The late (1988) enigmatic Basquiat painting Eroica I will be on view at Sotheby’s May 6-10, and is one of 11 work on preview at four New York auction houses this month, before the spring auctions.

Other include the 1886 Untitled (Lung), an imposing 8 foot high work of a zombie-like figure with visible skeletal structure and organs, painted on 15 slats of wood, and the large Warhol/Basquiat collaboration Third Eye (both on view at Philips de Pury from April 28 to May 11^th), and a 1984 fourteen-foot long tryptich, Gas Truck, last seen at the Abu Dhabi art fair.

There are also several works on paper on view.

Eroica I is (with it’s companion Eroica II) a large word-filled work of mostly oil-stick with acrylic paint on paper, later mounted to canvas. In fact, the two square canvases were originally part of the same huge piece of paper, a fact highlighted in their arrangement at the recent Basquiat retrospective in Paris.

The work was painted months before the artist’s death, and originally shown in the April 1988 exhibition at Vrej Baghoomian’s gallery, along with Riding with Death. This was seen as a comeback show by many, but ended up being Basquiat’s last gallery exhibition in his lifetime.  Eroica I and II make explicit, if abstract, references to death, as well as the artist’s drug use.

As I wrote of the paintings in Jean-Michel Basquiat: A Biography:

They have a feel very much like some Cy Twombly paintings made of scribblings in white paint, erasing the distinction between painting, drawing and writing. Unlike in Twombly, the words are not referring to Roman myths and romantic poetry, but to old African-American slang and references to death. In previous paintings Basquiat had used many signs from Henry Dreyfuss’ Symbol Sourcebook. Here he uses only one, from a set on family life, and has repeated it over and over across the two paintings with its label: “man dies.” The phrase “FOR BLUES. FIXINTODIEBLUES” is painted across Eroica I with a small alphabetical list of words beginning with B. The words are from a dictionary of African-American slang, and include “B.O.A.C  Bureau of Drug Abuse,” and “Beam to look.” References to drug use continue in Eroica II, where the list begins earlier in the B’s, including “Balloon Room: place where marijuana is smoked,” “Bang: Injection of narcotics or sex,” and “Bark: Human Skin” (perhaps an allusion to Basquiat’s worsening skin problem). The list is set against a repetition of close to a hundred “man dies” symbols, some obscured by the white paint.

Eroica I and five works on paper are available to view at Sotheby’s, May 6th - 10^th, there are two paintings at Philips de Pury on view from 28 April – 11 May,  two paintings at Christie’s on view May 7-11, and one drawing at Bonhams NY May 7-8. The details of all 11 works on display this month, with links to illustrations for each one, are available on the auction page of this site. 

The word “eroica” (Italian for “heroic”) is the name of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3, which contains a funeral march in the second movement, connecting the title to Basquiat’s theme of death, and to the heroism is sometimes takes just to stay alive. The Blues song cited by Basquiat in the painting, Fixin’ To Die Blues, also contributes to this theme.  This haunting song (popularized by Bob Dylan) was performed first by blues singer Bukka White in his raw, raspy voice:  “I'm lookin' funny in my eyes and I believe I'm fixin' to die, believe I'm fixin' to die.” 

-Eric F.