尚·米榭·巴斯基亞

Mary Boone Gallery, New York
Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich
Private Collection
Sotheby's, London, November 29, 1995, Lot 52
Enrico Navarra, Paris
Acquired by the present owner from the above in 2009

Barcelona, Dau al Set Galeria d'Art, Jean-Michel Basquiat, October - November 1989, n.p., no. 3, illustrated in color
Málaga, Palacio Episcopal de Málaga, Jean-Michel Basquiat, May - July 1996, pp. 66-67 
Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts; and Taichung, Taiwan, Taichung Museum, Jean-Michel Basquiat, January - June 1997, pp. 64-65
São Paulo, Pinacoteca, Jean-Michel Basquiat: obras sobre papeis, June - August 1998, pp. 78-79, illustrated in color
Klagenfurt, Austria, Stadtgalerie Klagenfurt, Jean-Michel Basquiat, June - September 1999
Rome, Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Le Tribù dell'Arte, April - June 2001, p. 480, illustrated in color
Hong Kong, Gagosian Gallery, Jean-Michel Basquiat, May - August 2013
Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario; and Bilbao, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now's the Time, February - November 2015, p. 132, illustrated in color

Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 1st Ed., Vol. I, Paris, 1996, pp. 172-173, illustrated in color
Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 2nd Ed., Vol. I, Paris, 1996, pp. 208-209, illustrated in color
Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 3rd Ed., Vol. I, Paris, 2000, pp. 200-201, illustrated in color 
Richard D. Marshall and Jean-Louis Prat, Jean-Michel Basquiat, 3rd Ed., Vol. II, Paris, 2000, p. 214, no. 7, illustrated in color

This painting is in excellent condition. There are two small brown accretions noticeable under close inspection, one at center 16 inches up from the bottom edge and another toward the right edge 19 inches up from the bottom. A small network of hairline circular cracks are visible under extremely close inspection and raking light at the center of the composition in between the two black circular elements; a faint T-shaped hairline crack is also noticeable under close inspection at the right edge of the central quadrilateral form. There is a 1/8 inch area of loss just to the lower right of the 'S' in 'O.M.R.A.V.S.' Under ultraviolet light there are no apparent restorations. The canvas is framed in a wood frame painted white with a 1 inch float.
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.

As one of the most instantaneously arresting large scale paintings of his career, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s O.M.R.A.V.S provides a captivating demonstration of the sheer confidence of line, symbolic potency and cryptic allure that underscores his enduring significance within the history of painting.  With an ingenuity that utilizes the reductive essentials of representation, Basquiat crafts a mysterious open narrative steeped in esoteric personal associations.  As lauded by Jeffrey Deitch, Basquiat’s unique combination of cultural references offers us an insight into his idiosyncratic psychological space: “His works have a quality that seems to draw you in; it is like they offered some kind of clue to solving the puzzle of what’s in his mind. It sounds easy, but it is quite difficult for an artist to achieve that. The words, symbols and body parts that he uses all come together to form an expression of what he is thinking of as an artist...” (Jeffrey Deitch cited in Taka Kawachi, King for a Decade, Kyoto, Japan, 1997, p. 143) Embodying the African-American experience in the semi-autobiographical figure at its center, O.M.R.A.V.S crafts a tantalizing semiotic code just beyond the borders of complete decipherment, cementing his unique cultural purview in the canon of art history.

Painted in 1984 the present work exemplifies Basquiat at the height of his career. Having garnered the patronage of New York’s most influential gallerists during the early 1980s, Basquiat quickly established himself as a visionary of international repute who signaled a new direction in the neo-expressionist visual lexicon. Despite being one of the youngest artists to have ever been invited to exhibit at the prestigious exhibition Documenta in 1982, and gaining the formidable Andy Warhol as a mentor, Basquait was plagued with a self-doubt driven ambition. As early as 1983 Andy Warhol is recorded as saying that Basquiat was anxious about becoming a “flash in the pan.” (Ibid., p. 107) Subsequently O.M.R.A.V.S moves away from the expressionistic bathos of his earlier canvases, and explores a refined selection of discreet and intellectually loaded symbols. Like personal hieroglyphs O.M.R.A.V.S reveals Basquait’s complex world view that encompasses the hard hitting social concerns of racial discrimination; not least within art itself.  Referring to his entry into the art scene and art history in general Basquiat remarked that: “I realized that I didn't see many paintings with black people in them” (Jean-Michel Basquiat quoted in Cathleen McGuigan, ‘New Art, New Money', The New York Times, February 10, 1985) As rare elements of color in the present work, the rich mahogany striations that Basquiat endows the central figure with seek to redress the representational balance in art, mirroring his own lived position.  

Basquiat de-typifies his figure through the intricate semantic relations he builds between symbols that particularize his depiction of African-American subjectivity rather than generalizing it. A conglomeration of confident lines, abbreviated letters and numbers confer a crane and the branding of construction materials. A banal lyrical repetition of the equivocal word ‘FALSO’ simultaneously refers to the industrial machinery manufacturer based in Syracuse New York, but also the Spanish translation of ‘fake’.  Basquiat thus reformulates his lived environ to enigmatic ends. The charismatic figure clutching a telephone is made anonymous through an abstraction that also recalls the influence of African art on modern masters such as Picasso.  With one exaggerated finger pushed to a tactfully omitted mouth we enter into a coded infiltration of black consciousness into the realm of fine art; a reformulation of cultural exchange and artistic appropriation. Beneath the telephone pylons that carry the message of the mysterious protagonist we come across the cryptic code O.M.R.A.V.S - its perpetual mystery keeping the narrative of secrecy alive.

Five graduated black marks appear to puncture the canvas with straining drips that run down the picture plane and mirroring the discrete line of paint trailing from the yellow-eyed figure. Like bullet holes in a wall perhaps we are taken to the aftermath of violent crime. Perhaps it is here that Basquiat makes an oblique reference to the struggle of civil rights and the persistence threats of violence that have shadowed the development of African-American identity. Yet just as a cohesive narrative appears to emerge these minimal patches of oily black paint fade back into abstraction, and serve merely as formal punctuations balancing the compositional structure.  We see only the violent gestures of Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline as references to abstract expressionism emerge. Still, this sense of ‘high art’ is contrasted with the haphazard scrawl of crude monochrome symbols, a reference to the ‘hobo code’ that the artist once used as a youth during a period of homelessness. Basquiat’s genius is compounded in the melding of these disparate references, long considered conflicting. Through their mutual contrast Basquiat eschews concrete meaning, indulges in a layered deconstruction of referential norms, and carves out a new territory for his ‘alien’ figure in art history.