`Jean-Michel Basquiat Drawing: Work From the Schorr Family

‘Jean-Michel Basquiat Drawing: Work From the Schorr Family Colle...
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‘Jean-Michel Basquiat Drawing:
Work From the Schorr Family
Collection’ at
Acquavella Galleries
BY ANDREW RUSSETH
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This show of 21 drawings and two paintings by Jean-Michel
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Basquiat from the collection of Herbert and Lenore Schorr,
organized by Fred Hoffman, is invigorating and
heartbreaking. And for anyone interested in gaining a fuller
understanding of an artist who has recently become
fashionable again, it should be required viewing.
Most of the works date to the first half of the 1980s, when
Basquiat was in his early to mid 20s. They are densely
packed with images and writing: quick sketches share
space with lists, poems and stories.
In his paintings, Basquiat used oil and acrylic to attack and
conceal, making rough marks to form the inimitable heads,
‘Untitled (Just Sour)’ (1982) by Basquiat.
(The Estate of Jean--Michel Basquiat /
ADAGP, Paris / ARS, New York 2014)
bodies, monsters, dogs and skeletons that seem to pop off
his paintings’ surface and obscure much of the frenetic
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activity humming away underneath. In the drawings,
though, all is revealed. In the best of the pieces here at
Acquavella, you get a close-up view of that action, the rare chance to survey the tight network of
ideas, signs and symbols that undergird Basquiat’s art.
Two- and three-word phrases glide down pages in his trademark sharp scrawl—“just sour,”
“Smelting process ©,” “inatimate” (perhaps an elision of inanimate and intimate?) in a jumpy 1982
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number. (All the drawings are untitled.) Those words hint at moods, scenes and people; there’s
often a dark, strangely familiar tang to them. “One or two words containing a full body” is how the
late poet Rene Ricard once put it, writing about Basquiat’s work.
There are schematics (one for what looks like a stereo system), maps (to the Schorrs’ Westchester
home), what appear to be preparatory compendia (with hints of humor: some goofball faces, a cute
pig, “invaders of Krypton”), the odd telephone number and an epic boxing match (a crowned figure
pummeling the challenger).
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There’s also a tall, grimy portrait, all quick scratches, of a king with an almost doglike face,
surrounded by a field of tiny stars, scribbles, lines and texts (“Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr.…”) and two
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6/11/14 4:16 PM
‘Jean-Michel Basquiat Drawing: Work From the Schorr Family Colle...
http://galleristny.com/2014/06/jean-michel-basquiat-work-from-the-...
beasts, one ferocious, the other beleaguered. It’s 60 by 40
inches and a masterpiece of emotional turmoil. Basquiat let the
world into his art to a degree that few contemporary artists
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have dared. Since his death of a drug overdose in 1988, no
one else has come close.
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Not every piece in this
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show is perfect. Some
works are too spare
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and look unfinished.
‘Jean-Michel Basquiat Drawing: Work From the
Schorr Family Collection’ at Acquavella
Galleries
He was prolific. When
he was in his zone,
there’s not a line
7 Things to Do in New York’s Art World Before
June 13
wasted. Even the
densest drawings look
‘Untitled’ (1982) by Basquiat. (The
elegant and restrained; Estate of Jean--Michel Basquiat /
even in his weaker
ADAGP, Paris / ARS, New York 2014)
pieces, there’s
guaranteed to be a passage that sticks with you, like this
‘Untitled (Grid)’ (1981) by Basquiat. (The
Estate of Jean--Michel Basquiat / ADAGP,
Paris / ARS, New York 2014)
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Wiley on His ‘Dingbats’ at Nicelle Beauchene
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bit from a 1983 portrait of a grinning Charlie Parker:
“Composed, repeated, improvised, repeated.” It could have
been a mantra for Basquiat’s brief, unrelenting career.
(Through June 13, 2014)
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