Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) - Ishtar - Artestar licensed print - COA

Jean-Michel Basquiat Lithography (*) High-quality reproduction of the work “Ishtar” created by Basquiat in 1983. Luxury edition on Monte Carlo high-gram watercolor paper (300 g/m2). Print authorized by Artestar New York. Copyright of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Includes Certificate of Authenticity (COA). Specifications: - Support dimensions: 50 x 31 cm - Stain/spot dimensions: 40 x 21 cm - Condition: Excellent (this work has never been framed or exhibited, and has always been kept in a professional art folder, therefore it is offered in perfect condition). The work will be carefully handled and packed in reinforced cardboard. Shipping will be insured with a tracking number, operated by the best transport companies. The shipment will also include full insurance for the final value of the work with full reimbursement in case of loss or damage, at no cost to the buyer. (*) Jean-Michel Basquiat was the eldest of the three children of Matilde Andrades and Gerard Basquiat. His father was a Haitian accountant of respectable economic solvency and his mother a Puerto Rican graphic designer of great prestige in her profession. Jean-Michel grew up in a torn family environment; his parents divorced and, due to this, he had to change schools many times. He studied at a private Catholic school, later at a public school and finally, at 16, he entered City-As-School, a school for academically gifted adolescents, from which he was expelled, for rebelliousness, a year before graduating. Already in his youth he came into contact with the subculture of the big city, related to drug use and street gangs. In 1977, together with Al Díaz, he entered the world of graffiti, painting on subway cars and in SoHo, the New York neighborhood where art galleries proliferate. A year later he left school one year before graduating from high school and left home to live for two years on the streets, in abandoned buildings or with his friends in Lower Manhattan, surviving by selling postcards and T-shirts that he himself decorated. He continued to devote himself to graffiti; his paintings and writings carried a lot of poetic and philosophical weight, but above all satirical. The pseudonym of his alter ego shared with Al Díaz was SAMO (short for “Same Old Shit,” i.e., “the same crap as always,” with which they signed their tags and graffiti with cryptic messages. The use of this name was decisive in his life. These murals bore inscriptions such as “SAMO saves idiots” or “SAMO ends religious brainwashing, the politics of nothingness, and false philosophy.” An article about SAMO’s street writing published in The Village Voice was the first hint that the art world was taking an interest in him. The artist had several relationships that influenced his work, one of the most significant being with artist Andy Warhol. Likewise, on a personal level, he was involved with several women, one of the most well-known today being Madonna. Lower Manhattan was the area where they lived at that time, and in 1982 they began to spend more time together and attend parties in galleries. A topic that united them, she mentions in an interview: “I was a big fan of Miles Davis and Charlie Parker.” In 1988 exhibitions were staged in Paris and New York, and in April of the same year he tried to quit his addictions and returned to his home in Hawaii. He returned to New York in June, announcing that he had freed himself from addictions, but on August 12, 1988, at the age of 27, he died of a heroin overdose, becoming the best-selling visual artist in the history of Afro-descendant art. He is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn. Throughout his brief but intense artistic career he would hold more than 40 solo exhibitions and participate in around 100 group shows. Self-promotion and publicity were priorities for Basquiat, as they had previously been for Andy Warhol or Julian Schnabel. Neo-expressionism gradually overtook appropriationism, in part thanks to the economic boom that raised art prices to high levels and especially painting, and partly thanks to the support of gallerists and collectors. However, critics were not unanimous in their assessment, and it was common to denounce the lack of theoretical basis in neo-expressionist discourse. It was claimed that the art practiced by neo-expressionists lacked any political or social meaning, was mere merchandise and, therefore, subject to market fluctuations. Neo-expressionist painting was reduced to a consumer product and, as such, a creatively disqualified and vulgar fact. (**) No theme is more powerful or coveted in Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work (1960-1988) than the singular skull. For this enigmatic artist, the human head was more than an obsession. As suggested by the title “In This Case” (1983), the head is a box or cage that houses a cogwheel full of impulses and ideas. This work stands among Basquiat’s greatest achievements: a cranial abyss into which the artist has poured the content of his visual imagination, merging centuries of stylistic influence. “In This Case” is one of the three monumental skulls Basquiat painted. The painting’s pictorial intensity and immediacy are unparalleled in Basquiat’s œuvre.

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