Arrived on Thursday evening to find a huge line down the
block on West 24th Street. Luckily I was recognized and immediately ushered
into the gallery.
The excitement that I felt over 30 years ago came rushing
back when I first viewed 12 unframed drawings of Basquiat on the floor of
Larry's space in LA.
His talent for drawing surfaced early in his life and by age 6, his mother had enrolled him in a junior art class at the Brooklyn
Museum. At 15 as a troubled teenager, he ran away from home and gained notoriety as a graffiti artist under the name SAMO. My first glimpse of
Basquiat, the wild child, was at age 20, when he was living in
the basement of Annina Nosei's gallery on Prince Street. When Larry first saw the work at this time he was
electrified by it. He got to know him and soon after invited him to work and stay in his house
in LA.
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| Basquiat installation at Gagosian |
This beautifully installed exhibition shows Basquiat's struggles
to fit into the daunting art world as the son of a Haitian-American father and Puerto Rican mother. He painted and drew his heroes, athletes, kings,
warriors, musicians, and self-portraits with a rawness and emotional
anguish, which is chilling to the bone.
His intuitive sense of rhythm, composition, his
unique iconography and technique, as well as his inspiration from art history
(African Art, Picasso, de Kooning and Rauschenberg) propelled him to become
one of the hot stars of the 80's. His star fell when he overdosed in 1988 at
the age of 27.
Included in the exhibition is Jean-Michel's last painting entitled
"Riding with Death,"1988 inspired by Rembrandt's "The Polish
Rider," 1665, which is in the Frick Collection in NY.
His fame and talent is still heralded 25 years after his
death. Leave it to Larry! He has put together an amazing exhibition
featuring over 50 works from both private and public collections.
Off to the dinner...
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