1980

In June, Basquiat’s art is publicly exhibited for the first 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 graffiti-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 graffiti.

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.

Pictured here: Red Kings, 1981 © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat

1980

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.

“A patch of wall by SAMO, the omnipresent graffiti sloganeer, was a knock- out combination of de Kooning and subway spray-paint scribbles.” (Jeffrey Deitch) 23

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.

Pictured Here: VNDRZ, 1982  © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat 

1981

In January, Basquiat and his girlfriend, Suzanne Mallouk, a singer and artist, begin sharing an apartment at 68 East 1st Street.

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 graffiti 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.

1981

In April, Braithwaite and Futura organize an exhibition at the Mudd Club, “Beyond Words: Graffiti 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 first time, for his first 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. 

Pictured Here: “SAMO”, FIRST ONE MAN SHOW, Exhibit Invitation Card, Galleria d’Arte Emilio Mazzoli Italy, 1981 © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat

1981

The first 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.

“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) 25

Photo Credit: Jean-Michel Basquiat in his studio, New York 1982. Photo by Gianfranco Gorgoni © Maya Gorgoni

1982

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.

“You can see our friendship in the work. The paintings speak for them- selves … Moses and the Egyptians, Charles the First, lines like ‘most kings get their heads chopped off. ‘ This is what we were talking about.” (Shenge Kapharoah) 26

In March, Basquiat has his first 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.

Pictured Here: Arroz con Pollo, 1981

1982

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).

“The traditional substructure of Basquiat’s art is Abstract Expressionism. He piles up rich palimpsests of paint over black grounds or snazzy oranges that are structured with architectonic solidity …. There is never any sense that Basquiat is faking.” (William Wilson) 29

Pictured Here: Untitled (Sugar Ray Robinson), 1982 © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat; courtesy of Robert Miller Gallery, New York 

1982

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.

“Jean-Michel Basquiat … has an inbred compositional sense that verges on good taste, as was particularly evident in his Documenta canvas Acque Pericolose …. his strength comes not so much from the social- commentary aspect of his work (although he has made some unforgettable saints and sinners) … but from his Twomblyesque lyrical qualities.” (Noel Frackman and Ruth Kaufmann) 30

1982

Basquiat creates his first 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 first one-artist exhibition at the Galerie Bruno Bischofberger in Zurich opens in September. This exhibition marks the first 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 Graffiti Question” features Basquiat, Braithwaite, Futura 2000, Haring, and Quinones, among others, identifying them as part of the new “graffiti 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 graffiti artist because his written messages as SAMO did not share the formal concerns of graffiti artists, namely, their colorful palette.

1982

Nevertheless, because he is young and because he is black, Basquiat’s paintings and drawings encourage the recognition of graffiti 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.

“I had some money; I made the best paintings ever. I was completely reclusive, worked a lot, took a lot of drugs. I was awful to people.” (Basquiat) 31

Pictured Here: ‘Self-Portrait,’ 1982

1982

Pictured Here: Leonardo Da Vinci’s Greatest Hits, 1982

1982

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 first American dealer. The canvases reveal a terrific 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 finished 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 and which he kept for his personal collection.

“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.” (Susan Hapgood) 32

Pictured Here: Untitled (Crown) 1982 © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat

1982

“Jean-Michel Basquiat’s show at the Fun Gallery was his best show yet. He was at home; the hanging was perfect, the paintings more authentic than ever.” (Nicolas A. Moufarrege) 33

Basquiat poses for the renowned photographer James Van Der Zee, famous for his documentary photos of the Harlem Renaissance and his portraits of the artists, singers, and writers of the period. Basquiat grows to admire the elder Van Der Zee and later paints his portrait. The photo session with Van Der Zee is arranged by Diego Cortez to accompany Henry Geldzahler’s interview with Basquiat for Interview. This photo portrait places Basquiat in a genealogical line with other black artists of the twentieth century.

In December, Basquiat’s paintings are presented in a one-artist exhibition at the Galerie Delta in Rotterdam. In these works, like those in the Fun Gallery show, the crossbars of the stretcher corners are exposed and often hung on the wall by twine. LNAPRK and Kings of Egypt are among the paintings in the show.

