Jean-Michel Basquiat

Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris
Private Collection, Paris (acquired from the above in 1988)
Giraud-Pisarro-Segalot, New York
Private Collection, Paris
Acquired by the present owner from the above in April 2006

Paris, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Jean-Michel Basquiat, January - February 1988
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art; Montgomery, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Jean-Michel Basquiat, October 1992 - January 1994, p. 223, illustrated in color and p. 249, illustrated (installation photograph from 1988 Galerie Yvon Lambert exhibition)
Brooklyn, Brooklyn Museum; Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art; Houston, The Museum of Fine Ars, Basquiat, March 2005 - February 2006, p. 151, illustrated in color
Basel, Fondation Beyeler, Basquiat, May - September 2010, cat. no. 165, p. 179, illustrated in color; pp. 176-177, illustrated in color (1987 studio photograph) and p. 182, illustrated (installation photograph from the 1988 Galerie Yvon Lambert exhibition)

Michel Enrici, J.M. Basquiat, Paris, 1989, p. 141, illustrated in color
Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris, 1996, 1st ed., vol. II, cat. no. 5, p. 110, illustrated in color
Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris 1996, 2nd ed., vol II, cat. no. 5, p. 152, illustrated in color
Exh. Cat., Tokyo, Mitsukoshi Museum (and travelling), Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1997, pp. 116 - 117, illustrated (detail in 1987 studio photograph and installation photograph from the 1988 Galerie Yvon Lambert exhibition)
Exh. Cat., Paris, Fondation Dina Vierny-Musée Maillol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1997, p. 163, illustrated (detail in 1987 studio photograph)
Exh. Cat., Recife, Museo de Arte Moderna Aloiso Magalhaes, Jean Michel Basquiat: Obras Sobre Papiers, 1998, p. 117, illustrated (detail in 1987 studio photograph)
Tony Shafrazi, Jeffrey Dietch and Richard Marshall, eds., Jean-Michel Basquiat, New York, 1999, p. 279, illustrated in color
Exh. Cat., La Habana, Fundacion Havana Club, Basquiat en la Habana, 2000, p. 200, illustrated (detail in 1987 studio photograph)
Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris, 2000, 3rd ed., vol. II, cat. no. 5, p. 258, illustrated in color and p. 287, illustrated (installation photograph from the 1988 Galerie Yvon Lambert exhibition)
Leonhard Emmerling, Basquiat, Cologne, 2003, p. 75, illustrated, (detail in 1987 studio photograph)
Exh. Cat., Paris, Fondation Dina Vierny-Musée Maillol, Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Work of a Lifetime, 2003, pp. 156 - 157, illustrated (detail in 1987 studio photograph and installation photograph from the 1988 Galerie Yvon Lambert exhibition)

Jean-Michel Basquiat was considered a radical artist in the 1980s and this description continues to ring true today.  The spirited young artist filled a void in art history and brought art back to life as he quickly rose to stardom in the art world.  The self-taught artist's works evoked a childlike spontaneity while displaying a distinct awareness and command over materials.  Basquiat rejected intellectual coolness and scholarly irony in his work in favor of a return to modernist impulses in a post-modernist consciousness.  Riddle Me This Batman, from 1987, is an extraordinary example of the increasingly complicated and frenzied late work by the artist – a painting that truly culminates everything Basquiat stood for and firmly establishes the late work as holding equal importance to his paintings from earlier in the decade.  Basquiat's style of painting is often described as primitive; however, it is his own form of primitivism, one that is distinctly different from that of Pablo Picasso or Jean Dubuffet.  There is an unencumbered naiveté that is both playful and disturbing.  The representation of African history in the tradition of Western art was the principal issue throughout Basquiat's oeuvre and he decided early on that the black man would be the subject of his work – whether in depiction of black sports or music heroes or in portrayals of the struggles of slavery and racism.  The choice of Batman in the present work is yet another representation of a black hero – in this case, the mysterious black-cloaked superhero.

The Batman comics began in 1939 and were made into a popular television series starring Adam West in 1966.  In the series, Batman and his sidekick Robin defend Gotham City from villains such as The Joker and The Riddler, both depicted in the present work.  The Riddler on the left has a thin mask and a distinguishing question mark on his action figure costume.  The Riddler would often present his riddles to Batman with the question "riddle me this Batman?" and at one point asks, "riddle me this, riddle me that, who's afraid of the big black bat?".  The Joker looks on with his unsettling toothy grin and the two are surrounded by their own evil laughter that is represented in text form across the entire canvas.  There is a twisted and malevolent sense of humor between these two characters.  Two black bats hover in the right register and lead the viewer to believe that the "big black bat" could potentially be a self-portrait of the artist.  Basquiat incorporates the upside-down crown in the lower left quadrant, a common symbol in the artist's work that is not only a referent for the artist's persona but is also a symbol of respect for other figures in his work.

In a way there are riddles throughout Basquiat's work – part of the artist's refusal to make sense.  In 1987 he makes a distinct shift to a flatter and more cartoon-like painterly style.  As Richard Marshall notes, "the altered style, subject, and mood of these late paintings shows Basquiat exploring a new vocabulary.  Understandably resistant to being identified only with his familiar masklike heads, skeletal black men, and tributes to famous black musicians, he was seeking out new means of visually expressing his deep-felt concerns with the issues of race, identity and aesthetics.  Yet this desire to grow artistically and to challenge himself and his viewers' expectations was mitigated by his feelings of disillusionment and loss, all exacerbated by his drug dependency."  (Exh. Cat., New York, Whitney Museum of American Art (and travelling), Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1992, p. 26)   Basquiat often used symbols in his paintings from his favorite book Symbol Sourcebook by Henry Dreyfus.  In the present work he incorporates a circle with a spot in the middle, a cryptic sign used by hobos to warn each other of potential dangers.  Next to the sign is written "nothing to be gained here" intensifying the message of disillusionment and defeat that is so prevalent in the artist's late work.

Symbols from the Dreyfus book are also used extensively in Basquiat's Pegasus, from 1987, a painting that centers on the fundamental tragedies of the human condition in an assemblage of tightly composed drawings of obscure symbols and words.  The inevitability of death is a theme that runs through Basquiat's oeuvre, not just in the late work; however, in the last two years of the artist's life the obsession with death is intensified and clearly referenced.  Riding with Death from 1988 does not mask death and it is hard for the viewer not to read this as a premonition.  In 1986, Basquiat's life reached a pinnacle of unraveling – he separated from Jennifer Goode (the woman he was perhaps closest to), he was overwhelmed by the sudden death of close friend Andy Warhol and broke ties with his dealer Bruno Bischofberger.  He began to lose control of his career and eventually his life to a drug overdose in 1988.

The present work is a truly outstanding illustration of Jean-Michel Basquiat's terse aesthetic, throbbing with a network of impulses that informs his extraordinary means and forms of expression. Riddle Me This Batman chaotically encapsulates a convergence of interests, powerfully exemplifying the complex nature of his technical, conceptual and polemical energies. Basquiat's life and art typify the extremes of the 1980s in New York. Stratospherically catapulted into the art journals and the society pages, he was heralded as one of the most important artistic discoveries of the Twentieth Century – like Batman, he became a cultural icon. A breath of fresh air, Basquiat's art broke rank with, usurped and ultimately, became the canon, and was subsequently devoured by critics, dealers and collectors alike. An irony exists that in a two year period, when the artist was losing everything, he was also achieving ultimate success as an artist. His legacy continues to this very day: the potent exuberance of Riddle MeThis Batman as challenging today as it was in 1987.