.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
'Andy would have already started on some paintings before Jean-Michel's arrival. Because Basquiat's working methods involved broad strokes of a paintbrush and oil-stick crayons, Andy made a very important decision: rather than using his silk-screen process... he would now only hand paint his images'
(V. Fremont, 'Collaboration Magic: Andy Warhol & Jean-Michel Basquiat', in Ménage à Trois: Warhol, Basquiat, Clemente, exh. cat., Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn, 2012, p. 38).
'For an artist, the most important and most delicate relationship he can have with another artist is one in which he is constantly challenged and intimidated... Jean-Michel and Andy had achieved a healthy balance'
(K. Haring, 'Painting the Third Mind', Collaborations: Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, exh. cat., Mayor Rowan Gallery, London, 1988).
From the prestigious collection of Oliver Stone, Cops is a bold collaboration by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol acquired from legendary dealer Bruno Bischofberger in 1991, the same year as he directed his double academy award winning film, JFK. In its offering up of two iconic New York art scene styles, Cops is a bold collaboration between Jean-Michel Basquiat and his friend and mentor, Andy Warhol that captures the defining spirit of the 1980s. Executed in 1984, the work blurs the boundaries between commercial art and graffiti and unites two of the most important painters of the 20th century onto one single and powerfully bold canvas. Basquiat and his mentor worked together closely on the collaborations in between workout appointments with Warhol's trainer Lidjia, downtown dinners and parties. The result was a merging of two distinct art systems: the cool commercialism and pop cultural world of Warhol and the hot expressive, impulsive, gestural and personal imagery of Basquiat. At almost two metres high and three metres wide, the image takes on billboard-like proportions, matching the fame both artists had achieved by the time of the collaborations. Of these collaborations, close friend to both Warhol and Basquiat, Keith Harring said in 1988, 'For an artist, the most important and most delicate relationship he can have with another artist is one in which he is constantly challenged and intimidated... Jean-Michel and Andy had achieved a healthy balance' (K. Haring, 'Painting the Third Mind', Collaborations: Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, exh. cat., Mayor Rowan Gallery, London, 1988).
In Cops the two have conceived an 'Arm & Hammer' logo recalling Warhol's iconic consumer ad imagery from his Campbell's Soup Cans, Coca-Cola bottles and Brillo Boxes, overlaid with the suggestive graphic text and graffiti-like ephemera that propelled Basquiat to fame. In the present work, Warhol has executed by hand an Arm & Hammer logo, a classic motif of the popular consumer goods market, largely unchanged since 1878 and a text fragment Cops Fight Gay Hiring, most likely a salacious New York Post or Daily News headline documenting a New York Police group that banned a homosexual unit in June 1984. An ubiquitous household name in America, Arm & Hammer assumes a new monolithic power when overlapped with the frenzied visions of Basquiat's menacing cartoonish imagery of the serpent and crowned icons, camouflaging the text. Basquiat's contribution is a richly overpainted surface, replete with the painterly overlaying qualities celebrated in his own practice. This process obfuscates certain letters in Warhol's headline, rendering its meaning useless without close examination of the canvas' topography. Basquiat's replaces the 'O' in 'COPS' with his own self-fashioned insignia complete with crown, which is a defining symbol of the artist and a frequent feature in his own works. Scrawled across the length of the canvas is a green serpent, another recurring motif in Basquiat's practice with such varied connotations as the symbol of liberation from the American Revolution to the evil machinators. He violates Warhol's clearly painted logo, a symbol of cleanliness in the American home, with a mark of vibrant orange paint. Through his gestural impulse, Basquiat brings a hot vitality and disorder to Warhol's characteristically cool and detached imagery. Basquiat's involvement compliments, adding visceral punch to the Pop artist's objectivity, mischief to his coolness and bustle to the immobility of his sign-like imagery.
