Jean-Michel Basquiat

Mary Boone Gallery, New York

Private Collection (acquired directly from the above in 1984)

Sale: Artcurial: Briest - Le Fur - Poulain - F.Tajan, Art Contemporain, 6 December 2005, Lot 295

Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich

Private Collection

Galerie Boulakia, Paris

Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

New York, Vrej Baghoomian, Inc, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1989, no. 25, illustrated in colour

New York, The New Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Hispanic Art and The Studio Museum Harlem, The Decade Show: Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s, 1990

Grace Glueck, 'The Basquiat Touch Survives', The New York Times, 22 July 1991, p. C13, illustrated

Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris 1996, Vol. II, p. 122, no. 9, illustrated in colour

Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris 2000, 3rd Ed., Vol. II, p. 190, no. 9, illustrated in colour

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is warmer and richer in the original. The catalogue illustration fails to fully convey the texture of the collaged elements apparent in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. There is light lifting to a few of the collaged elements. Very close inspection reveals a short and unobtrusive tear to one of the collaged elements; on the figure’s right shoulder and a further minute tear approximately forty centimetres beneath this. The glue used to paste the collaged parts has discoloured slightly over time. All other surface irregularities are in keeping with the artist’s choice of medium and working process. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultraviolet light.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

By 1984, the 24 year-old Jean- Michel Basquiat had become a sensation on the New York Contemporary art scene; gallerists and collectors gathered to marvel and acquire his vibrant and energetic canvases which pulsated with vivid hues and raw expression. The softly spoken yet boldly articulate young black artist astounded critics with his fluid unapologetic style. Following his first one-man show at the gallery of his New York dealer Mary Boone, The New York Times critic Vivien Raynor wrote, “The young artist uses colour well...But more remarkable is the educated line and the stateliness of his compositions, both of which bespeak a formal training that, in fact, he never had” (Vivien Raynor, ‘Paintings by Jean Michel Basquiat at Boone’, The New York Times, 11 May 1984). Indeed, Basquiat was a self-taught artist who used his vast cultural knowledge to create an entirely unique iconography. Red Joy exudes Basquiat’s energetic confidence through a multi-layered assemblage of symbolic imagery. He plays here with ancient and modern, investigating collage and montage styles which were unconstrained, immediate and consuming.

Born to a Haitian father and Puerto Rican mother and growing up in the cultural mix of Brooklyn, Basquiat was fascinated by his own cultural background and its artistic legacy, and as a result, ever conscious of his racial identity. Red Joy’s central protagonist, as is synonymous with the majority of his works, takes the outline of an anonymous black figure with hollowed-out eyes, clenched teeth and adorned with what appears to be a traditional headdress. The figure of Red Joy draws a direct reference to African reliquary masks in form and in its allusion to an almost spiritual presence within the composition. These were seminal influences on the young Basquiat who, like his hero Picasso before him, interrogated long-forgotten artistic traditions to interpret contemporary visual culture from a completely new perspective. The cartoon-line drawing evokes both the primitive scribbles of a child as well as the elaborate iconography of ancient African cultures. His freshly urban and inimitable brand of intellectualised Primitivism was informed by a full spectrum of art historical sources which included graffiti and cave art, and the religious and cultural influences from his tripartite heritage.

In Red Joy Basquiat has framed this sculptural and defiant woman by overpainting a bright crimson frame around the surface edges, allowing only glimpses of fragments of Xerox illustrations. This framing serves to further push the central figure out of the pictorial space, intensifying her confident gaze and confrontational stance. These bold patches of paint represent a fine contrast to the seemingly haphazard, frenetic overlapping of the Xerox images.  The positive and triumphant figure at once appears solitary and ungrounded, bearing existential references to Basquiat’s contradictory contrasts; a hugely successful artist whilst standing as the only black man amongst a heavily white art scene.

The struggle of the black man in a white dominated society was understandably always at the forefront of Basquiat’s observations. Red Joy’s solitary figure serves as a reminder of the scarcity of black representation within art history. The artist would as a result champion black figures from Egyptian times through to the 20th century, and honed a voice for inequality as well as a creative vision that served as a means of self-discovery. The ever curious artist was drawn to the cultural and political black heroes of his contemporary America and modern history. Red Joy celebrates several notorious champions of Jazz which were so close to his heart; here, he cements the names on canvas of those he held in such high esteem. The name of the most notorious American jazz percussionist, drummer, and composer, Max Roach,  is swathed in Xerox in the top left corner, along with the American jazz and R&B guitarist Tiny Grimes below a musical score in the lower right of the composition. Thought of as one of the first performers of Rock and Roll music, the sketch is a Xerox of his drawing Untitled (Tiny Grimes) executed in 1983, which he employed in many paintings between 1984 and 1985. His dedication to this varied group of talented African-American men re-emphasises their profound influence on the artist.

Red Joy beckons the viewer in to examine its workings closer still. The Xerox imagery of internal organs scattered amongst the background along with flashes of text such as “thoracic duct + postierio […] noses of the thorax”, highlight Basquiat’s on-going fascination with anatomy, which began when he was given the book Gray’s Anatomy by his mother whilst convalescing in hospital as a boy. His interests would continue with his discovery and study of the anatomical drawings of Leonardo da Vinci. Fred Hoffman writes: “His work appears to break down the dichotomy between the external and the internal, intuiting and revealing the innermost aspects of psychic life” (Fred Hoffman, ‘The Defining Years: Notes on Five Key Works’ in: Exhibition Catalogue, New York, Brooklyn Museum, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 2005, p. 131). On a paradoxical social level, his repetitious skeletal diagrams of the pelvis and digestive system dilute any racial prejudices as he examines the inner rather than the external body and therefore avoids any racial distinction.

Basquiat’s preoccupations manifest themselves through continuous lists and sketches; film references such as the Warner Bros. logo, listings of Bugs Bunny films along with a listing of the three Stooges filmography, serve to emphasise Basquiat’s interest in cartoons and early black and white films which continue in the upper-centre and centre-right of the canvas. Here, he refers to a scene from Aesop’s fable of The Farmer and the Cat. He then dates the reference as (1922), which refers to the year a black and white, silent cartoon was made on that subject by Pathé. The artist thus deliberately melds together high fable, firmly entrenched within the boundaries of the moral, with the low, often morally redundant art of the cartoon.

Red Joy is consumed with the exploration of surface, colour and expressivity in a cacophony of energetic documentaries.  Basquiat’s frenetic composition of texts and imagery address issues of race, culture and heritage with a raw, charged energy, providing the viewer with a work that exemplifies the electrifying spirit and bold rendering of one of the Twentieth Century’s most enigmatic and original artistic prodigies.