Once upon a time in New York

Once upon a time there were two New Yorkers of different ages, races, and careers, who would produce over a short time period – between 1984 and 1985 – extraordinary paintings made in tandem. On one side there was Andy Warhol, an artist who was then said to be “commercial”, a famous portraitist of the international jet set (see here the last report about a Warhol show). On the other side: Jean-Michel Basquiat, a relative newcomer, best known for his graffiti works. He was a heavy user of hard drugs, with an incandescent soul. (see here the last report about a Basquiat show).

Jean Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol

Art history

Jean Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol

It’s this little slice of art history, this flash of complicity between two 20^th-century geniuses, that the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris is illustrating until 28 July. The exhibition is spectacular in that it brings together a significant number of very large-scale works (up to eleven metres long) allowing the fusion of two artistic expressions to masterfully burst forth.

160 Collaborations

Jean Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol

The fruit of their working relationship would give rise to 160 canvases called “Collaborations”. These would never have existed without the mediation and imagination of a genius dealer, the Zurich-born Bruno Bischofberger.

 Bruno Bischofberger

He recounts the genesis of this story in an exclusive video. “Basquiat adored Warhol. He agreed to the idea straight away. He also wanted to become a star. The two of them didn’t really know each other. Andy was interested in artists from the younger generation. I organized a lunch that started with a photo shoot.

Jean Michel Basquiat

Basquiat asked me to take a photo of Warhol and him, and instead of staying and having lunch, he left abruptly, taking the photos with him. Around an hour later, his assistant showed up with a painting of the two of them, “Dos Cabezas”. It was an extraordinary masterpiece. And Warhol, with his usual humour, exclaimed: “I’m jealous. He’s faster than I am.”

70+ 15 Collaborations

Jean Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol

For a long time these great paintings were then neglected by the market and critics. Dieter Buchhart, co-curator of the exhibition, managed to assemble 70 Collaborations in Paris, as well as the 15 initial Collaborations produced on Bischofberger’s initiative, signed by Warhol and Basquiat but also Francesco Clemente (See here a report about Francesco Clemente).

A dialogue like a game

Jean Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol

The Warhol Basquiat dialogue is a game. Often Andy would make the first marks of the composition and accepted that Jean-Michel would distort them or even make them disappear. What followed was a back and forth in which we don’t always recognize which motif came from which artist.

Benjamin Liu

Jean Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol

“The two artists didn’t have the same schedule at all,” we are told in a phone conversation with one of Andy Warhol’s assistants, Benjamin Liu. “One almost had office hours, arriving at the Factory at 10:30 at the latest, whereas the other, Jean, was a night person. I remember he was also one of the rare people allowed to smoke at the Factory, as he would always turn up with his huge joint. Andy worked in the mornings and Jean would come by from lunch time. The canvases, because they were in large format, were placed near the entrance to the studio.”

The end

Jean Michel Basquiat

But this fusion of talents would come to an end on 20 September 1985. That day, in the New York Times, the journalist Vivien Raynor, when she spoke about the Collaborations, accused Basquiat of being Warhol’s “accessory”, the subject of one of his many “manipulations”. The friendship between the two of them endured, but the party was over. What followed even took a dramatic turn.

A mourning city

Jean Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol

In February 1987, Andy Warhol died, after an accident with the anaesthetic during a routine operation. Jean-Michel was deeply affected. He made a triptych out of bits and pieces, “Gravestone”, marked explicitly with a large cross and the word “perishable”, displayed at the Fondation Vuitton. In August 1998, the shooting star of New York contemporary art passed away from an overdose. This was also the time when artists were being decimated by AIDS in downtown New York. The city was in mourning.

Until 28 July. www.fondationlouisvuitton.fr/fr/evenements/basquiat-x-warhol-a-quatre-mains

(see here some informations about the Warhol TV show that I curated in France, Portugal and Brasil).