The major exhibition of Basquiat’s at the Foundation Beyeler, discussed previously on this blog, has now opened. Called by the organizers the broadest retrospective ever seen in Europe of the artist’s work, it includes over 160 Basquiat works, including over 80 paintings, many drawings, and other objects. 

exhibition view

The show gives a fantastic picture of his early work. These start with some rarely seen “anti-product” postcards and collage of 1979 and 1980. The small but key paintings Cadillac Moon and Aaron I  (1981) give a good taste of his transition to painting around the time of the New York / New Wave exhibition.  This quickly evolved into his popular style incorporated by the gallery world into the Neo-Expressionist vogue, such as the famous Untitled Head (also called Skull) of 1981 shown here. Also on view are large early paintings that have been swallowed by big money private collections, like the Untitled (Boxer) that recently sold for over 13 million dollars to an anonymous buyer, and Profit I, which made a record in 2002 when it sold for over 5 million.

Basquiat's major themes are represented. The 1982 Cassius Clay, Jack Johnson, and Sugar Ray Robinson paintings stretched over industrial palettes, along with St. Joe Lewis Surrounded by Snakes, all add to the boxers. Jazz is represented in his portrait of Max Roach and his drum set (1984), and the text-based Now’s the Time (a giant Charlie Parker record), and  Discography Two, 1983, based on a Miles Davis All Stars recording with Charlie Parker.  

The large and mostly well-lit space, designed by Renzo Piano, makes room for some of Basquiat’s larger works, like Now’s the Time and Eyes and Eggs.  Although all aspects of his work are covered, the show pays special attention to what may see as his peak period of the early 1980s, including the great triptych In Italian, and the long multi-panel Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta, both of 1983.

Several of the series of square canvases produced in Los Angeles in 1983 (including Hollywood Africans, now owned by the Whitney) are hung next to each other, as originally displayed at Gagosian’s LA gallery.

I was glad to see his sometimes overlooked contribution to combine tradition represented. One of my favorites is the great painted construction Self Portrait as a Derelict, which combines the frantic random symbolism of his Fun exhibition with Rauschenberg quality composition. The magnificent complex 1984 Grillo (8 feet high, 17 feet long, with extensions over a foot deep) incorporates expressive symbolism (evoking Yoruba gods, bebop tunes, crowns and urban spray painting), nails from African Nkisi sculpture, and impressive abstract composition. Other African influenced works Gold Griot, and Flexible (both painted on fence-like wooden slats in 1984) had an strong physical presence next to each other on one wall. It was revealing to see these works in the same show as the 1985 Anthony Clark, a portrait of a New York black man in then contemporary fashion, also painted on slats of wood and with its own unique presence.

Examples of the Warhol / Basquiat collaborations of ‘84-’85 are on view including $6.99, Felix the Cat, and the sparse but humorously political Arm and Hammer II. Many of these are from the Bischofberger collection, as is the large Warhol influenced Basquiat painting Zydeco of 1984. 

Late work includes the to my mind unfocused The Dingoes That Park Their Brains with Their Gum, and Light Blue Movers, 1987. But it also includes the striking symbol painting Pegasus (1987), the moving Eroica I and II (revealingly hung in reverse order, showing how one canvas had been divided into two works) and the iconic Riding with Death, all done in 1988 and seeming to comment on his last days.  

There were also many drawings, which should be a major part of any Basquiat exhibition. The show his sources and his subtle improvising touch. As Fab 5 Freddy remembered at the opening, he "held the pencil very loosely. Just let it slide across the page." One wall of heads and portraits on paper were hung salon style. Another wall was hung in a huge grid of framed drawings from the Darros collection. This allowed comparison, and many works to be displayed in limited space, but did not allow the close inspection some of them deserved. To my mind this seemed to denigrate their status compared to the paintings. Other drawings included the major oil-stick Self-Portrait with Suzanne, of 1982, and a portrait of Fab 5 Freddy in marker on a plate.

Basquiat was an incredibly prolific artist in his brief career. There are undoubtedly favorite works that may be missing from this exhibition, and I may occasional quibbles with the presentation. But this is undoubtedly a major and stunning exhibition of his work, and anyone interested in Basquiat who can possibly make it should make the trip to Basel by September 5^th, or later in the possibly more accessible Paris, where the show travels later in the year. 

Several of the works here were shown previously in “The Jean-Michel Basquiat Show” of 2006-7 in Milan. But unlike many European Basquiat exhibitions, which rely heavely on Bischofberger and other European collections, this retrospective seemed to have gathered major works equally from the big American collections. There were also many individual works from smaller private collections that are very rarely, if at all, seen in public. 

The show has had the support of support of The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat in New York, and many major museums, dealers and collectors lent work. Besides the Estate, and the Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich, contributors to the show include The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Whitney Museum of American Art; the Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam; The Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica; The Brant Foundation, CT; the Daros Collection, Switzerland; the Rubell Family Collection, Miami; the Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York; the Gagosian Gallery; the Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont, Paris; Lio Malca, New York; Fred Hoffman Fine Art; Enrico Navarra, Paris; The Steven and Alexandra Cohen Collection; the Mugrabi Collection; Irma and Norman Braman; Amalia Dayan and Adam Lindemann; Laurence Graff, and John McEnroe.

The exhibition is on from May 9^th to September 5^th, 2010 at the Foundation Beyeler (10 a.m. – 6 p.m. daily, Wednesdays until 8 p.m. www.fondationbeyeler.ch) and travels to the Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, where it will be on view from October 15, 2010 to January 30, 2011.

Some images from the show can be seen at http://www.fondationbeyeler.ch/press-images/html/en/045_basquiat.html .

Real reviews of the show are not out yet, but see the article at the Art Daily http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=37925