowden is destined for Quito after anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks said he was "bound for Ecuador via a safe route for the purpose of asylum."
Earlier this week, a source at Russian airline Aeroflot had reported Snowden had booked a ticket to Cuba and then planned to go to Venezuela. On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that Snowden was in the transit area of a Moscow airport.
Venezuela is an OPEC nation and uses substantial funds to aid its leftist allies.
Along with Cuba and Ecuador, it is a member of the ALBA bloc, an alliance of leftist governments in Latin America that pride themselves on their "anti-imperialist" credentials.
Taking in Snowden would mark an escalation in tensions between Venezuela and the United States. The left-leaning South American nation has long been an ardent critic of the United States and, in 2010, both countries pulled their ambassadors over a diplomatic spat.
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