From 21 September 2017 to 28 January 2018, the Barbican Art Gallery in London hosted Boom For Real, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s first major retrospective on British soil. The latter is articulated around a hundred works of the artist – drawings, collages, paintings, notebooks – but also many photographs, films, melodies and other rare archives that bring the visitor back to the New York. The city is now on the brink of financial bankruptcy, crime has doubled in ten years, the number of rapes has tripled. In 1978, his friend Al Diaz and he tagged the walls, doors and lifts of a deliquescent urban space, affix the first trademark of Basquiat: SAMO ©, like Same Old Shit. He then worked on collages, photocopies, postcards that he sells for $ 1 to visitors lining up in front of the MoMA, performances and music, before being considered one of the most important painters of his generation. Accompanying this wonderful exhibition, which takes place from 16 February 2018 at the Schirn Kunsthalle Museum in Frankfurt, this catalog contains some very fine essays that place Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work in a broader artistic context and analyze his career. through the prism of performance. Six thematic chapters offer new research on the artist, with essays by the poet Christian Campbell on SAMO ©; curator Carlo McCormick on New York and the New Wave scene; writer Glenn O’Brien on the downtown scene; Academic Jordana Moore Saggese on Basquiat’s relationship with film and television; and finally a music specialist, Francesco Martinelli, on the artist’s obsession with jazz. This new in-depth study of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s life and work also includes rare archival documents and numerous photographs with detailed captions, demonstrating that his legacy remains more powerful and relevant than ever.
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