Jean-Michel Basquiat

Mary Boone Gallery, New York
Christie's, London, May 12, 2005, lot 563
Acquired by the present owner from the above sale

This work appears in excellent condition overall. Please refer to the following condition report prepared by Simon Parkes Art Conservation.
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.

By 1984, Jean-Michel Basquiat had already had solo shows in New York, Los Angeles, and across Europe and had solidly established himself as the artist of the late 20^th century.  Growing up in the downtown scene of New York, Basquiat was a polyglot artist who worked in both the visual and the performing arts, but it would be his paintings and drawings which would tap a nerve both within the artistic community and beyond into the general cultural current of the 80s.  His art was at once personal and intimate and through its "primitive" and child-like innocence also assumed a particularly poignant immediacy.  However, the rough-hewn nature of his work should not be assumed as uninformed as he frequently saturated his works with various historical and ontological references.

Untitled (Everybody's 2 Cents) is a prime example of Basquiat's ability to capitalize on the use of negative space while employing various symbols in order to achieve a synthetic unity entirely his own.  The child of an immigrant Haitian father and a Brooklyn born Puerto Rican mother, Basquiat was acutely aware of both the opportunities and disadvantages provided by living in the United States as a member of a minority group.  The large white obelisk in the center of the image is clearly reminiscent of the Washington Memorial – that paean to the first president of the first nation to base its governmental belief structure on equality for all.  Similarly, the two coins, one face up and one seemingly embedded within the canvas, are indicative of Basquiat's commercial aspirations and achievements.  Unfortunately, the same success and fame that would propel him and art into the cultural mainstream, would also lead to his subsequent creative exasperation and untimely death.

Basquiat's ability to traverse the cultural divide from downtown graffito into uptown art-superstar has been as much revered as it has been maligned.  Basquiat achieved that particular "American Dream" and he has quite obviously manifested these achievements in the present work – the two coins, his success, made possible only under the aegis of the governing ideals of that quintessential American and his Founding Father compatriots.