American painter Jean-Michel Basquiat is the subject of two major exhibitions in Paris this spring, one focusing on music, the other on his collaboration with Andy Warhol.
As short as it was, the life of Basquiat (1960-1988) produced an incredible number of creative periods, styles and artworks.
Covering the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, two new exhibitions at the Philharmonie de Paris and the Louis Vuitton Foundation offer fresh insight into how music, pop art and his Afro-Caribbean heritage informed the artist's work.
From sound to sight
Music was a key influence on Basquiat, from the songs his Haitian father played him, to his formative years in a band, and his deep interest in diverse African-American and African genres.
With its show "Basquiat Soundtracks", the Philharmonie delves into the relationship between Basquiat's keen interest in music and his visual art.
From bebop to jazz and later hip-hop, music from Black Atlantic culture – comprising African, American, British and Caribbean influences – were especially key in the painter's life and work.
The Philharmonie describes the exhibition as “a feast for the ears as well as the eyes”, presenting Basquiat's artworks alongside musical instruments and audiovisual media.
Basquiat emerged as a self-proclaimed poet, musician, DJ and artist in late-1970s New York, using the street as a canvas for his words.
At the time, the city was the hotbed for two surging musical movements: avant-garde "no wave" and soon-to-explode hip-hop.
Click on the arrow below to see slideshow:
{{ scope.legend }}
© {{ scope.credits }}Basquiat was then the unofficial leader of the underground band Gray. He frequented New York’s downtown clubs, sharing stages and dancefloors with a generation of punk-influenced artists experimenting with new forms of performance and expression.
At the same time, Basquiat embraced emerging hip-hop culture, inspired by Black history and struggles. He even teamed up with rapper friends to produce a 1983 single, "Beat Bop", complete with original cover art.
Jazz and especially the music of Charlie Parker also had a key place in Basquiat’s paintings, used as references in many of his early paintings.
Basquiat meets Warhol
At the Louis Vuitton Foundation, it is Basquiat’s work with pop art pioneer Andy Warhol that takes pride of place in "Basquiat x Warhol. Painting four hands".
Between 1984 and 1985 especially, Basquiat and Warhol created around 160 paintings together, including some of the largest works of their respective careers.
Fellow New York artist Keith Haring, who witnessed their collaboration, described a “conversation occurring through painting, instead of words”.
"Andy would start one [painting] and put something very recognisable on it, or a product logo, and I would sort of deface it," Basquiat said of their creative process.
"Then I would try to get him to work some more on it."
The exhibition also features are individual works by Basquiat and Warhol, as well as other artists from the downtown New York art scene of the mid-1980s.
African energy
Some of Basquiat's most powerful work relates deeply to his Haitian origins and African inspiration.
At the Louis Vuitton Foundation, the large sculpture "Ten Punching Bags (Last Supper)" and the 8-metre canvas "African Mask" particularly stand out.
Produced between 1985 and 1986 but never exhibited while neither Basquiat or Warhol were alive, "Ten Punching Bags (Last Supper)" evokes the lynchings of African-Americans.
"African Masks" is the most monumental work in the exhibition. While Warhol described it as “a masterpiece of African art”, Olivier Michelon, one of the co-curators of the exhibition, told RFI: "It is not an African masterpiece, it is a painting made in New York, in 1984, by Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, with African iconography."
Basquiat visited the African continent just once, after his collaboration with Warhol. But according to Michelon: "As an African-American, with origins in Haiti and the Caribbean, it's clearly something that interested him. He also worked quite a bit on myths and rites from West Africa, notably Yoruba legends."
At the Philharmonie, Basquiat’s work is placed in the context of the Black Atlantic: “the intangible, diasporic continent where music is a place of memory”, as the curators describe it.
His work bears witness to “a spiritual continuum” from the Mississippi Delta, birthplace of the blues, to the coasts of Africa and the Caribbean, to which Basquiat was linked by Haitian and Puerto Rican ancestry.
One country in particular held a powerful appeal for the artist: Côte d'Ivoire.
Basquiat went there in 1986, exhibited in Abidjan, and planned to visit the country again in August 1988. But he would pass away of a heroin overdose, aged 27, a few days before his flight.
"Basquiat Soundtracks" is at the Philharmonie de Paris until 30 July 2023. "Basquiat x Warhol. Painting four hands" is at the Louis Vuitton Foundation until 28 August 2023.
