NY Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, Black Exper. - Sisters Bring Intimate Exhibit, 'King Pleasure' to LA

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Last edited Tue Apr 18, 2023, 09:54 PM - Edit history (1)

- 'Revealing Basquiat's Hidden Life: His Sisters Bring Intimate Exhibition To LA,' LAist, April 6, 2023. Ed.

Before his death in 1988 at just 27 years old, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960 - 1988) became a sensation, with a style born out of graffiti & the street culture of New York. His work was known for showcasing the Black experience, including class & racial divisions. - A new exhibition in downtown L.A., "Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure," takes an inside look at the man & his work. That’s aided by access to the artist’s personal life — made possible because it’s presented by Basquiat’s estate, run by his sisters Jeanine Heriveaux & Lisane Basquiat.

The show features more than 200 items, ranging from paintings & drawings to multimedia work & other artifacts. It includes some articles that were never seen before the exhibition first opened in NY. - "King Pleasure Exhibit." The show is more than just his art — Lisane Basquiat described it as an immersive experience. The items in this collection take you inside his world, showing you how he lived his life. It includes a re-creation of his NYC art studio & the family’s childhood home. “Our intention was to give his audience a different perspective of Jean-Michel,” Heriveaux said. “We felt that what was missing from his narrative was his family. A lot of people prior to this didn’t even realize his family exists, that he was close to his family, that he still was in contact with his family.”

The show also includes a re-creation of the Michael Todd VIP Room from New York’s Palladium nightclub — Basquiat painted 2 pieces for the space, "Nu Nile" & "Untitled." His sisters included those paintings in their club setting, giving a taste of the nightlife he loved. “We started thinking about Jean-Michel & how social he was, & how he partied so much,” Heriveaux said. That vibe was the inspiration for the exhibition’s title, “King Pleasure.” The piece was named after the jazz singer who popularized “Moody’s Mood For Love.” Jeanine’s daughter suggested the title. The sisters liked it as both describing their brother & a nod to their shared memory of listening to that song when they were kids.

“If you equated [Basquiat] to a style of music, it could be jazz, it could be punk, or it could be hip-hop,” Museum Of Contemporary Art curator Bennett Simpson said. “The early days of punk fashion & punk nightlife, & hip-hop nightlife were big influences for him. He drew influences from not just art history — he drew influences from what was going on in the city around him at the time.”...More, https://laist.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/revealing-basquiats-hidden-life-his-sisters-bring-intimate-exhibition-to-la

- ⭐ AP. Basquiat family unveils Intimate exhibit of the artist with more than 200 never before seen works.

- Jean-Michel Basquiat, (Dec. 22, 1960 – Aug. 12, 1988) was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the Neo-expressionism movement. Basquiat first achieved fame as part of the graffiti duo SAMO, alongside Al Diaz, writing enigmatic epigrams in the cultural hotbed of Manhattan's Lower East Side during the late 1970s, where rap, punk, & street art coalesced into early hip-hop music culture. By the early 1980s, his paintings were being exhibited in galleries & museums internationally.

At 21, Basquiat became the youngest artist to ever take part in Documenta in Kassel, Germany. At 22, he was one of the youngest to exhibit at the Whitney Biennial in New York. The Whitney Museum of American Art held a retrospective of his artwork in 1992. Basquiat's art focused on dichotomies such as wealth versus poverty, integration versus segregation, & inner versus outer experience. He appropriated poetry, drawing, & painting, & married text & image, abstraction, figuration, & historical information mixed with contemporary critique.

He used social commentary in his paintings as a tool for introspection & for identifying with his experiences in the black community, as well as attacks on power structures & systems of racism. His visual poetics were acutely political & direct in their criticism of colonialism & support for class struggle.

Since his death at the age of 27 in 1988, Basquiat's work has steadily increased in value. In 2017, Untitled, a 1982 painting depicting a black skull with red & yellow rivulets, sold for a record-breaking $110.5 million, becoming one of the most expensive paintings ever purchased... Basquiat was born in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York City, the 2nd of 4 children to Matilde Basquiat & Gérard Basquiat. His father was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti & his mother was born in Brooklyn to Puerto Rican parents. He was raised Catholic.

- Matilde instilled a love for art in her young son by taking him to local art museums & enrolling him as a junior member of the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Basquiat was a precocious child who learned to read & write by the age of 4. - His mother encouraged her son's artistic talent & he often tried to draw his favorite cartoons...https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Michel_Basquiat