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1984

1984

At Christie’s spring auction of contemporary paintings, a 1982 Basquiat canvas, Untitled (Skull), fetches a record $19,000. The painting had originally been purchased for $4000 the year before. Remarkable for any twenty-three-year old artist, this auction price is all the more noteworthy for an artist of color.

In August, Basquiat’s first museum exhibition opens at the The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh. Organized by Mark Francis, the exhibition surveys paintings from 1981 to 1984 and travels to the Institute for Contemporary Arts, London, and the Boymans- van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam.

In September, Basquiat’s collaborative paintings with Warhol and Clemente are shown at the Galerie Bruno Bischofberger in Zurich. The trio had completed about fifteen paintings and this show demonstrates the degree of celebrity status and popularity that Basquiat has attained at such an early age.

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1984

1984

Though Basquiat’s acceptance within the smaller art community of people of color has not been very warm, he is included in the exhibition “Since the Harlem Renaissance: 50 Years of Afro- American Art,” organized by the Center Gallery of Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. The two works shown, Danny Rosen and Untitled, are installed in the section “Self-Taught to Neo-Expressionism,” along with the work of graffiti artists Blade, Dondi, and Futura 2000, the self-taught artists William Hawkins and Bill Traylor, and the expressionists Robert Colescott and Bob Thompson. Other artists include Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Ed Clark, Sam Gilliam, David Hammons, Palmer Hayden, William H. Johnson, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Joe Overstreet, Howardena Pindell, Betye Saar, and Alison Saar.

Late in 1984, Basquiat meets Jennifer Goode, sister of the owner of the New York club Area. This relationship is said to be one of the most serious romantic affairs of Basquiat’s life.

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1984

1984

Basquiat’s friends become more and more concerned about his excessive drug use. They often find Basquiat in a state of paranoia and uncharacteristically unconcerned with his appearance. Basquiat’s paranoia is also fueled by the very real threat of people stealing work from his apartment.

“Many drawings were destroyed because Jean-Michel knew that people might steal them or art dealers might come and take unfinished work.” (Melode Ferguson) 48

“Jean-Michel called at 8:00 in the morning and we philosophized. He got scared reading the Belushi book. I told him that if he wanted to become a legend, too, he should just keep going on like he was. But actually if he’s even on the phone talking to me, he’s okay.” (Andy Warhol) 49

Pictured Here: Untitled (Yellow Tar and Feathers), 1986 © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat

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1985

1985

In January, Basquiat has a one-artist exhibition at the Galerie Bruno Bischofberger in Zurich. Paintings shown include Max Roach, Tabac, and Zydeco.
On February 10, he appears on the cover of The New York Times magazine, posing barefoot for Cathleen McGuigan‘s extensive article,” New Art, New Money: The Marketing of American Artist.” This portrait, in comparison with the 1982 Van Der Zee photograph, arouses many questions about media hype marketing, and quality in the increasingly image-conscious art world of the 1980s, in which Basquiat proved to be a more than competent provocateur. In Van Der Zee’s frontal photograph, Basquiat comes off looking dignified, yet aggressive. In contrast, Lizzie Himmel’s photograph for The New York Times Magazine poses Basquiat with his bare foot up on a chair, coyly gazing at the viewer, the dreadlocks nicely cropped.

“To be a race-identified race-refugee is to tap-dance on a tightrope, making your precarious existence a question of balance and to whom you concede a mortgage on your mind and body and lien on your soul.” (Greg Tate) 50

Photograph by: Lizzie Himmel for The New York Times Magazine, 1985

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1985

1985

Gerard Basquiat recalls his son and Warhol coming to the house that Sunday with a stack of copies to celebrate the fame and success of the twenty-four-year-old Basquiat.

“The extent of Basquiat’s success would no doubt be impossible for an artist of lesser gifts. Not only does he possess a bold sense of color and composition, but, in his best paintings, unlike many of his contemporaries, he maintains a fine balance between seemingly contradictory forces: control and spontaneity, menace and wit …. Still, the nature and rapidity of his climb is unimaginable in another era.” (Cathleen McGuigan) 51

Pictured Here: Gerard and Jean-Michel Basquiat, New York, 1985 © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat 

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1985

1985

In March, Basquiat has his second one-artist show at the Mary Boone Gallery. In the exhibition catalogue, Robert Farris Thompson speaks of Basquiat’s art in terms of an Afro-Atlantic tradition, a context in which this art has never been discussed. Paintings in the show include Gold Griot, Grillo, Flexible, Wicker, His Glue-Sniffing Valet, and BigJoy.

