Jean-Michel Basquiat & Defacement

Quinn: Hello and welcome back to Pictorial on Relay FM. I'm Quinn Rose. I'm someone who did not go to art school, but I love learning about art and continuing to learn about artists and exhibitions that I didn't have a lot of preexisting knowledge of. 

Betty: Hi, and I'm Betty. I'm also someone who did not go to art school, but I also love learning about art. I have been working as a gallery guide at an art gallery for the past eight years. And as with everything else that we talk about, I have seen a show at where I work of the particular artist that will be talking about today. Although it will be, it will be in a slightly different context.

Quinn: So, this is actually the start our very first two-part episode, because when we started looking into this topic, we realized there was so much here that it could not possibly fit into one episode. It needed to be broken up into two widely thematically paired topics. So today we are broadly covering the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, as well as specifically the exhibition at the Guggenheim in 2019 called, um, “Basquiat's Defacement: The Untold Story." This was a super interesting exhibit. Sadly, I was not able to see it. Were you, did you go see this exhibit? 

Betty: No, I was not… you know what, I was in New York during that time now I just realized—

Quinn: Yeah, we were there together!

Betty: Yeah, we were both there! You know what? This was one of the places I just, I guess I just didn't make it to, and now I wish I could have, because that seems really interesting.

Quinn: I know everything that we've learned about this, um, in the past week as we've been researching, it has made me so sad that one or both of us didn't go. When we were in New York because we were literally there at the same time this exhibit was running, but, uh, very sadly, were not aware of it at the time. But now we're going back and sort of analyzing it from afar as best we can. Like I said, this was a really important exhibit for many reasons, which we'll actually be getting to a little bit more in our part two of the episode, which will focus on the curator, Chaédria LaBouvier, who was the first Black curator at the Guggenheim. She was brought in as a guest curator for this exhibit, and she had a lot of experiences when working with the Guggenheim. Some of them were positive. A lot of them were really negative and she recently had a tweet go viral as she called out the Guggenheim for making a Blackout Tuesday post, but after she had had many racist experiences with some of the people and the management there. Um, so that's a whole topic that we're going to be kind of focusing in on in part two, but part one here, we're going to start with talking about what the exhibit actually was, and the art that it covered and centered around. 

Betty: Yeah, I just kinda want to start off with talking about like my personal experience and just like knowing who Basquiat is, or actually not knowing who Basquiat was, really, until I saw a show that featured his work. Or it was an entire show of his work back in 2015 at the AGO. It was called, uh, Jean-Michel Basquiat “Now’s The Time.” And that had, it was a huge show, it was like the biggest show, you know, in the city at the time. And it had a lot of his work and some of the work that's featured in “Defacement” was also there in 2015. So even though I didn't get to see this show, I did get to see what was a part of it, but maybe in a different context, although a lot of the content of “Now's The Time" also featured, or also involved topics of racism and issues with police and, um, you know, 1980s New York and those types of topics. But yeah, I, I definitely, I think I had heard of Basquiat before, but I didn't really know who he was until this show. And the really interesting thing about this show was that, um, it actually broke a lot of records in Toronto in terms of like attracting not only just a lot of people, but also—like it was hugely successful, but it was hugely successful among like 20s and 30 year olds. Whereas like generally, most people who visit the art gallery are in their fifties or higher. So it was, it was just amazing how many young people we were able to bring into the gallery and also, you know, expose to an art museum and hopefully get their business in the future. Uh, we really need to now, so maybe we should bring back some Basquiat. Um, but yeah, so I really enjoyed the show and his work. I just became super fascinated by it. It had a lot of his work as well as works that he, uh, collaborated with other artists like Andy Warhol and Keith Haring, as well as a bigger catalog of his work, like it includes some of his political messages, it includes some of his focus on like the music scene, like hip hop and jazz. And then, um, I actually personally really loved his pencil drawings, or pencil crayon drawings I think. Like that actually became super fascinating to me. I didn't even know he did that. So anyway, that was just kind of like, sort of my background on what I know of this artist. And, um, in an, in sort of researching this show, I was able to recall like what I saw… the artworks that I indeed did see, so I'm going to talk a bit more on the ones that I did see. But—which is, which are some of the most important works that, you know, we would talk about anyway.

