A long overdue retrospective of the collaborative works by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol opened this fall in New York City. Almost 40 years after their premiere was lambasted by contemporary critics, the four-floor exhibition hosted by the Brant Foundation on 6th Street between 1st and A Avenue in the East Village is a must-see, whether you’re a long-time admirer of both artists or a curious newcomer. More than another gallery show starring two dead painters, this exhibition brings home to New York City the once-ignored works of two of its favorite sons.
The combined work of these artists is at its best when their individual contributions become indistinguishable. Their two different styles—Basquiat’s menagerie of symbols and words drawn from street signs and textbooks and allegory, and Warhol’s infamous screen print copy-and-paste—melt into a sea of painted expression. In fact, both artists would use each other’s technique. Basquiat would shortly begin to utilize the screen print techniques that made Warhol famous; and, as a close friend would later say in a documentary on Warhol’s life, “[Jean-Michel] got Andy drawing again. And no one could draw like Andy.” Their shared fascination with imagery, from relocated corporate logos to religious icons (Warhol, being a closeted Catholic, attended Mass every day and slept with a crucifix above his bed), brought a wonderful back-and-forth style of creation that had both artists working on multiple monumental canvases at once. The Foundation’s layout encourages the viewer to see how the collaboration changed technique in those few short years—first would come the screen print logo, followed by a tight-lined sketch reminiscent of Basquiat’s poetic graffiti beginnings. Shortly thereafter, the field for imagery found on the canvas would change, allowing the art to grow under a painted halo. From dotting the whole canvas to collapsing the border, the new idea became that the work might stretch on invisibly forever.
The third floor’s centerpiece is AFRICAN MASKS, a 420-inch-long single-stretch canvas conveying their shared direction into mutual harmony. With its sparse lettering, paint drips (accidental or purposeful?), and spouts of calligraphy, the work presents as an homage to Picasso’s Les DEMOISELLES d’AVIGNON that surpasses the source material through sheer force of length. The masks in question number in the dozen. Five in a bold, challenging black, four in an emaciated haunting white, three in a menagerie of color, appear from a melting collision of ideas found in a field of blues and in darts of yellow at the left of the canvas. The field on which the masks take shape is a solemn gray scribbled with reds and and deep blue and a pale yellow. The masks take different shapes, the fourth from last even growing a torso (albeit one missing its limbs), but the technique remains constant. They are printed and drawn over and over again until the raw application thrusts them off the surface and glare you down in a primal and fully human way—to the ancestral mind, haunting and familiar. One particular brown mask is composed in layers: a white diamond applied by a large brush, a pointed face (most likely Andy, the realism is uncannily him) in black ink, and light blue finishes around and within this face featuring crystal-like detailing. This was the first time the scrubbing away of paint could be seen in their combined work, and it proved effective to their vision.
Not far away was a more subtle surprise: what began as a silkscreen of GE and Arm & Hammer logos had been turned upside down and drawn over, if not for thematic reasons than for a more pure composition. The layering between each artist allows room to grow and shine, and their styles begin to meld together.
Basquiat was notorious for painting even when he lacked canvas or a “proper” surface. A triptych made from three door hinges, TOMBSTONE, painted shortly after Warhol’s death, lives up to its name. Its display in a private corner provides a moment of contemplation; the yellow cross, morbid and misshapen, the word “PERISHABLE” scrawled and then crossed out, the black rose on left standing tall. In the context of this gallery, the piece looks as much like a tombstone for Basquiat as for Warhol. The middle of the room provides a visceral sculptural experience. Ten boxing bags, with prints of Jesus at the last supper and other drawings splayed over and through them, hang from an industrial grate in the ceiling.This display forms the centerpiece of the room and shows both artists at the height of their combined work, neatly dividing the space—if not the gallery encounter—into two halves. Whether from a draft (I didn’t feel one) or from the kinetic energy in the building, the chains sway slightly, as some mysterious force exerts its small power over them.
Behind a wall and around the corner a small space holds portraits of both men like a shrine. First, the humorous yet powerful Untitled (Andy Warhol With Barbells) painted by Basquiat. Andy Warhol’s hair is bright and spiked white. Dashes of reds, oranges, contrast against deep black shadows to bring Warhol’s visage to life. A loving portrait and also a bright cartoon, it makes a wonderful addition to this secretive space. On the next wall is a similarly sized but drastically different portrait of Basquiat by Warhol which imposes the young artist’s face on the bodies of different muscle-men from a number of different exercise magazines. Even in its stark X-ray quality of white and gray against a black background, it forms a humorous statement on the power the young man wielded.
At their formal introduction, Basquiat and Warhol took a variety of photographs encouraged by the gallerist Bruno Bischofberger. As soon as Bischofberger had grabbed a now-iconic photograph of the two men side by side, Basquiat rushed back to his studio in elation. Two hours later, an assistant arrived on Andy’s doorstep carrying a double-portrait so new that the paint had yet to dry. Dos Cabezas is the catalyst of their entire corroboration. The frantic pace with which this piece of canvas, held over an improvised wooden support, was realized is nothing short of staggering. The pale flesh tones of Warhol are accentuated by the pink strokes to his nose and lips, a long blue line forming a thoughtful finger at his chin. Next to him, blue-on-black, is Basquiat with a toothful grin and wild hair and an admiration in his simply-drawn eyes. A glob of brown and blue paint is preserved as it had run down the face. Warhol’s left eye is obscured by the silver shock of hair, but the right stares out with the focus and observation of the icon who’d survived an attempted murder nearly a decade before and had brought Campbell’s Soup and Marilyn Monroe to religious status. Dos Cabezas, though not a collaborative work, is still a wondrous sight.
Contemporary critics, however, didn’t gel. In the dizzying, inflated art market of the 1980’s, the combined social critique and expressive skill of Basquiat and Warhol were instead seen as a symptom of “the excess decade.” The two men would split creatively, but would remain in close touch, Warhol even serving as Basquiat’s landlord. Warhol was something of a father figure, but nothing good lasts forever. Basquiat had picked up an opioid habit he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—kick, and Warhol went in for a routine gallbladder surgery one day and died on the operating table. Basquiat was never the same. His work would change drastically, and he would become far less prolific. One of his last paintings is a harrowing two-part series called EROICA, the Greek word for heroism. On both are scrawled the phrase “MAN DIES” under what looks like a peace sign unenclosed, repeated over and over, like an obsessive mantra. Less than two years after Warhol would pass, Basquiat would die of a heroin overdose at the age of 27. In the years following their deaths, the fame and price of their works would reach astronomical levels. Basquiat’s Untitled, a skull painting from 1982, sold at auction for $110.5 million, the most expensive work by an American artist at a public sale. But somehow the collaborative work slipped past the public, a trivia question for people in the know. By displaying these projects, the Brant Foundation has brought them out of the shadows of art history, and given the partnership of both artists the dignity, and attention, it deserves.