\n<\/p>\n
I<\/span>t seems like a new Jean-Michel Basquiat fashion collaboration drops online most weeks, from a \u00a320 Uniqlo crew neck T-shirt to a kimono or a sports bra. But more than 35 years since his death in 1988, would the New York artist have been flattered or horrified by the mass marketing of his art?<\/p>\n Basquiat\u2019s premature death at 27 means that questions will remain as to whether he would have signed off on things like bathmats on Redbubble or Ligne Bath\u2019s Trumpet candle. How would he, for example, have felt about a Basquiat collaboration with MeUndies underpants \u2013 with the tagline: \u201cJean-Michel Basquiat \u2026 taught us all to look inward and find our authentic self. MeUndies always strives for authenticity.\u201d<\/p>\n A new book, Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Making of an Icon, by Doug Woodham, the former president of Christie\u2019s auction house in the US, hopes to answer this question and unpack the neo-expressionist\u2019s journey to becoming one of the most famous artists in the world. <\/strong>\u201cI think comparing [him] to Keith Haring is a good way to try and understand it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Haring was a contemporary and friend of Basquiat\u2019s and, according to Woodham, \u201cwas the first contemporary artist to realise he could put his motifs on a keychain and sell it at pop-up shops, knowing that it wouldn\u2019t hurt his market value\u201d. While Woodham believes Basquiat would be \u201cexcited and happy\u201d about how the estate has marketed his artworks, he is unsure the artist would like all the merchandise upon which his work appears.<\/p>\n Friend and artistic collaborator Al Diaz, who co-created Basquiat\u2019s Samo graffiti tag, is more definitive. He believes the merch dilutes the meaning and message of the art in the process. \u201cIt\u2019s abusive at this point. It\u2019s demeaning to the artist, offensive and disrespectful,\u201d he says over the phone from New York. Was there anything Basquiat would have categorically hated, I ask? \u201cThere was that Barbie doll they did and a door mat. It seems so over the top and thoughtless,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s like, \u2018OK, let\u2019s print this on everything and anything\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat in December 1987.<\/span> Photograph: Irving Zucker<\/p>\n And yet the spectre in the popular consciousness of Basquiat as the starving junkie punk artist is complicated by Woodham\u2019s portrayal in The Making of an Icon. Once the artist started making money, he is characterised as \u201cloving cash\u201d, his ambition leading him to make a beeline to a friendship with Andy Warhol and even self-branding in a costume of designer suits flecked with paint. He had seen his fellow artist Julian Schnabel garnering attention for showing up to parties wearing pyjamas. \u201cHe chased fame very strategically and deliberately,\u201d says Diaz. \u201cHe was very, very clever and had a special charm.\u201d<\/p>\n The book posits that three key traumas shaped the artist: a near-fatal car crash during childhood; the sometimes violent breakdown of his parents\u2019 marriage, which led to his mother, Matilda, having a nervous breakdown; and finally his mother\u2019s wish for his father, Gerard, to raise him and his two sisters alone.<\/p>\n Gerard Basquiat was born in Haiti, but fled the country because of civil unrest, first going to Miami before ending up alone in New York. The artist\u2019s father only spoke French, but after learning English, he became an accountant. \u201cHe\u2019s really impressive,\u201d says Woodham, \u201che\u2019s also very domineering\u201d.<\/p>\n Gerard Basquiat often butted heads with his son. \u201cEverybody wants to be recognised and supported by their parents,\u201d says Diaz. \u201cHe had a lot of anger and disdain and disappointment because he never received that from his dad \u2026 having a bisexual, art-orientated son was not in [his father\u2019s] playbook.\u201d<\/p>\n After Basquiat\u2019s death, his estate was taken over by his father, and their layered relationship bled into our modern understanding of the artist. In The Making of an Icon, Gerard is portrayed as savvy \u2013 he partnered with Keith Haring\u2019s legal team who taught him about licensing \u2013 but also, understandably, controlling of his son\u2019s narrative.<\/p>\n Woodham spoke off the record to gallery curators who said that Gerard Basquiat would lean on them to omit certain parts of the biography (his mother\u2019s role in his life, the effects of his childhood trauma and the depths of his drug habit and bisexuality), so a more \u201cheteronormative\u201d narrative would be promoted. A narrative, one would assume, that would make him more palatable to both the elite art market and the wider public.<\/p>\n <\/span>Gerard Basquiat and his partner, Nora Fitzpatrick, in the living room of their Boerum Hill brownstone in Brooklyn, March 1978.<\/span> Photograph: Dinanda Nooney, courtesy of the Photography Collection, the Miriam And Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, the New York Public Library<\/p>\n There was a uniformity to how all the museum and gallery catalogues were written, says Woodham. And yet, he says: \u201cI think all these strands add a richness to the guy\u2019s character. I think it makes him more compelling and interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n The reach of Basquiat\u2019s art is undeniable. And for a younger generation, many of whom only know him through this merch, it simply doesn\u2019t matter that his art is omnipresent.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s fascinating to talk to 30-something collectors,\u201d says Woodham. \u201cFor them, Basquiat has always been in the pantheon. And the first time they ever heard of him was from a Uniqlo T-shirt.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It seems like a new Jean-Michel Basquiat fashion collaboration drops online most weeks, from a \u00a320 Uniqlo crew neck T-shirt to a kimono or a sports bra. But more than 35 years since his death in 1988, would the New York artist have been flattered or horrified by the mass marketing of his art? Basquiat\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27568,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[14489,15882,16444,10331,16446,3934,16443,12412,16445],"class_list":{"0":"post-27567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-basquiat","9":"tag-bath","10":"tag-candles","11":"tag-hated","12":"tag-jeanmichel","13":"tag-loved","14":"tag-mats","15":"tag-merch","16":"tag-underpants"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}