Quinn: That is very cool that you were able to see a Basquiat exhibit. I… to the best of my memory, I don't think I've seen an exhibit that specifically focuses on his work, but I'm also not surprised to hear that he drew in a much younger crowd and that his pull was much, much more of, you know… cool people. [Betty laughs] No I’m just kidding, older people can be cool. But his work is super resonant, um, with young people and with contemporary people today, and especially like movements like the Black Lives Matter movement has taken on a lot of his symbols and iconography and incorporated them into sort of their social justice iconography, which I think is a really powerful message in the way that his work continues to be incredibly relevant. And he's also a tremendously successful artist. He is someone whose work has sold for some of the highest prices literally in all of history. At the time that his piece for the most money was purchased I believe it was, uh, the most expensive art sale of an American artist. I'm not sure if this record has been broken or not, but he, I still think he's in the top 10 for like of all art pieces ever sold, in the price that was paid for his work. Now, and we'll get into this a little bit more in his life in general, but he died very young at the age of 27. He did see, for contemporary artists, he did see tremendous success even during his lifetime. But it is incredibly sad he died so young. Especially since, I mean, he was, he was successful in the eighties. He would still be alive and making work. And I cannot even imagine the kind of work that he would be making right now and in the past few years and how vital that art would be, that we will never get to see. 

Betty: Yeah, it definitely is very sad and unfortunate that he, you know, he passed away so young. And I guess if he was alive, he would be like, obviously much older now, but even then, like, his work is so captivating for young people today. Like people who are in their teens or twenties or thirties today are, and all ages, you know, even, and also older adults are very much drawn into his work. So yeah, like he—despite the fact that, you know, he does focus a lot of his topic on the experiences of being Black in America, like he definitely, you know, has a huge, hugely diverse audience.

Quinn: Yes, that's certainly true. And then I—but I also think that his work is so tremendously important to Black people and like specifically Black Americans in the kind of work that he was making and, and… reaching a tremendous success for himself and also sort of reaching across—and also his ability to reach across different generations in this way and to still be relevant. And it, and I think that he was like, fundamentally making art for Black people and people who are like him and elevating that in a way that Black people often don't get to see themselves represented. His continual motif of crowns and of can—and of like almost canonizing historical Black figures. Like he had a particular interest in jazz legend  Charlie Parker. And depicting them as heroes and saints and king and himself as, as a king with this sort of repeated motif of the crowns, and all of these different ways… and all these different ways that he really saw to represent Black culture at a time, and like, obviously continuing to this day where people want to dismiss the work of Black people and the achievements of Black people—which is something that even though he did like achieve a great success during his life, for sort of like a contemporary artist, which is not super common—he often was belittled. He started out his sort of artistic career as a graffiti artist when he was basically a teenager. And even though he transitioned out of that pretty quickly and started rising up the ranks of the art world and his general different like, sort of mainstream markers of success, this idea of him as a graffiti artist followed him for the rest of his life, and was used to dismiss his work in a way that like, clearly was very racist and did not allow him to sort of… and I, I think that I've made it clear out in previous episodes that I love street art and I don't consider it a lower form of art at all. But in the way that it was sort of weaponized against him, it definitely was a term that people were using to try to belittle his work and to not grant him the same legitimacy as other quote unquote “fine artists.”

Betty: Yeah. And we, yeah, we definitely have talked about street art and graffiti before with episodes such as the Banksy episode. And, you know, we kind of talked about how, yeah, even today it's still in some—or in many people's eyes, not really seen as like quote unquote “real art” and that definitely plays into some people's perception of Basquiat. And then, kind of going back to what you were saying earlier regarding, yeah, like his depiction of Black American life. I think in terms of, this is, this is a bit of a tangent, but, in terms of—I think one of the reasons it was so successful even here in Canada, especially in Toronto is because, because we, we definitely have a huge Black community in Toronto and just like Basquiat, the majority of black Torontonians are actually Caribbean-Canadians. So they, they trace their heritage to places like Haiti or Puerto Rico, which I think is where Basquiat’s ancestry comes from. So, anyway, so like, so not only there is like that connection, but there's also a lot of parallels in, in Toronto and in Canada with experiences of Black Canadians. It's obviously very different from the American experience. You know, we, we don't have the same history of slavery as well as segregation, but there definitely was a lot of racism as well as mistreatment. And just, also, like, I think the thing that is significant in Toronto is there has been a continual erasure of Black culture. Like, just like other immigrants, like Jewish immigrants, Chinese immigrants, like Black Caribbean immigrants in Toronto—there’s a huge rich history of this group of immigrants. But, nobody really talks about it. There's very few, you know, historic records. There's not really any like mus—or as far as I know, there's not many like museums or exhibits featuring black Torontonians and a lot of Canadians, a lot of Torontonians, kind of saw these parallels and, it really resonated with us in terms of like our shared and common history.

