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拍品專文
"In many ways, Basquiat felt most at ease when working on paper…In contrast to the production of a painting on canvas or a mixed media assemblage, both of which a priori required Basquiat to have studio space, he could work on paper virtually anywhere, at any time. And in many ways this is precisely what occurred. Probably one of my most indelible impressions is that when he was awake he always seemed to be at work. Whether in a restaurant, car, or hotel room, he often had an oilstick or pencil in his hand, and a sheet of paper either beneath or out in front of him. Drawing could be focused on no matter where he found himself." (F. Hoffman, Jean-Michel Basquiat: Drawing, exh. cat., Acquavella, New York, 2014, p. 34)
Emphasizing the frantic discharge of Jean-Michel Basquiat's distinct expressive power, Untitled is elegantly haunted by the artist's idiosyncratic dark skeletal head. It emerges from a golden yellow blaze that lends a lofty energy to the figure’s fair and abstractions extending beyond his face. With its oilstick seeming to explode off the paper, the raw vitality and urban-primitive aesthetic of this intricate work on paper displays Basquiat's famed faux-naïve style. The present figure, with thick, mesmerizing outlines around his eyes, appears as an energetic, even frantic, projection of Basquiat's fears, anxieties and rebellious rage.
The human head is among Basquiat’s most autobiographical subjects, which he obsessively explored particularly during the pivotal year of 1982. The work belongs to a series of heads from 1982, many of which can be regarded as self-portraits that were executed at a crucial moment in the artist’s meteoric rise to fame. 1982 hosted the artist's first solo exhibition at Annina Nosei in New York, which sparked solo exhibitions at Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles and Bruno Bischofberger in Zurich. Suddenly possessing the stardom and acclaim he had always sought, Basquiat became the anointed king of the art world and his art came to possess a certain visionary relevance.
During the pivotal year of 1982 that Basquiat rendered the present drawing, he was living at 151 Crosby Street in Soho, in an apartment that the gallerist Annina Nosei had provided for him. He kept a studio in the basement of her gallery where he churned out drawings and paintings marked by skeletal figures and mask-like faces at a frenzied pace. A brilliant draughtsman, Basquiat drew continuously and effortlessly, in works that combined the graffiti-like scrawls of SAMO (his prior tagging identity) with the lyrical scribbles of Cy Twombly, the primitivism of Jean Dubuffet and the genius of Picasso.
Though their relationship would only last a year, Annina Nosei introduced Basquiat to an influential stream of collectors, who seemed to continually barrage his studio so that he couldn’t work fast enough. Reminiscing on this era, curator and art dealer Jeffrey Deitch recalls: “Jean-Michel showed us the drawings that he was working on. There was no drawing table and no neat stack of finished work. The drawings were scattered all over the floor, walked on like they were part of the linoleum. … There did not seem to be any separation between life and art. Jean-Michel drew constantly, on the street and wherever he was staying. … From the beginning of his career, he was already the center of attention” (J. Deitch, quoted in Jean-Michel Basquiat: 1981, the Studio of the Street, New York, Charta/Deitch Projects, p. 10).
With his signature quick-fire execution, Jean-Michel Basquiat assembles within Untitled a dramatic series of lines, marks and gestures to produce this energetic portrait. Influenced by Jean Dubuffet's child-like Art Brut, Basquiat executes his figure with stick-man simplicity coupled with his free-hand explosive visceral gestures that endow his drawings with rawness and immediacy. The artist often worked at great speed, disgorging his thoughts onto the graphic surface with great force and vigor. In Untitled, he effortlessly shifts between passages of exacting detail–painstakingly worked to conjure up the features he desires.
Emphasizing the frantic discharge of Jean-Michel Basquiat's distinct expressive power, Untitled is elegantly haunted by the artist's idiosyncratic dark skeletal head. It emerges from a golden yellow blaze that lends a lofty energy to the figure’s fair and abstractions extending beyond his face. With its oilstick seeming to explode off the paper, the raw vitality and urban-primitive aesthetic of this intricate work on paper displays Basquiat's famed faux-naïve style. The present figure, with thick, mesmerizing outlines around his eyes, appears as an energetic, even frantic, projection of Basquiat's fears, anxieties and rebellious rage.
The human head is among Basquiat’s most autobiographical subjects, which he obsessively explored particularly during the pivotal year of 1982. The work belongs to a series of heads from 1982, many of which can be regarded as self-portraits that were executed at a crucial moment in the artist’s meteoric rise to fame. 1982 hosted the artist's first solo exhibition at Annina Nosei in New York, which sparked solo exhibitions at Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles and Bruno Bischofberger in Zurich. Suddenly possessing the stardom and acclaim he had always sought, Basquiat became the anointed king of the art world and his art came to possess a certain visionary relevance.
During the pivotal year of 1982 that Basquiat rendered the present drawing, he was living at 151 Crosby Street in Soho, in an apartment that the gallerist Annina Nosei had provided for him. He kept a studio in the basement of her gallery where he churned out drawings and paintings marked by skeletal figures and mask-like faces at a frenzied pace. A brilliant draughtsman, Basquiat drew continuously and effortlessly, in works that combined the graffiti-like scrawls of SAMO (his prior tagging identity) with the lyrical scribbles of Cy Twombly, the primitivism of Jean Dubuffet and the genius of Picasso.
Though their relationship would only last a year, Annina Nosei introduced Basquiat to an influential stream of collectors, who seemed to continually barrage his studio so that he couldn’t work fast enough. Reminiscing on this era, curator and art dealer Jeffrey Deitch recalls: “Jean-Michel showed us the drawings that he was working on. There was no drawing table and no neat stack of finished work. The drawings were scattered all over the floor, walked on like they were part of the linoleum. … There did not seem to be any separation between life and art. Jean-Michel drew constantly, on the street and wherever he was staying. … From the beginning of his career, he was already the center of attention” (J. Deitch, quoted in Jean-Michel Basquiat: 1981, the Studio of the Street, New York, Charta/Deitch Projects, p. 10).
With his signature quick-fire execution, Jean-Michel Basquiat assembles within Untitled a dramatic series of lines, marks and gestures to produce this energetic portrait. Influenced by Jean Dubuffet's child-like Art Brut, Basquiat executes his figure with stick-man simplicity coupled with his free-hand explosive visceral gestures that endow his drawings with rawness and immediacy. The artist often worked at great speed, disgorging his thoughts onto the graphic surface with great force and vigor. In Untitled, he effortlessly shifts between passages of exacting detail–painstakingly worked to conjure up the features he desires.