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JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1961-1988) ASS signed, titled twice and dated "Jean-Michel Basquiat Ass1984...
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Category:Everything Else / Other
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NOT SOLD (BIDDING OVER)
0.00USD+ applicable fees & taxes.
This item WAS NOT SOLD. Auction date was 2003 Nov 14 @ 11:00UTC-5 : EST/CDT
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT
(1961-1988)
ASS
signed, titled twice and dated
"Jean-Michel Basquiat Ass1984"
on the reverse
oil and acrylic on wooden door
793/4 x 30 x 2 in.
(202.6 x 76.2 x 12.7 cm)
executed in 1984
ESTIMATE: $300,000-400,000
PROVENANCE
Galerie Daniel Templon, PARIS
Tony Shafrazi Gallery, NEW YORK
Private collection
EXHIBITED
PARIS, Galerie Daniel Templon, JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT, 1987
LITERATURE
Galerie Enrico Navarra, JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT, PARIS, 2000, p. 278 (illustrated)
In the late 1970's, Jean-Michel Basquiat first began to leave his creative mark on the streets of New York City. Working with his close friend Al Diaz, and adopting the collaborative pseudonym of SAMO, Basquiat spray painted witty, philosophical aphorisms throughout lower Manhattan. By 1980 Basquiat had effectively relinquished his identity as SAMO, but this early experience as a graffiti artist maintained a lasting grip on his mature art. It clearly informed the loose, improvisational, scrawl-like marks that covered most of his canvases during the 1980s, and also planted the seeds for his combined use of image, text and, as evidenced in the present lot, medium. In Ass, 1984 we see a link between the early years during which Basquiat painted his message on city streets and the final years of his creative life as prince of American Neo-Expressionism.
When Basquiat's artistic expression moved from the streets of Manhattan and into the gallery he transported with it familiar objects of city decay and debris. He often used found objects like the door on which the present lot is painted, as symbols of his past and, ultimately, symbols of art history. He liberally quoted from the history of art, as well as drawing inspiration from the urban street culture. This sophisticated mixture of high and low sources is certainly apparent in Ass, 1984.
His impulse to combine a number of materials, elements, and subjects-made, found, constructed and collaged-recalls the early work of Robert Rauschenberg....He would also have found art historical reassurance in Rauschenberg's use of old doors
(R. Marshall, Jean-Michel Basquiat, New York, 1992, p. 20)
Along with Basquiat's use of found objects he also injected a series of symbols and words into his art that became a kind of code that he continually sourced throughout his creative life- the three pointed crown being one of the most common and personal of the symbols.
He remained true to himself, what is more, with a single motif reprised right up to his death: the sign of the three-pointed crown. Banking not only on hard work and inspiration to get him through, but also on amuletic forces, he continually crowned himself king of painters, calling on fortune to extend his status. The crown, in his hands, magically fuses the past, his dominant position in the graffitero days, when his were the wittiest writings on the walls, with the future.
(ibid., p. 36)
Ass, 1984, is a powerful example of Basquiat's most potent combination- that of words, street sensibility and symbol. The crowned head of the opened mouth, red-eyed burro could easily be interpreted as a self-portrait. The crossed out "ass" has been copyrighted perhaps as a declaration of the ownership the artist felt for the word/title. Ass, 1984, combines Basquiat's humor as well as his concerns about race, class structure, ethic heritage, popular culture and his position within all of it.
Auction Location:
United States
Previewing Details:
Saturday November 1, 2003 10am to 5pm
Sunday November 2, 2003 1Pm to 5pm
Monday November 3, 2003 10am to 5pm
Tuesday November 4, 2003 10am to 5pm
Wednesday November 5, 2003 10am to 5pm
Thursday November 6, 2003 10am to 5pm
Friday November 7, 2003 10am to 5pm
Saturday November 8, 2003 10am to 5pm
Sunday November 9, 2003 1Pm to 5pm
Monday November 10, 2003 10am to 5pm
Tuesday November 11, 2003 10am to 5pm
Wednesday November 12, 2003 10am to 5pm
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