Quinn: That's a really good point. And that's a really good insight into the way that this work translates in slightly different areas and different groups and how it can be interpreted to sort of, to represent different variations of the same struggle. So focusing in a bit on the specific exhibition that we've mentioned at the Guggenheim. So this was called “Basquiat’s Defacement: The Untold Story,” and it centered around a painting called “Defacement: The Death of Michael Stewart.” So Michael Stewart, if you are not already familiar with his story, he was a young Black artist in New York City who actually was a contemporary of Basquiat. They kind of ran into the same circles, kind of knew each other. And he was a street artist and he was tagging in a New York City subway—allegedly. I am not sure if he actually, what—the exact details on exactly what happened are a little fuzzy because of a thing I'll get to you in a moment. But he, he was a street artist, and this was something that he did, was like tag walls in subway stations and stuff like that. But he was basically hunted down by the New York City transit police. He was horribly beaten. And he later died after 13 days in the hospital. And this kind of thing might sound really familiar to most of the people listening. I mean, these are stories that we hear over and over again, they are the same fights that are being fought right now. And just as the Black Lives Matter protest and movement of the past few years and of literally at this second, there was a huge reaction, especially in New York City and especially in the artists of New York City as sort of reacting to this horrible instance of police brutality and the death of a young artist. Unfortunately, as you might be able to guess, all of the policemen who were involved in this were let off and were not punished. And one of the sort of framing narratives around the social justice and artistic response to this was “Michael Stewart: the man that nobody killed.” Because he was clearly beaten and died, but, no one was ever charged with his murder. So… Basquiat would frequently say things like “it could have been me.” And he meant that quite literally. I mean, he had a, he had a background as a street artist. They shared a circle of friends and like, was… like, it literally could have been him. They were both young Black men of about the same age. There were lots of similarities between them. And so he took it very personally and very intimately with his life. Basquiat’s specific reaction to this was to paint this piece called “Defacement” which he actually did on wall of Keith Haring, who is another very famous contemporary artist. And they were friends and he literally came over to Keith Haring’s studio and did this work. And so this wasn't ever really intended for sort of public consumption in the same way some of his other work was. But, it's very in his style, of these line drawings, and very sort of fluid colors that aren't contained by those lines. And so he chose to represent what happened to Michael Stewart in the form of two police officers who kind of have red faces and blue uniforms, who are surrounding a black silhouette figure, and they're beating him with sticks. On the top of it, it says “Defacement?” with the copyright symbol. I said it like that because there are question marks around it. I wasn't just questioning what it says, but yeah. Which is very typical of his work, he often incorporated words into his art. He was also a poet and a musician and like had a lot of word focus, as well as sort of his repeating motifs of iconography that sort of, that sort of signified a Basquiat piece. But, yeah, so he did this piece on the wall of Keith Haring’s studio and then Haring actually removed it from the wall and placed it in an ornate gold frame. 

Betty: Yeah, it is interesting, because in a way, yeah, it is like, you can tell it's a Basquiat if you've seen a lot of his work because of the way it's painted and drawn. But in a way it's also kind of different. LaBouvier, the curator, actually in one of the interviews that like, it is in a way kind of diverse void of usual motifs, such as the crown. As well as like he often has signifiers of Black achievement in his work, you know, such as his works that are, you know, about Charlie Parker and, musicians that he thinks represent like success. And, because obviously in this particular context, it's not about success. It's about continual, terribleness… I can't really find a good word there, but this one is like, it's, it's Basquiat, but it's also different. Like he's expressing in a way, expressing it in a way that's not typically how he would express Black people in his work. And even though, it does seem like, I'm not exactly sure—there is like a sort of circle above Michael Stewart’s head, which could imply that, you know, he's an angel or a saint. Michael Stewart was depicted by many other artists subsequently in sort of a saint like way. So that's, that could be what it's alluding to. And then the other thing is that Basquiat was also inspired by another artist who did a poster. It was, like, a protest poster done by the artist David Wojnarowicz. And so it was also featured in this exhibition at the Guggenheim. So yeah there was, there's like kind of a multiple of inspirations as well as like a different expression of what he normally does in this work.

Quinn: Yeah. One of the great things about this exhibit is the way that it does place this specific painting as well as Basquiat’s work in general in conversation with each other and in conversation with other artists of the time, and sort of other reactions to the murder of Michael Stewart. Like, like you said, they have this poster there, which scholars believe directly inspired Basquiat's Lyle Ashton Harris. As well as having works by other well known artists of the time, including Andy Warhol and Keith Haring, as well as some prints by artists like David Hammons and George Condo, Lyle Ashton Harris, like lots of different pieces that interpreted the… his death and the reaction to his death in different ways, which I think is— Like, that's one of the main reasons why I wish I had gone to see it, if only… I need to research the exhibits that are in town when I visit places better. Cause there is, like most great museum exhibits there is a book available about this exhibition, and all the works that are in there with commentary from the curator, all this amazing information. Unfortunately, I was not able to read that book before this recording, but it is out there. It will be linked in the show notes if people are interested in diving in deeper, but just reading the commentary that I was able to read from LaBouvier and her insights into not only Basquiat's work, but the way that she placed his work in conversation with a wider conversation around Michael Stewart. And not making—and making the exhibit about Basquiat, yes, but on the sub level, it is about this wider reaction in the art world to the murder of a young Black artist and the way that those kind of intersections were vitally important at the time, and continue to be vitally important. And I think that kind of thing is why art museums really matter and why it matters the way that you curate things… words mean things, yes. [laughter] But, but you know what I mean. And this is something that was done with so much care and with so much scholarship into a very particular issue in a very particular time, and place, and people, that is not the kind of thing that really exists anywhere else. Not even to mention that this exhibit also included things like newspaper clippings and art from Stewart himself that were rarely if ever seen. And being able to bring something that happened decades ago in the life of a man who was killed decades ago to life in the Guggenheim in 2019 is something that's almost like magic.