On a professional level, the collaborations brought together two icons of the New York art scene at Warhol's studio on 860 Broadway; personally, the series marked the collective creative endeavors of mentor and protégé. Warhol would start the work, often using a projector to trace corporate logs directly onto the canvas. His flat, graphically inspired or appropriated imagery provided the ultimate platform on which Basquiat could be let loose. Basquiat would often come in later and finish the work. 'Jean-Michel would normally arrive in the afternoon; he was by now buzzed in immediately', Vincent Fremont explained, 'He would walk to the back of the studio where Andy painted. Sometimes he would light up a big joint, something no one did at work, and Andy would put up with it... Andy would have already started on some paintings before Jean-Michel's arrival. Because Basquiat's working methods involved broad strokes of a paintbrush and oil-stick crayons, Andy made a very important decision: rather than using his silk-screen process...he would now only hand paint his images' (V. Fremont, 'Collaboration Magic: Andy Warhol & Jean-Michel Basquiat', in Ménage à Trois: Warhol, Basquiat, Clemente, exh. cat., Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn, 2012, p. 38). Adding his own insight into their process, Basquiat noted, '[Warhol] would start most of the paintings. He'd start one, you know, put... something very concrete or recognizable like a newspaper headline or a product logo and I would sort of deface it and then when I would try to get him to work some more on it, you know, and then I would work more on it. I tried to get him to do at least two things. He likes to do just one hit, you know [laughs] and then have me do all the work after that...We used to paint over each other's stuff all the time' (J.-M. Basquiat, quoted in B. Johnston and T. Davis, 'I Have to Have Some Source Material Around Me: Interview 1985', in D. Buckhart and S. Keller (eds.), Basquiat, exh. cat., Fondation Beyeler, Ostfildern, 2010, p. xxxi).
Art dealer Bruno Bischofberger initially inspired Basquiat and Warhol to collaborate, at first in an organized project which included Francesco Clemente in 1983. However the relationship that formed between Basquiat and Warhol during this period encouraged them to continue to work together throughout 1984-1985. A selection of these works by Basquiat and Warhol were debuted at Tony Shafrazi's Gallery in September 1985, promoted using the now iconic image of the two artists in boxing gear. Since then, the collaborations are widely recognized and have been exhibited internationally, including at the Mayor Rowan Gallery, London, 1988 and most recently at the ARKEN Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, 2012. The two, mentor and protégé, came together in these collaborations as equals with these works acting as Haring eloquently stated, as 'a physical conversation happening in paint instead of words' (K. Haring, 'Painting the Third Mind', Collaborations: Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, exh. cat., Mayor Rowan Gallery, London, 1988).
(V. Fremont, 'Collaboration Magic: Andy Warhol & Jean-Michel Basquiat', in Ménage à Trois: Warhol, Basquiat, Clemente, exh. cat., Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn, 2012, p. 38).
'For an artist, the most important and most delicate relationship he can have with another artist is one in which he is constantly challenged and intimidated... Jean-Michel and Andy had achieved a healthy balance'
(K. Haring, 'Painting the Third Mind', Collaborations: Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, exh. cat., Mayor Rowan Gallery, London, 1988).
From the prestigious collection of Oliver Stone, Cops is a bold collaboration by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol acquired from legendary dealer Bruno Bischofberger in 1991, the same year as he directed his double academy award winning film, JFK. In its offering up of two iconic New York art scene styles, Cops is a bold collaboration between Jean-Michel Basquiat and his friend and mentor, Andy Warhol that captures the defining spirit of the 1980s. Executed in 1984, the work blurs the boundaries between commercial art and graffiti and unites two of the most important painters of the 20th century onto one single and powerfully bold canvas. Basquiat and his mentor worked together closely on the collaborations in between workout appointments with Warhol's trainer Lidjia, downtown dinners and parties. The result was a merging of two distinct art systems: the cool commercialism and pop cultural world of Warhol and the hot expressive, impulsive, gestural and personal imagery of Basquiat. At almost two metres high and three metres wide, the image takes on billboard-like proportions, matching the fame both artists had achieved by the time of the collaborations. Of these collaborations, close friend to both Warhol and Basquiat, Keith Harring said in 1988, 'For an artist, the most important and most delicate relationship he can have with another artist is one in which he is constantly challenged and intimidated... Jean-Michel and Andy had achieved a healthy balance' (K. Haring, 'Painting the Third Mind', Collaborations: Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, exh. cat., Mayor Rowan Gallery, London, 1988).
