Jean-Michel Basquiat - Contemporary Art Part II New York Friday, November 14, 2008 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, New York; Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York

  • Exhibited

    Vienna, KunstHausWien, Jean Michel Basquiat, February 11 - May 2, 1999, Kunzelsau, Museum Würth, Jean-Michel Basquiat, October 6, 2001 - January 2, 2002; New York, Deitch Projects, Jean-Michel Basquiat 1981:  The Studio of the Street, May 4 - May 27, 2006

  • Literature

    J. Baal-Teshuva, Jean Michel Basquiat, Vienna, 1999; J.Deitch, F. Sirmans, and N. Vassell, eds., Jean-Michel Basquiat 1981: The Studio of the Street, Milan/New York, 2007, p 171 (illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay

    Jean-Michel grew up in Brooklyn, and there is no question the work of '81 really connects with his childhood experience.  A lot of the imagery, I feel, is Brooklyn-born.  Jean-Michel's room was upstairs in the back of the building that we lived in, so from his window he could see a fantastic skyline, and great buildings like the bank near BAM.  I think that is the skyline he references in early paintings.  The kids playing games on the sidewalks of Boerum Hill were also a clear source of inspiration.  Then of course there was Flats Fix, the F-L-A-T-S F-I-X signs on Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn.  It's one of the things he remembered well and extracted multiple meanings from.  He always used simple symbolism to explain complex situations.
    Gerard Basquiat, as quoted in Jean-Michel Basquiat 1981: The Studio of the Street, Milan/New York, 2007, p. 90

  • Artist Biography

    Jean-Michel Basquiat

    American • 1960 - 1988

    One of the most famous American artists of all time, Jean-Michel Basquiat first gained notoriety as a subversive graffiti-artist and street poet in the late 1970s. Operating under the pseudonym SAMO, he emblazoned the abandoned walls of the city with his unique blend of enigmatic symbols, icons and aphorisms. A voracious autodidact, by 1980, at 22-years of age, Basquiat began to direct his extraordinary talent towards painting and drawing. His powerful works brilliantly captured the zeitgeist of the 1980s New York underground scene and catapulted Basquiat on a dizzying meteoric ascent to international stardom that would only be put to a halt by his untimely death in 1988.

    Basquiat's iconoclastic oeuvre revolves around the human figure. Exploiting the creative potential of free association and past experience, he created deeply personal, often autobiographical, images by drawing liberally from such disparate fields as urban street culture, music, poetry, Christian iconography, African-American and Aztec cultural histories and a broad range of art historical sources.

    View More Works

148

Untitled (Cars/Teepees)

1981
Oilstick on paper. 
23 x 25 in. (58.4 x 63.5 cm).
Signed and dated "Jean Michel Basquiat '81" lower right.  This work is accompanied by a certificate from the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Estimate
$180,000 - 250,000 

Contemporary Art Part II

14 Nov 2008, 10am & 2pm
New York