Betty: I mean, yeah. It definitely contributes to one of the reasons why I'm, I'm definitely disappointed that I didn't go see this. Like again, even though I have seen other works in this show, like I did see Defacement at the 2015 ago show. I did see many other works by Basquiat. I saw some of the other works of his that were also in this show, like, his painting Irony of a Negro Policemen in 1981. And also La Hara also painted in 1991 with also subject depicting the police. And, but I just think the context of this particular show in placing it with works by Stewart himself, works by Keith Herring, by Hammons, by these other contemporary artists and their reaction, as well as, you know, the context of the history with the news clippings. Like it's, it really, it gives—it would have, I think, it would have given you different experience than seeing like a retrospective of, you know, Basquiat or Keith Haring or even their works together like I did see. And, yeah, like I, I also was, quite blown away by Keith Haring's work that was in this show. So his work is called Michael Stewart: USA for Africa. And it's a painting that has a black man being strangled by, I think like handcuffs or something metal. And his neck is like stretched out like a lot. And he's also handcuffed at his hands and he's like naked and then there's like a, the Earth is to the right and the Earth is split in half and it looks like molten lava is pouring out of the Earth, but then like, in the lava, there's hands of different colored skinned people struggling, it’s almost like everybody is in pain because of this. But then like, there's like a hand that looks like it's about to choke Michael Stewart’s neck, that's a green hand with a money sign. So anyway, like Keith Haring, obviously he—this has a lot of Keith Haring motifs like the money sign and things like that in it. But again, it’s different from the rest of his work if you kind of know about his stuff, but, yeah. So, like it is, I think it's like looking at Basquiat’s “Defacement” and looking at Haring’s work as well as the works of most other artists. Like I think it makes me feel like not only like, you know, sad, but also just like really, I want to say like uncomfortable, and pain in a way that's not like—obviously I can't feel the pain of like Michael Stewart and his family, but like, just in terms of like, yeah, like it's, it's very powerful. Like almost in words that I obviously currently can't even describe. But this show definitely seems quite unique because it's not just about an artist. It's not just about a painting. It's not just about the history of what happened. It's kind of about all those things and how, like an entire community, even globally, reacts to something like this has happened. And then obviously how relevant it still is in 2019 and 2020. So the other—oh yeah, and the other thing about this work is in addition to the actual show itself, like the actual, if you had actually gone there and walked around, there there's a lot of like research and scholarly work that was put into this. LaBouvier wrote many essays in the catalog, she interviewed members of the initial grand jury of the trial for the police officers. She interviewed Michael Stewart's mother and also other artists who were featured in the show. And so—that who are still alive, I guess. And yeah, so, and then, you know, there's also talks and videos and stuff that, the ones that she did get to produce, which we'll talk about later. That, you know, there's, there's a lot of media that we can still dive into that has just so much more information and gives you so much of a historical context of this show that I think is really important. And like, I don't always buy exhibition catalogs and, you know, look beyond what I see in a, in an art gallery when I go see a show, but I think this show is definitely, even though I didn't see it, I feel like if I did, I would have bought the catalog and just try to, you know, read more about its backstory.

Quinn: I think that is a very good place to lead us into part two. So as we said in the beginning, part two will focus more on the experience of the curator of this exhibit, Chaédria LaBouvier. Both sort of her background with Basquiat and how she came to the Guggenheim and what happened after she got to the Guggenheim. So join us in two weeks for the conclusion to this little two parter. In the meantime, you can find our show notes for this episode at relay.fm/pictorial. And you can also find us on Twitter or Instagram @PictorialPod, where we’re going to post some of the images from this exhibit and Basquiat's work. You can also find me on Twitter or Instagram @aspiringrobotfm.

Betty: And you can find me on Twitter or, or Instagram @articulationsV and I am also on YouTube as ARTiculations. And speaking of YouTube, we also upload these podcast episodes to YouTube. You can look for Pictorial Podcast where we will upload the same episodes of these show, but along the way, you can follow the images that are shown on the screen which displays what we talk about within the show.

Quinn: Thanks for listening, art enthusiasts!