Jean-Michel Basquiat

143 PROPERTY FROM AN IMPORTANT WEST COAST COLLECTION JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT Swinging Diamonds, 1987 crayon, pencil, oil stick on paper 30 x 22 1/4 in. (76.2 x 56.5 cm.) Initialed and dated "JMB 87" on the reverse. This work is registered in the archives of the Authentication Committee of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Lot Description Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) Untitled acrylic, oil and oilstick on wood panel 32 5/8 x 18½ in. (82.8 x 46.9 cm.) Painted in 1981. Provenance Robert Miller Gallery, New York Acquired from the above by the present owner, 1992 Literature R.D. Marshall and J.L. Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris, 1996, vol. II, p. 58, no. 2. Galerie Enrico Navarra, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris, 2000, pp.84-85, no. 2 (illustrated). View Lot Notes > In Jean-Michel Basquiat's Untitled composition from 1981, a distinct skull-like face hovers statically in the foreground. In its simplicity, the artist is able to conjure indelible emotions and existential inquires that are universally understood. From this primary point of reference, the piece may also be seen as a somber representation of Basquiat's life at the time, as he transitions from street artist to international art superstar. Basquiat's artistic career in 1981 began in New York as a graffiti artist, where he called the streets home. His now infamous tag, SAMO, made the artist notorious amongst a new generation of artists, writers and musicians who represented an "anti-golden age" sentiment in a city suffering from a "white flight" migration to the suburbs. From the detritus and grime of the street emerged a new aesthetic that incorporated the harsh realities of a young and destitute population. Rejecting the newness and sheen of Pop Art based on a world of consumer goods and Hollywood superstars, Basquiat utilized found objects to make something new from items that had been discarded or left unwanted. In the present painting, Basquiat references this earlier form of his street-based work through his use of board and the construction of an almost shelf-like protrusion in the middle of the composition, giving the work a three dimensionality and realistic presence as an object in space. It is in this vein that Basquiat oscillates between the streets and the gallery in the present composition that remains true to his graffiti roots in its simplified color palette and its stylistic impulsiveness. A proxy to the very industrial surface on which it could have been produced, Untitled possesses the urgency of the street combined with the primitive or childlike aesthetic of Jean Dubuffet. Similar to the art brut mentality, Basquiat strove to create art that was free from culturally constructed aesthetics and traditional artistic conventions. Basquiat's position as an artiste maudit, or one living outside of accepted society, set him apart from other artists of his time. Free from the confines of traditional artistic production, he rebelled against the established and mainstream art world, and in doing so, he himself became the poster child for an entire generation of artists who positioned themselves against the status quo. Known throughout his prolific albeit truncated career for his use of symbols, words, and other signifiers in which to encrypt his messages, Untitled, too, possess Basquiat's classic iconography. The halo's overt reference to innocence and martyrdom conjures images of death and sacrifice, and is a likely allusion to his reticence towards his overnight success as an artist. The haloed and disembodied head of the anonymous man floats ethereally in the upper half of the composition and is physically and thematically removed from the lower half, comprised of letters laid out in a grid-like structure. While the face has no specific resemblance to a notable figure, it could be construed as a portrait of the artist himself. Although many of Basquiat's subsequent works focused on African American heroes such as Sugar Ray Robinson, Cassius Clay, Miles Davis and a plethora of other sports stars, musicians and other prominent figures, the chosen anonymity of this figure is important as it becomes a signifier for the plight of the everyman. Speaking of Basquiat's distinctive figuration, Jean-Louis Prat said "these brutal images, these curious ghostly characters, these abrupt shapes that do not mean resemblance but which express divergence and discord blend in with anonymity a form of stereotype that almost seemed insurmountable because it spoke of our own similarities" (J.L. Prat, "The Child King of the Eighties," Jean-Michel Basquiat, ed. Géraldine Pfeffer-Lévy, Paris: Galerie Enrico Navarra, 2000, p 12). While much of Basquiat's work integrated both graphic and textual details, the clear distinction Basquiat created between the upper, graphic, and lower, textual, sections, sets this work apart from his typical use of text in his work. The lower register is comprised of a chart of letters that possesses multiple meanings as they are rearranged and divided up differently. Even with the clearly discernible letters, the words possess an ambiguous quality, similar to the incongruous marking on a Cy Twombly canvas with their indiscernible, automatic, free verse sentiment. Seemingly writing without incentive or purpose, whether they say, "I ART OWN", "TAR TOWN" or even "I AR TOWN" the equivocal nature of the message speaks to Basquiat's understood position as prophet, as well as an allusion to his own personal feeling toward the art world and its stratified dealer, artist, patron relationships. In this piece there is a clear sense of Basquiat's hesitance or misgivings as he faces his complete transformation from outsider artist to privileged art world insider.

