The New York artist has never been so fashionable. Since his death by heroin overdose in 1988 at the age of 27 (joining the famous club of 27…), his rating has continued to rise. In 2017, one of his paintings was sold for $110.5 million at Sotheby’s, a then-record amount for an American artist (since beaten by Warhol). Jean-Michel Basquiat, the child prodigy of neo-expressionism, was one of the youngest artists to be exhibited at the Biennale of the Whitney Museum and the Dokumenta in Kassel.
His works born from street art, Haitian aesthetics and his reflections on blackness, flirting with pop art and hip-hop have always been hyped, rewarding him with real success during his lifetime. In parallel with an exhibition at the Louis-Vuitton Foundation (Basquiat x Warhol), the Philharmonie reconstructs for the first time the sound environment of the painter born in Brooklyn to a Haitian father and a Puerto Rican mother, and gives us some -some of his secrets.
The least we can say is that there is no religious silence in his studio loft at 57 Great Jones Street, in NoHo (north of Houston Street)! Among a merry mess of African statuettes, traditional drums, brushes and tubes of paint, the volume of the television, radio and sound system is always turned up. Basquiat has 3,000 records. He listened to the new sounds emerging in the Big Apple at the time, such as new wave and hip-hop, but also rock, classical, opera, reggae, soul, jazz, lots of jazz, black artists, like him, with a life broken by ordinary racism…
The melodies of Charlie Parker, Maria Callas or Maurice Ravel permeate his paintings. Under their waves, some turn blue like the blues. The word “opera” is written three times on her Anybody Speaking Words canvas, where a character seems to be traversed by melodic waves. The titles of his favorite jazzmen often appear in his works. And Beethoven’s Third Symphony inspired one of his last (and finest) paintings: the diptych Eroica. 35 years after the painter’s death, we can listen to his works as much as see them. “The art of Jean-Michel Basquiat is charged with sound. Words, instruments, signs and symbols collide in compositions that resonate – that burst – under the gaze,” remarks Mary-Dailey Desmarais, chief curator of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, partner of the exhibition.
Poet, rocker, graffiti artist and stylist, one of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s first feats of arms was his decoration of the Club 57 DJ booth with his murals and collages. A night owl occasionally passing records, in his footsteps a topology of cool in New York is traced. Because since the late 1970s, except for dinner at Mr. Chow or listening to no wave rock at the Hurrah, it hasn’t been fashionable to venture north of 23rd Street. Everything happens downtown, in the ill-famed blocks where the syringes planted in the parks contrast with the rose beds of the upscale neighborhoods. Creative youth dance at the Mudd Club (Basquiat spent almost two years of his life there) or at the Danceteria, discover new punk bands at CBGB, or go see the latest avant-garde performances at The Kitchen or Club 57 (neighbourhood general of Keith Haring).
French photographer and stylist Maripol flashes her Polaroid in front of the amused faces of Basquiat, his girlfriend Madonna, Warhol or Debbie Harry. The boys wear thin ties and button-down shirts, the girls cover their eyelids with blue or purple eyeshadow. Nothing is forbidden. Passionate about black music, Basquiat also attends concerts by Afrika Bambaataa and DJs from the Zulu Nation, Negril and Roxy. With their nostrils full of cocaine, this frizzy-maned faun finally goes home to bed in the early morning in lofts on the Lower East Side.
1979 was one of the richest years musically in New York. A golden age where no wave, new wave and hip-hop were born. At the heart of this broth of culture, Basquiat found his way. He created an experimental music group that took the name Grey, in reference to Grey’s Anatomy, the medical book, because his mother had given him a copy as a child when he was hospitalized after an accident. Grey. “Neither black nor white. It is the color of machines. It’s an industrial sound,” recalls director Michael Holman.
Shannon Dawson is on trumpet, Michael Holman on drums, Wayne Clifford on keyboard, Basquiat on artistic direction, vocals (or rather declamation), clarinet, guitar and synthesizer. In the footsteps of John Cage, they know no sonic limits or melodic structure. Their cacophony leaves plenty of room for improvisation, resulting in sound sculptures more than songs. Actor Vincent Gallo joined them for a while. They play in clubs (Hurrah, Mudd Club, CBGB…), but do not release any album during the painter’s lifetime. In 1981, Basquiat left the group to concentrate on his painting. Gray will only reform after his death, to honor him.
Living on the street for a while, Basquiat caught the rap revolution in the face, a revolution as visual as it is sound. Close to the pioneering graffiti rappers Fab 5 Freddy, Rammellzee and DJ Toxic, he began his artistic career as a graffiti artist, under the pseudonym of SAMO (for “same old shit”, or “nothing new”). Blondie frontman Debbie Harry is helping to mainstream the movement, taking it out of the Bronx block parties. Her track “Rapture”, in which she raps and pays tribute to Grandmaster Flash, is a hit. Basquiat appears in the clip, behind the decks. The singer bought him his first painting.
Sensitive to the aesthetics of asphalt and hip-hop looks, the jerky rhythm of rap then permeates his canvases, like the straight lines that cross his works on recovered objects. The street is everywhere… In the onomatopoeia inscribed in his paintings or in his portraits of graffiti artists, like A-One, one would think to hear “yo”, “boom” and “bam”. Basquiat even produced and directed a rap track: “Beat Bop” in 1983, which he also designed the cover for.
In full swing of the sample in the composition of the music of the 1980s and in its club culture, Basquiat is inspired by it for his plastic techniques. His uses of photocopying, sampling, collage, assembly of found objects are all recoveries, rhythmic loops… On his canvases, words and sequences multiply like repetitive stanzas. He cuts, glues, recomposes, recreates… A remix of the sound and visual landscape of urban chaos.
Basquiat Soundtracks, until July 30, 2023 at the Philharmonie de Paris. With concerts by Chassol, Leyla Mccalla, Eric Bibb…