“Because he is black and because he is young some critics will not be able to resist the temptation to link Basquiat to the more obvious forms of New York black and Puerto Rican street art …. In his hands black vision becomes at once private, public, didactic, playful, serious, sardonic, responsible, and, above all, deliberate …. Basquiat’s blues typography, at once interruptive and complete, makes visual black song, with equivalents to pause, shout, spacing, and breath …. Yet even here we must be wary of the claim that Basquiat signals a synthesis of the Afro-Atlantic and European artistic traditions, when his actual biography seems to speak of a graffitist sensibility of the naif that has been sophisticated by a SoHo savvy audacity” ( Robert Farris Thompson). 52

In May, on the recommendation of Henry Geldzahler, Basquiat, along with Francesco Clemente, Keith Haring, and Kenny Scharf, is commissioned to do art installations for a new club, the Palladium, on East 14th Street, opened by impressarios and Studio 54 founders, Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell. Basquiat executes two large mural-sized paintings for the Palladium’s Michael Todd Room.

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1985

1985

Basquiat’s deteriorating health becomes more noticeable, particularly the dark spots on his face. These discolorations may have been caused by the removal of his spleen, which kept his body from cleaning out the toxins from the drugs.

“Jean-Michel was really upset about the spots and asked me and lots of other people for advice about dermatologists and treatments. I told him that if his blood was pure they’d go away. He thought it was sadly funny that Andy s oxidation portrait of him had given him spots like those on his face …. You can see lots of self-fulfilling prophesies in his work, or in the work of anybody whose work runs deep.” (Glenn O ‘Brien) 53

In September, sixteen collaborative paintings by Basquiat and Warhol are shown at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery. At Shafrazi’s suggestion the two artists pose together in boxing trunks and gloves for a poster advertising the show. Unfavorable reviews cause tension in and, ultimately, weaken the Warhol-Basquiat friendship.

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

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1985

1985

“Last year, I wrote of Jean-Michel Basquiat that he had a chance of becoming a very good painter providing he didn’t succumb to the forces that would make him an art world mascot. This year, it appears that those forces have prevailed. “(Vivien Raynor) 54

“Having resided over our era for considerably more than his requisite fifteen minutes, Andy Warhol keeps his star in ascendency by tacking it to the rising comets of the moment.” (Eleanor Heartney) 55

In December, Basquiat spends a week in Tokyo for the opening of his one-artist show at the Akira Ikeda Gallery. That month, Annina Nosei holds an exhibition of Basquiat’s 1982 paintings.

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1986

1986

In January, Basquiat travels to Los Angeles for two weeks for his last show at the Larry Gagosian Gallery. Paintings in the show include Peruvian Maid, J’s Milagro, and Link Parabole. The following month he travels to Atlanta, his first and only trip to the South, for an exhibition of his drawings at the Fay Gold Gallery.

“He was very paranoid … being in the South. After much discussion, Jean-Michel did a news interview that he very much did not want to do.” (Fay Gold) 56

In August, Basquiat, accompanied by Jennifer Goode and her brother Eric, travels to Africa for the first time. He is joined there by Bruno Bischofberger, who, at Basquiat’s urging, has arranged for a show in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.

Relations with Mary Boone take a turn for the worse, and by the end of the year Basquiat is again without a primary dealer in New York. Problems between the equally charismatic Basquiat and Boone have been a constant part of their two-year relationship. Bischofberger continues to represent him in Europe, while trying to arrange for another New York dealer.

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1986

1986

In November, a large exhibition of more than sixty paintings and drawings opens at the Kestner-Gesellschaft in Hannover. Organized by Carl Haenlein, this is Basquiat’s second survey exhibition in a European museum; at twenty-five he is the youngest artist ever given an exhibition there.

Basquiat travels to Hamburg, where he completes his addition to Andre Heller’s traveling amusement park, Luna Luna. Along with Joseph Beuys, Salvador Dali, Sonia Delaunay, Keith Haring, David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, and others, Basquiat adorns carousels, funhouses, and various rides with his art.

Late in the year, Jennifer Goode and Basquiat break up. She has often complained to friends about Basquiat’s abuse of heroin, and it precipitates her decision to end their relationship. In addition to malicious gossip about Basquiat’s problems circulating through friends, growing negative criticism of his work from members of the art community does not make the situation better.