With Rammellzee and graffiti artist Toxic, Basquiat returns to California. He spends part of winter 1982-83 in Los Angeles, often staying at the L’Ermitage hotel and dining with friends at Mr. Chow’s in Beverly Hills. He frequently gives paintings to Michael and Tina Chow, in return for food and drink.

Photo Credit: James Van Der Zee. Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1982. Estate of James Van Der Zee; courtesy Donna Van Der Zee

1982

Larry Gagosian introduces Basquiat to Fred Hoffman, an art dealer and admirer of Basquiat’s work. Basquiat, with Hoffman’s help, produces five editions of prints, published in 1983 by New City Editions in Venice, California. Printed by Joel Stearns, the editions consist of three Untitled sets along with Back of the Neck and the 8-foot-tall Tuxedo.

Basquiat’s interest in music continues. He produces a rap record with Fred Braithwaite, Toxic, A-One, Al Diaz, and Rammellzee and often dj’s at various Manhattan clubs. Some of his paintings-Charles the First, CPRKR, Discography (One), Discography (Two), Horn Players, and Max Roach-express his strong affinity for the work of the jazz artists Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, Charlie “Bird” Parker, and Max Roach. Basquiat’s literary preferences include William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac.

The interest in jazz for Jean-Michel began with his father, then the personality of these characters and how they developed in their worlds, which he saw as similar to his own, particularly Parker and Holiday (Shenge Kapharoah). 34

1983

In February, Annina Nosei presents a one-artist exhibition of Basquiat’s work that includes Untitled and the Anatomy print portfolio.

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 films 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 first 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. The two works exhibited are Dutch Settlers and Untitled (Skull).

“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.” (Andy Warhol) 35

Pictured Here: Hollywood Africans, 1983, © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat

1983

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 fills 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 flowers, 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. Warhol encourages Basquiat to be more responsible toward his family.

“Wanted Jean-Michel to come over and paint, but he was giving his mother a birthday party so I went to meet him and met his mother. She’s a nice-looking lady …. she was really nice and everything.” (Andy Warhol) 36

1983

“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) 39
“It could have been me, it could have been me” (Basquiat). 40
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.

“Jean-Michel came up to the office but he was out of it. Clemente brought up some of the paintings that the three of us are working on together, and Jean-Michel was so out of it he began painting away. Jean-Michel and Clemente paint each other out. There’s about fifteen paintings that we’re working on together.” (Andy Warhol) 41

Pictured Here: Dos Cabezas, 1982 © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat

1983-84

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 primary dealer. Problems with dealers have become a recurrent feature of Basquiat’s career.

“Responding to a question about whether it is harder to get along with girlfriends or dealers, Basquiat replies, “They’re about the same actually.” 42

In January, Basquiat leaves Los Angeles for Maui, Hawaii, a place that he thenceforth frequents. He rents a ranch on a remote part of the island, three hours from the airport in the town of Hana, where he sets up a studio to make drawings and paintings with materials sent from Los Angeles. In February, Paige Powell, his sister Jeanine, Nora Fitzpatrick, and Gerard Basquiat come to visit. Exceedingly generous, he also flew in what his father called “a planeload of freeloaders. 43

1983-84

Basquiat returns to New York in March. Although skeptical about affiliating himself with another dealer he joins the Mary Boone Gallery.
“He was very unsure of this prospect, though he considered it a good career move, he was not interested in the idea of becoming an artist for another dealer.” (Paige Powell) 44

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-Expressionists- Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, and Gerhard Richter. Boone and Bischofberger organize joint exhibitions for Basquiat.

Photo Credit: Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1983 © Roland Hagenberg 

1984

In May, Basquiat has his first 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.

“The early work is of an original primitivism, with a graffiti heritage. The originality has quickly become stylized and somewhat self-conscious in this current show.” (Donald Kuspit) 45

“The young artist uses color well …. But more remarkable is the educated quality of his line and the stateliness of his compositions, both of which bespeak a formal training that, in fact, he never had.” (Vivien Raynor) 46

“And throughout floated a disembodied eye, which seemed to allude both to the self-the ‘I’-and to the witness or seer. But one sensed little of what Basquiat is witness to, or of why it bears accounting.” (Kate Linker) 47

Also in May, Basquiat is included in An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, which inaugurates the reopening of the museum.

Pictured Here: Tenor, 1985 © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat