NEPTUNE'S PLACE: EARLY WORKS BY JEAN MICHEL BASQUIAT
CURATED BY SAMO
Neptune's Place essay by Mike Klein
ESSAY & CRITIQUE BYART HISTORIAN AND FORMER MICROSOFT COLLECTION CURATOR MICHAEL KLEIN
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
-‐Pablo Ruiz y Picasso.
Before there was Basquiat there was SAMOThey grew up together attending the same high school and yet forging different paths. SAMO was a team, not one person but a pair of young rebellious teens living in Brooklyn: SAMO was the name used by Jean Michel Basquiat and Al Diaz. Together they worked and plotted and played. They explored their ideas, hung out with girlfriends, and smoked pot. Both were instrumental in the Graffiti movement of the 70s and early 80s, tagging to see who would respond and who would remember.
This underground graffiti experience was somewhat short lived for Basquiat. He always wanted fame. He knew he would find fame, and also knew he would die young.
Today only one of the team, Diaz, survives, and he has curated the present exhibition, assembling the SAMO works as a narrative of his late friend and artistic partner.
NEPTUNE refers to their drug dealer, Lonnie Lichtenberg, a young man living on the Lower East Side, whose apartment was a place to buy drugs and hang out. Lonnie was also a personal friend, whom Basquiat nicknamed King of the "C" (C for cocaine) or "Neptune." Over the course of their friendship, Lonnie obtained many works from Basquiat; trades, exchanges, probably even some gifts, though these transactions were probably for small amounts of drugs and could never accommodate Basquiat’s actual daily habit. Though these works were often drug fueled, or used in drug transactions, Basquiat used these works in his pursuit of fame. His goal was to be recognized, to be rich along with being famous. He achieved that dream, but at a huge cost.
As Lonnie's drug dealing was compounded by his own drug abuse, he sold many of the Basquiat works in his possession, occasionally even traded them for his own drug needs, or he just left in his apartment. (Trading art for food, shelter, and security is an age-‐old practice, and should not come as a surprise to anyone, since artists have to invent ways to stay alive.)
This collector met Jean Michel dozens of times at Lonnie's apartment. Others must have had the same experience, since many of the works were used as trade for drugs and other favors. Over time, these SAMO drawings ended up with a collector who thought the works were “cool” and described them “out of the 2 ordinary.” Who knew then that one of the SAMO team would be Basquiat, the legend?
This unique exhibition is therefore the contents of a personal and private collection of works on paper and six remarkable paintings on panels. It was assembled before Basquiat was “Basquiat,” when he was still signing his own work as SAMO. They represent the works of a very young, nonetheless ambitious artist, all produced over a span of about three years, between 1979 and into 1982. Coincidentally, Basquiat felt— and saw—that the art world was being reshaped by cultural forces, and reshaping itself in response to those forces, as more and more artists pushed away from the dominant styles of Pop or Minimal art. It was an explosive period, change was in the air and figurative art, which had taken a back seat for several decades, was about to become front and center in shows, magazine articles, and collecting circles. Soho had a new competitive partner: the East Village scene, and artists like Basquiat.
The majority of works in this exhibition are heads, portraits, and self-‐portraits or observations of Basquiat himself over this relatively short period of time. Everything is small, easy to pack up and move to another place because Basquiat was always on the move, almost unable or unwilling to stand still. Most were made before and around the time of his first solo show as SAMO in 1981; no, not in New York, as one might think, but in Italy. Back in New York, Basquiat’s work was next shown at the Fun Gallery in the East Village, Basquiat’s neighborhood, instead of in the then trendy Soho galleries. This was followed by additional shows in Europe, then into the larger mainstream New York galleries, initiating his long relationship with Annina Nosei, followed by Mary Boone, after which the marketplace took over. By the time of Basquiat’s death in 1988, the resale market had become strong and then stronger. As the public now knows, a painting by Basquiat can bring a king’s ransom.
Look at each drawing here: each appears as if it is the page of a diary, though no date or location is provided. Each is very much a representation of a mood or feeling or a reaction to the outside world made by a sensitive young man, with, as Diaz further explained in a conversation recently, “dreams of fame and celebrity. Basquiat wanted to become a famous artist and everything he did was towards that end.” Diaz went on to talk about his friend Jean-‐Michel and his character, a performer at heart, a thrill seeker, and an attention getter who “one night painted his face silver and crossed the Brooklyn Bridge just to watch people’s reactions. Another time he and another friend streaked around lower Manhattan in the dead of night. Life was always a challenge for him, a physical 3 challenge as much as a psychological one …one of day-‐to-‐day unfettered survival and artistic production.” Looking at the work on display here, his energies seem boundless, and the number of drawings presented along with the six paintings suggests a feverish creative impulse fueled by drive, drugs, and adolescence.
It’s interesting that these same images are never of a specific place or time of day, like an artist’s studio or a room in a house. They seem to be made on the go; between places, no time to hang around, no backgrounds, no features, little detail other than the structure and color of head or face. Flat, frontal, somewhat naive in execution and yet there is a theatrical sense of the self, paraded before the viewer in each and every one of these drawings. It is Basquiat in different moods and faces, yet always the same character, alone on the stage with his own speech to give. His later works became grand declarations of ideas, thoughts, and short descriptive phrases that were the accumulation of his short life announced in a firestorm of paint, words, and materials.
Among the many drawings of heads in this exhibition there also appears a dog, an ice truck, and as is the case with Basquiat, words. The city flows in and out of the picture, the neighborhoods whose walls are marked with names, numbers, signs. Crowns symbolizing the local gang the Latin Kings found their way into many of Basquiat’s later works. The presence of the crowns asks us: isn’t he, too, in some way a Latin King?
Some drawings seem casual, like a quick conversation between himself and a friend. On the other hand, those on panels in particular appear more polished, finished, or rendered. They have the appearance of a painter learning elements of his craft. For example, the head in Checkerboard floats in an atmosphere of subtle colors. This gray head with the characteristic grill of teeth and spiked hair seems like a reflection in a mirror. Compare it to the untitled portrait made up of a bright red face and carved teeth. Here we are looking head-‐on at a face. Is it the artist’s or someone out there in the crowd? But the subtlest of these six heads is the smallest and also the most complex. Here, Basquiat is looking at himself and thinking aloud. The head is divided as if each area represents a different part of the brain: the eyes—one blood shot—stare, the mouth is again a grid of teeth all set on a very narrow skeletal-‐like neck. It is the most complex of paintings in the group, foretelling the quality and character of his later works a few years off.
These works are the most intimate. Faces stare back at the viewer, some are skulls, some masks, some monochromatic heads. All are visualized translations 4 of emotions and thoughts into sketchy, nervous lines. Some are more subtle drawings and paintings in which the face is rendered with delicacy, grace, and though reckless in appearance, are sophisticated in structure. Basquiat focused mostly on eyes, mouth and hair…the wild eyes of youth, a sure indicator of emotional states: anxiety, rage, fear, love, they are truly the window to the soul. The mouth is a grill of teeth and his hair tall and spiked. And for the young Basquiat, this soul was neither at peace nor satisfied. It was a soul on fire. The immediacy and yet contained passion suggest that the fire was an engine for a deeply creative and passionate man. A man who Diaz said didn’t have a practical bone in his body, but was committed to art-‐making for years. Yet at the same time, he was predestined never to mature and enjoy days of looking back. For Basquiat, everything envisioned in these works is about the immediate present. There is no future, there is no past, there is only now.
Today we are well aware of self-‐portraits by such contemporary artists as Chuck Close, Alex Katz or Alice Neel. They seem more interested in representing the physical self; how they or others look. But other artists have used the process of portraiture, specifically self-‐portraiture, to explain and explore their character— their inner being if you will—to tap into the psychology of the self.
Durer’s self portrait at age 28 painted in 1500, or Warhol’s platinum blonde fright wig selfies from 1986, or the late, now famous 1973 self-‐portrait by Picasso at age 92, are examples of pictures of the self in the mirror or an x-‐ray like outline of the artist’s skull. They are factual representations of age the way Basquiat’s works are a factual representation of boyhood; Basquiat was only 27 when he died. In some ways, these images are akin to those by Cindy Sherman, in which she changes into different persona for the camera. For Basquiat, it is a change of the state of being, of mind, of the attitude of self. This cache of self-‐portraits seem to swing between the extremes of self doubt and excitement, between clear-‐headedness and a mind affected and altered by drugs.
Seeking approval in a mostly white male dominated art world, one wonders how he would have felt years later had he lived to be 47 in 2008, the year Barack Obama—a mixed race man like Basquiat—became our President, a man who won against all odds.
Basquiat lived in the pre AIDS world, the world of the early Reagan years and the trickle down economy, a world before fax machines, and before the internet and the cell phones that are now ubiquitous parts of our lives. Now so many years later, we are living in a new order, one that is marked by the tragedy of 9/11, 5 which in some ways threw the previous decades’ events and story aside, and our focus has been on the events since. Now we are catching our breath, looking again back to see what happened. It is noteworthy, I think, that of all the artists of the 80s, Basquiat was both in and out of the picture the way Keith Haring was as well. Less mainstream in a way for his time—though presented by major galleries —there was less critical support, it seems, for a Gay man or a man of color. Now, though, there is a rush to collect and present works from these communities, both in books and museum exhibitions, for they do tell us about a time now lost. In fact, I was struck that even John Berger, a remarkable writer and thinker about art, had included a brief essay on Basquiat in his latest book, PORTRAITS. Among the 74 artists he has written about, he explains this about Basquiat: “with this vivid, amusing, furious and diverse alphabet, he spells out what he sees happening around him or within him, or he spells out what he knows in his blood but has never been fully acknowledged.”
Basquiat is like the recently deceased singer/songwriter/performer Prince, a ladies man, but also something androgynous, middle class roots but a rebel for a myriad of reasons. He is gifted, wounded, and almost unapproachable. He is that rare species of poet, hustler, lover, creative powerhouse who followed no rules but was eager to learn and to then transform everything into his own brand of art made on his own terms and surviving because of it.
Michael Klein. New York, 2016
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
-‐Pablo Ruiz y Picasso.
Before there was Basquiat there was SAMOThey grew up together attending the same high school and yet forging different paths. SAMO was a team, not one person but a pair of young rebellious teens living in Brooklyn: SAMO was the name used by Jean Michel Basquiat and Al Diaz. Together they worked and plotted and played. They explored their ideas, hung out with girlfriends, and smoked pot. Both were instrumental in the Graffiti movement of the 70s and early 80s, tagging to see who would respond and who would remember.
This underground graffiti experience was somewhat short lived for Basquiat. He always wanted fame. He knew he would find fame, and also knew he would die young.
Today only one of the team, Diaz, survives, and he has curated the present exhibition, assembling the SAMO works as a narrative of his late friend and artistic partner.
NEPTUNE refers to their drug dealer, Lonnie Lichtenberg, a young man living on the Lower East Side, whose apartment was a place to buy drugs and hang out. Lonnie was also a personal friend, whom Basquiat nicknamed King of the "C" (C for cocaine) or "Neptune." Over the course of their friendship, Lonnie obtained many works from Basquiat; trades, exchanges, probably even some gifts, though these transactions were probably for small amounts of drugs and could never accommodate Basquiat’s actual daily habit. Though these works were often drug fueled, or used in drug transactions, Basquiat used these works in his pursuit of fame. His goal was to be recognized, to be rich along with being famous. He achieved that dream, but at a huge cost.
As Lonnie's drug dealing was compounded by his own drug abuse, he sold many of the Basquiat works in his possession, occasionally even traded them for his own drug needs, or he just left in his apartment. (Trading art for food, shelter, and security is an age-‐old practice, and should not come as a surprise to anyone, since artists have to invent ways to stay alive.)
This collector met Jean Michel dozens of times at Lonnie's apartment. Others must have had the same experience, since many of the works were used as trade for drugs and other favors. Over time, these SAMO drawings ended up with a collector who thought the works were “cool” and described them “out of the 2 ordinary.” Who knew then that one of the SAMO team would be Basquiat, the legend?
This unique exhibition is therefore the contents of a personal and private collection of works on paper and six remarkable paintings on panels. It was assembled before Basquiat was “Basquiat,” when he was still signing his own work as SAMO. They represent the works of a very young, nonetheless ambitious artist, all produced over a span of about three years, between 1979 and into 1982. Coincidentally, Basquiat felt— and saw—that the art world was being reshaped by cultural forces, and reshaping itself in response to those forces, as more and more artists pushed away from the dominant styles of Pop or Minimal art. It was an explosive period, change was in the air and figurative art, which had taken a back seat for several decades, was about to become front and center in shows, magazine articles, and collecting circles. Soho had a new competitive partner: the East Village scene, and artists like Basquiat.
The majority of works in this exhibition are heads, portraits, and self-‐portraits or observations of Basquiat himself over this relatively short period of time. Everything is small, easy to pack up and move to another place because Basquiat was always on the move, almost unable or unwilling to stand still. Most were made before and around the time of his first solo show as SAMO in 1981; no, not in New York, as one might think, but in Italy. Back in New York, Basquiat’s work was next shown at the Fun Gallery in the East Village, Basquiat’s neighborhood, instead of in the then trendy Soho galleries. This was followed by additional shows in Europe, then into the larger mainstream New York galleries, initiating his long relationship with Annina Nosei, followed by Mary Boone, after which the marketplace took over. By the time of Basquiat’s death in 1988, the resale market had become strong and then stronger. As the public now knows, a painting by Basquiat can bring a king’s ransom.
Look at each drawing here: each appears as if it is the page of a diary, though no date or location is provided. Each is very much a representation of a mood or feeling or a reaction to the outside world made by a sensitive young man, with, as Diaz further explained in a conversation recently, “dreams of fame and celebrity. Basquiat wanted to become a famous artist and everything he did was towards that end.” Diaz went on to talk about his friend Jean-‐Michel and his character, a performer at heart, a thrill seeker, and an attention getter who “one night painted his face silver and crossed the Brooklyn Bridge just to watch people’s reactions. Another time he and another friend streaked around lower Manhattan in the dead of night. Life was always a challenge for him, a physical 3 challenge as much as a psychological one …one of day-‐to-‐day unfettered survival and artistic production.” Looking at the work on display here, his energies seem boundless, and the number of drawings presented along with the six paintings suggests a feverish creative impulse fueled by drive, drugs, and adolescence.
It’s interesting that these same images are never of a specific place or time of day, like an artist’s studio or a room in a house. They seem to be made on the go; between places, no time to hang around, no backgrounds, no features, little detail other than the structure and color of head or face. Flat, frontal, somewhat naive in execution and yet there is a theatrical sense of the self, paraded before the viewer in each and every one of these drawings. It is Basquiat in different moods and faces, yet always the same character, alone on the stage with his own speech to give. His later works became grand declarations of ideas, thoughts, and short descriptive phrases that were the accumulation of his short life announced in a firestorm of paint, words, and materials.
Among the many drawings of heads in this exhibition there also appears a dog, an ice truck, and as is the case with Basquiat, words. The city flows in and out of the picture, the neighborhoods whose walls are marked with names, numbers, signs. Crowns symbolizing the local gang the Latin Kings found their way into many of Basquiat’s later works. The presence of the crowns asks us: isn’t he, too, in some way a Latin King?
Some drawings seem casual, like a quick conversation between himself and a friend. On the other hand, those on panels in particular appear more polished, finished, or rendered. They have the appearance of a painter learning elements of his craft. For example, the head in Checkerboard floats in an atmosphere of subtle colors. This gray head with the characteristic grill of teeth and spiked hair seems like a reflection in a mirror. Compare it to the untitled portrait made up of a bright red face and carved teeth. Here we are looking head-‐on at a face. Is it the artist’s or someone out there in the crowd? But the subtlest of these six heads is the smallest and also the most complex. Here, Basquiat is looking at himself and thinking aloud. The head is divided as if each area represents a different part of the brain: the eyes—one blood shot—stare, the mouth is again a grid of teeth all set on a very narrow skeletal-‐like neck. It is the most complex of paintings in the group, foretelling the quality and character of his later works a few years off.
These works are the most intimate. Faces stare back at the viewer, some are skulls, some masks, some monochromatic heads. All are visualized translations 4 of emotions and thoughts into sketchy, nervous lines. Some are more subtle drawings and paintings in which the face is rendered with delicacy, grace, and though reckless in appearance, are sophisticated in structure. Basquiat focused mostly on eyes, mouth and hair…the wild eyes of youth, a sure indicator of emotional states: anxiety, rage, fear, love, they are truly the window to the soul. The mouth is a grill of teeth and his hair tall and spiked. And for the young Basquiat, this soul was neither at peace nor satisfied. It was a soul on fire. The immediacy and yet contained passion suggest that the fire was an engine for a deeply creative and passionate man. A man who Diaz said didn’t have a practical bone in his body, but was committed to art-‐making for years. Yet at the same time, he was predestined never to mature and enjoy days of looking back. For Basquiat, everything envisioned in these works is about the immediate present. There is no future, there is no past, there is only now.
Today we are well aware of self-‐portraits by such contemporary artists as Chuck Close, Alex Katz or Alice Neel. They seem more interested in representing the physical self; how they or others look. But other artists have used the process of portraiture, specifically self-‐portraiture, to explain and explore their character— their inner being if you will—to tap into the psychology of the self.
Durer’s self portrait at age 28 painted in 1500, or Warhol’s platinum blonde fright wig selfies from 1986, or the late, now famous 1973 self-‐portrait by Picasso at age 92, are examples of pictures of the self in the mirror or an x-‐ray like outline of the artist’s skull. They are factual representations of age the way Basquiat’s works are a factual representation of boyhood; Basquiat was only 27 when he died. In some ways, these images are akin to those by Cindy Sherman, in which she changes into different persona for the camera. For Basquiat, it is a change of the state of being, of mind, of the attitude of self. This cache of self-‐portraits seem to swing between the extremes of self doubt and excitement, between clear-‐headedness and a mind affected and altered by drugs.
Seeking approval in a mostly white male dominated art world, one wonders how he would have felt years later had he lived to be 47 in 2008, the year Barack Obama—a mixed race man like Basquiat—became our President, a man who won against all odds.
Basquiat lived in the pre AIDS world, the world of the early Reagan years and the trickle down economy, a world before fax machines, and before the internet and the cell phones that are now ubiquitous parts of our lives. Now so many years later, we are living in a new order, one that is marked by the tragedy of 9/11, 5 which in some ways threw the previous decades’ events and story aside, and our focus has been on the events since. Now we are catching our breath, looking again back to see what happened. It is noteworthy, I think, that of all the artists of the 80s, Basquiat was both in and out of the picture the way Keith Haring was as well. Less mainstream in a way for his time—though presented by major galleries —there was less critical support, it seems, for a Gay man or a man of color. Now, though, there is a rush to collect and present works from these communities, both in books and museum exhibitions, for they do tell us about a time now lost. In fact, I was struck that even John Berger, a remarkable writer and thinker about art, had included a brief essay on Basquiat in his latest book, PORTRAITS. Among the 74 artists he has written about, he explains this about Basquiat: “with this vivid, amusing, furious and diverse alphabet, he spells out what he sees happening around him or within him, or he spells out what he knows in his blood but has never been fully acknowledged.”
Basquiat is like the recently deceased singer/songwriter/performer Prince, a ladies man, but also something androgynous, middle class roots but a rebel for a myriad of reasons. He is gifted, wounded, and almost unapproachable. He is that rare species of poet, hustler, lover, creative powerhouse who followed no rules but was eager to learn and to then transform everything into his own brand of art made on his own terms and surviving because of it.
Michael Klein. New York, 2016