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1986

1986

Carrying the baggage of black manhood, Basquiat often correctly perceives such criticism as evidence of racism.

“He had to live up to being a young prodigy, which is a kind of false sainthood.” (Keith Haring) 57

“Being black, he was always an outsider. Even after he was flying on the Concorde, he wouldn’t be able to get a cab.” (Fred Braithwaite) 58

Image Credit: Photo by © Jean Kallina

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1987

1987

In January, Basquiat has a one-artist exhibition of twelve paintings at the Galerie Daniel Templon in Paris. Some works in the exhibition are Gin Soaked Critic, Gri Gri, Mono, and Sacred Monkey.

On February 22, Andy Warhol dies. Though their friendship had suffered greatly in the last year, Basquiat appears to be devastated by this loss. Basquiat paints Gravestone, a memorial to Andy Warhol.

“It put him into a total crisis …. He couldn’t even talk.” (Fred Braithwaite) 59

“The death of Warhol made the death of Basquiat inevitable, somehow Warhol was the one person that always seemed to be able to bring Jean- Michel back from the edge. Always when Jean-Michel was in the most trouble it seemed that Andy Warhol was the person who he would approach …. After Andy was gone there was no one that Jean-Michel was in such awe of that he would respond to.” (Donald Rubell) 60

Pictured Here: Gravestone, 1987, © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat

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1987

1987

In May, three large works on paper are shown at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery. Through Shafrazi, Basquiat meets Vrej Baghoomian, who purchases paintings and begins acting as a dealer for Basquiat’s work.

At Baghoomian’s suggestion, Rick Prol, a painter and old friend of Basquiat’s from the East Village, becomes Basquiat’s studio assistant. Basquiat begins work on paintings intended for shows in New York, Paris, and Dusseldorf the following year.

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1988

1988

Basquiat has not had an exhibition of paintings in New York for more than a year and a half, and in January, Basquiat exhibits new paintings for one night at Baghoomian’s gallery at the Cable Building in SoHo. The paintings are those being sent to shows in Paris and Dusseldorf.

Basquiat travels to Paris for his one-artist show at the Galerie Yvon Lambert. Paintings include Light Blue Movers, Riddle Me This Batman, ,,,,,,,,She Installs Confidence and Picks His Brain Like a Salad, and To Be Titled. There he meets Ouattara, a painter from the Ivory Coast residing in Paris. Ouattara invites him to come to his home in Africa after the summer. In the same month, Basquiat travels to his one-artist exhibition at the Galerie Hans Mayer in Dusseldorf.

He returns to New York for a one-artist show at the Vrej Baghoomian Gallery in April. Some critics praise the work, and it seems as if Basquiat has suddenly been redeemed. Paintings include Eroica I, Eroica II, The Dingoes That Park Their Brains with Their Gum, The Mechanics That Always Have a Gear Left Over, and Riding with Death.

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1988

1988

“Basquiat’s use of line is the way he commits to record what has been seen. Whatever your point of focus, in any given moment the work is crystal clear …. His line is the product of his mental process, the active proof of the passage from inner thought to articulation.” (Demosthenes Davvetas) 61

Basquiat has always been resistant to drug abuse treatment programs. In an apparent attempt to kick drugs, Basquiat leaves New York, stopping in Dallas and Los Angeles, on the way to his ranch in Hawaii.

He leaves Hawaii for New York at the end of June, stopping for a week in Los Angeles. Brian Williams, his former assistant in Los Angeles, remarks that Basquiat seems overwhelmingly happy and is proclaiming that he has kicked drugs for good.

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1988

1988

On Friday, August 12, Jean-Michel Basquiat dies in his Great Jones Street loft at age twenty-seven. The autopsy report from the office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Manhattan Mortuary, lists cause of death as “acute mixed drug intoxication (opiates- cocaine).”

On August 17, a private funeral is held at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on Madison Avenue and 81st Street. The funeral is attended by the immediate family and close friends, including Keith Haring, Francesco Clemente, Paige Powell, and others. Jeffrey Deitch delivers the eulogy. Basquiat is buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

On November 5, about three hundred of Basquiat’s friends and admirers attend a memorial gathering at St. Peter’s Church at Lexington Avenue and 54th Street. Music is played by Gray and others, poetry is recited, including a particulary moving reading by Suzanne Mallouk of A.R. Penck’s “Poem for Basquiat.”

“Jean-Michel lived like a flame. He burned really bright. Then the fire went out. But the embers are still hot.” (Fred Braithwaite) 62

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