Jean-Michel Basquiat

Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York
Galerie Enrico Navarra, Paris
Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles
Private Collection, New York
Sotheby's, New York, November 10, 2010, lot 455
Acquired by the present owner from the above sale

Los Angeles, Gagosian Gallery, Jean-Michel Basquiat: Paintings and Drawings 1980-1988, February - March 1998, cat. no. 7, illustrated

Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, eds., Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1st Ed., Vol. I, Paris, 1996, p. 19, illustrated in color
Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, eds., Jean-Michel Basquiat, 2nd Ed., Vol. I, Paris, 1996, p. 37, illustrated in color
Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, eds., Jean-Michel Basquiat, 3rd Ed., Vol II, Paris, 2000, cat. no. 9, p. 90, illustrated in color

This work is in very good overall condition. The edges of the sheet are unevenly cut, inherent to the artist's working method. There is a horizontal crease across the sheet located approximately 9 inches from the bottom. All apparent evidence of handling and wear, surface accretions, creases, fingerprints and graphite smudges are presumably original and a result of the studio environment. There are scattered small tears around the edges of the sheet, the most noticeable of which is a repaired 4 inch tear at the top, approximately 5 ½ inches from the right edge. The sheet is mounted to fiberglass. Framed under Plexiglas.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Exuding dynamism and energy, Untitled from 1981, is a magnificent distillation of the major themes and socio-cultural concerns that epitomized Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work during the earliest stage of his career. The present work features several motifs and symbols of key importance that were to recur throughout Basquiat’s oeuvre, including the prominently illustrated central figure, a baseball and the repeated “S” encased within the outline of a house. Basquiat delineates these symbols through highly assured manipulation of color and line.

The reiterated “S” recalls Basquiat’s graffiti moniker, SAMO: the symbol of Basquiat’s early work and shortening of the phrase “same old shit, different day.” With its dense, heavily worked lines, Basquiat’s strong and confident mark-making are most profound and astounding in the central figure where he has obscured the figure’s face with black oilstick, emphasizing the figure’s race, a theme of seminal importance to Basquiat’s oeuvre.The baseball at the upper right corner alludes to Basquiat’s own admiration and near obsession with black atheletes, and therefore the work as a whole engenders a powerful and ambiguous scrutiny of black athleticism: at once, the canon of aspirational black sports figures is celebrated yet satirized by an autobiographical allusion to Basquiat's Haitian heritage - the cheap labour destination for the export manufacture of baseballs since the 1960s. Indeed the positioning of the central figure with its strong stance and raised arm recalls the ubiquitous image of two black athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, raising their fists as they receive their gold and bronze medals at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. This quiet protest to the ongoing violation of civil rights became a symbol of the movement, in athleticism and beyond.

Via an astounding pluralistic command of art historical vernacular that synthesizes graffiti, primitivism and Abstract Expressionism, Basquiat presents a powerful racial dialectic as a palimpsest of post-modernity. Indeed, such intense erudition is authoritatively delivered by an unsurpassed magnificence of surface manipulation. Basquiat's beatification of black sporting prowess is similarly as ambiguous. As expounded by Richard Farris Thompson, the coronation of mask-like sports personages "at once celebrates and satirizes one of the few professions in which blacks are permitted to excel." (Richard Farris Thompson, "Brushes with Beatitude", Exh. Cat., New York, Whitney Museum for American Art, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1993, p. 50) Thus, whilst engendering an iconography of salutation and commemoration, Basquiat simultaneously invokes social criticism. As succinctly outlined by Glenn O'Brien, Basquiat "presented so simply how society expected black people to be athletes and not painters" (Glenn O'Brien in New York, Deitch Projects, Jean-Michel Basquiat 1981: Studio of the Street, 2006, p. 19)

1981 was a year of seminal importance for Basquiat, marking his elevation from graffiti artist to a celebrated and widely feted member of New York’s cultural scene. Deitch states that it was in this year that Basquiat “made the transition from a profusely talented and promising artist working on the street to a world-class painter, poised to become one of the most influential artists of his time.” (Deitch in: ibid., pp. 10-13). Basquiat first came to wider attention following his inclusion in the New York/New Wave exhibition at P.S.1 in Long Island in February 1981. A show followed in Modena in May that year at the request of gallerist Emilio Mazzoli, but it was Annina Nosei’s decision to invite the artist to take part in a group show at her gallery in September that was to have the greatest impact on Basquiat’s early career trajectory. Nosei allowed the artist to use a room beneath her gallery as a studio, which enabled Basquiat to begin working on a larger scale and with a wider variety of materials than previously. A truly remarkable year for Basquiat was crowned by the release of René Ricard’s Radiant Child in December, in which Ricard wrote eulogistically of Basquiat’s early work: “The elegance of Twombly is there but from the same source (graffiti) and so is the brut of the young Dubuffet.” (René Ricard, “The Radiant Child,” quoted in: ibid., p. 242) Untitled was created during this year of profound artistic advancement and progress: a time that can arguably be considered a golden period of development for Basquiat, a young artist as yet relatively unaffected by the ravages of fame and celebrity,  at the very beginning of a highly promising and ground-breaking artistic career.