LOT 240 JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT 1960 - 1988 RENÉ RICARD signed, titled and dated 84 on the reverse oilstick, colored pencil and charcoal on paper 30 by 22 1/2 in. 76.2 by 57.2 cm. Executed in 1984, this work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued by the Authentication Committee of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Lot Description Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) Furious Man oilstick, acrylic, wax crayon and ink on paper 30 x 22 in. (76.2 x 55.8 cm.) Painted in 1982. Provenance Annina Nosei Gallery, New York Private collection, Beverly Hills Anon. sale; Christie's, New York, 8 May 1990, lot 220 Private collection, Coconut Grove Anon. sale; Sotheby's, New York, 15 May 2001, lot 55 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner Pre-Lot Text Andy Williams: An American Legend View Lot Notes > Please note this work is accompanied by a certificate issued by the Authentication Committee of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Emphasizing the frantic discharge of Jean-Michel Basquiat's distinct expressive power, Furious Man is haunted by the artist's idiosyncratic dark skeletal figure, which emerges from a golden blaze onto a flat sea of gray with his ghostly face, illuminated halo, and upraised arms. With its heavy application of materials and the ink exploding off the paper, the raw energy and urban-primitive aesthetic of Furious Man mockingly assumes the mantle of the noble-savage that Basquiat himself tried to break away from, and stands out as the artist's ultimate critique of the constitution of black identity at the peak of his creative powers. Characteristically aggressive, in Basquiat's faux-naïve style, the gaunt figure appears as an energetic, even frantic, caricature of the artist himself; a projection of Basquiat's fears, anxieties, and rebellious rage. Equally empowered and bewildered, with sunken bloodshot eyes, and short electrified hair atop a skull-like head, Furious Man evokes a potent sense of panic at the immediate prospect of danger. Set against a background of scattered lines, rudimentary patterns, scribbles, stars and geometrical shapes, the psychological chaos characterizing the figures mental state is made all the more evident. Influenced by Jean Dubuffet's child-like Art Brut, Basquiat executes his figure with stick-man simplicity coupled with his free-hand explosive visceral gestures that endow his drawings with rawness and immediacy. The figure's pitchfork arms, in a signature Basquiat gesture, are thrown up in a single violent motion that ambiguously suggests an overabundance of signals; from political power, to surrender, or alarm, an aggressive attack, or a Christ-like judgment pose at the crucifixion. Not indicating whether the furious man is the victim or the aggressor, if read as a self-portrait the painting emerges as a telling indictment of Basquiat's perception of himself as a black artist. Similarly, arising in his work at precisely the same moment that Basquiat himself emerged from the streets onto the international art scene, the figure, surmounted with a halo is the epitome of Basquiat's famous declaration to Henry Geldzahler that the subject matter of his art consisted of, "royalty, heroism, and the streets" (J. Basquiat quoted in H. Geldzahler, "Art: From the Subways to Soho, Jean-Michel Basquiat," Interview, January 1983). Painted in gold--the color of kings--and assembled from the raw accidental marks and crude graphic elements of graffiti, it is easy to read this crowned figure and others like it, as a prophetic self-portrait of the young artist as an apparition and modern urban phenomenon. Adorned with a halo he is both warrior-hero and saint, both demon and martyr, an icon, scapegoat and sacrificial victim of the contemporary art world. Conscious of his identity as the most successful black artist within the white-dominated history of art, though not overtly political in his aspirations, Basquiat introduced the image of the black protagonist, who is often adorned with a halo that imparts his figures with a sense of superiority and religious aura, into his often self-referential drawings and paintings. Identifying with the personal struggles and inner demons of his pantheon of heroes, Basquiat conferred respect and admiration to his repertoire of black figures that included Miles Davis, Dizzie Gillespie, Charles Parker, Hank Aaron, Mohammed Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson. As such, his loosely articulated, graffiti inspired drawings became a vehicle for melding autobiography with reference to popular culture and black history. A breakthrough year for Basquiat, congruent to the execution of Furious Man, 1982 hosted the artist's first solo exhibition at Annina Nosei in New York, which sparked solo exhibitions at Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles and Bruno Bischofberger in Zurich. Suddenly possessing the stardom and acclaim he had always sought, Basquiat became the anointed king of the art world and his art came to possess a certain visionary relevance. Fraught with immediate tension and emotion, Basquiat's meteoric rise as the first black artist to achieve celebrity status, was not dissimilar to the anguish released in his powerful drawings. Mocked as the van Gogh of the streets and simultaneously as a novelty act, he was never credited for the sophisticated understanding he possessed of the annals of art. Sparely articulated and seemingly transparent, evoking medical X-rays, the very portrayal of the figure in Furious Man centralizes the issue; suggesting Basquiat's own fate as the superficially understood mascot of the art world. Caustically reappropriating Modernism's influence of African art, his deliberately crude and faux-nave rendering of the figure evokes the image of the noble savage for which Basquiat was widely regarded by his contemporaries. Without doubt, Basquiat's reign over the art world was one of unease, a strain that is evoked in Furious Man's frantic yet empowered uplifted arms, his prophetic yet primordial halo, and the overall frenzied style of the work. Over a quarter century after its creation, Basquiat's genius is clearly evident in Furious Man--the work demonstrates his unique transformation of figuration and his daring re-conception of the lineage of twentieth-century art--towards a charged and distinctly black identity. Particularly evident in his "primitive" depiction of the figure is the essential reinvestment of African art with the identity it had lost to Modernism's pursuit of formalist reduction, especially at the hands of Pablo Picasso. The scratched-and-scrawled vocabulary that is interspersed among the mèlange of patterning, scribbles and blocks of color of Furious Man consciously extends the work of both Jean Dubuffet and Cy Twombly--though distilled and captured through his experience of graffiti. Finally, and perhaps most evidently, in Furious Man is the visceral handling of pigment, and the inarticulate human form that are unique and persuasive rearticulations of Abstract Expressionism by way of Willem de Kooning. Capturing Basquiat's star through its intimate, expressive power, Furious Man encapsulates the emotional richness and symbolism that Basquiat brought to his drawings. Synthesizing autobiography, social outcry and the immediate apprehension of gestural draughtsmanship, Furious Man powerfully builds upon the legendary narrative of its own creator.

Jean-Michel Basquiat 1960–1988 untitled (Per Capita) 1983/2001 screenprint on paper 40 h x 40 w inches Numbered to the lower right 'A.P. 7/15'. Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat stamp to the reverse. Signed and dated by the executor of the estate to the reverse 'Gerard Basquiat 11-10-01'. This work is number 7 of 15 artist proofs aside from the edition of 85 published by DeSanctis Carr Fine Art, Los Angeles.