In Cops the two have conceived an 'Arm & Hammer' logo recalling Warhol's iconic consumer ad imagery from his Campbell's Soup Cans, Coca-Cola bottles and Brillo Boxes, overlaid with the suggestive graphic text and graffiti-like ephemera that propelled Basquiat to fame. In the present work, Warhol has executed by hand an Arm & Hammer logo, a classic motif of the popular consumer goods market, largely unchanged since 1878 and a text fragment Cops Fight Gay Hiring, most likely a salacious New York Post or Daily News headline documenting a New York Police group that banned a homosexual unit in June 1984. An ubiquitous household name in America, Arm & Hammer assumes a new monolithic power when overlapped with the frenzied visions of Basquiat's menacing cartoonish imagery of the serpent and crowned icons, camouflaging the text. Basquiat's contribution is a richly overpainted surface, replete with the painterly overlaying qualities celebrated in his own practice. This process obfuscates certain letters in Warhol's headline, rendering its meaning useless without close examination of the canvas' topography. Basquiat's replaces the 'O' in 'COPS' with his own self-fashioned insignia complete with crown, which is a defining symbol of the artist and a frequent feature in his own works. Scrawled across the length of the canvas is a green serpent, another recurring motif in Basquiat's practice with such varied connotations as the symbol of liberation from the American Revolution to the evil machinators. He violates Warhol's clearly painted logo, a symbol of cleanliness in the American home, with a mark of vibrant orange paint. Through his gestural impulse, Basquiat brings a hot vitality and disorder to Warhol's characteristically cool and detached imagery. Basquiat's involvement compliments, adding visceral punch to the Pop artist's objectivity, mischief to his coolness and bustle to the immobility of his sign-like imagery.
On a professional level, the collaborations brought together two icons of the New York art scene at Warhol's studio on 860 Broadway; personally, the series marked the collective creative endeavors of mentor and protégé. Warhol would start the work, often using a projector to trace corporate logs directly onto the canvas. His flat, graphically inspired or appropriated imagery provided the ultimate platform on which Basquiat could be let loose. Basquiat would often come in later and finish the work. 'Jean-Michel would normally arrive in the afternoon; he was by now buzzed in immediately', Vincent Fremont explained, 'He would walk to the back of the studio where Andy painted. Sometimes he would light up a big joint, something no one did at work, and Andy would put up with it... Andy would have already started on some paintings before Jean-Michel's arrival. Because Basquiat's working methods involved broad strokes of a paintbrush and oil-stick crayons, Andy made a very important decision: rather than using his silk-screen process...he would now only hand paint his images' (V. Fremont, 'Collaboration Magic: Andy Warhol & Jean-Michel Basquiat', in Ménage à Trois: Warhol, Basquiat, Clemente, exh. cat., Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn, 2012, p. 38). Adding his own insight into their process, Basquiat noted, '[Warhol] would start most of the paintings. He'd start one, you know, put... something very concrete or recognizable like a newspaper headline or a product logo and I would sort of deface it and then when I would try to get him to work some more on it, you know, and then I would work more on it. I tried to get him to do at least two things. He likes to do just one hit, you know [laughs] and then have me do all the work after that...We used to paint over each other's stuff all the time' (J.-M. Basquiat, quoted in B. Johnston and T. Davis, 'I Have to Have Some Source Material Around Me: Interview 1985', in D. Buckhart and S. Keller (eds.), Basquiat, exh. cat., Fondation Beyeler, Ostfildern, 2010, p. xxxi).
Art dealer Bruno Bischofberger initially inspired Basquiat and Warhol to collaborate, at first in an organized project which included Francesco Clemente in 1983. However the relationship that formed between Basquiat and Warhol during this period encouraged them to continue to work together throughout 1984-1985. A selection of these works by Basquiat and Warhol were debuted at Tony Shafrazi's Gallery in September 1985, promoted using the now iconic image of the two artists in boxing gear. Since then, the collaborations are widely recognized and have been exhibited internationally, including at the Mayor Rowan Gallery, London, 1988 and most recently at the ARKEN Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, 2012. The two, mentor and protégé, came together in these collaborations as equals with these works acting as Haring eloquently stated, as 'a physical conversation happening in paint instead of words' (K. Haring, 'Painting the Third Mind', Collaborations: Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, exh. cat., Mayor Rowan Gallery, London, 1988).