Fall 2017 Issue
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (L.A. Painting) (1982) was a game changer. Text by Derek Blasberg.
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled (L.A. Painting), 1982, acrylic, oilstick, Xerox copies, collage, marker, and spray paint on canvas, 67 × 205 inches (170.2 × 520.7 cm) © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York. Photo by Rob McKeever
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Untitled (L.A. Painting), 1982, acrylic, oilstick, Xerox copies, collage, marker, and spray paint on canvas, 67 × 205 inches (170.2 × 520.7 cm) © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York. Photo by Rob McKeever
This year, Jean-Michel Basquiat set the record for the highest-selling American artist when Untitled, a work from 1982, sold for $110.5 million at Sotheby’s. The work of art you see here, Untitled (L.A. Painting), debuted the same year at the former Gagosian Gallery on N. Almont Drive as part of the exhibition Jean-Michel Basquiat: Paintings. It was the first time Basquiat had exhibited in Los Angeles and his second solo show ever. The work is a masterpiece and has many of the hallmarks that we’ve come to associate with his work: the crown, the bird, the coin, the skull. With its underlayers of golden yellows (like sand or sun) overcome by soft blues (tones of the ocean), this panoramic painting, the largest of the twelve that were included in that landmark show, is marked by the geography of its inception: seeing it is like looking out at the Pacific from the shore. This California ambiance is worth noting.
Basquiat with Untitled (Julius Caesar on Gold) (1981; left) and Untitled (L.A. Painting) (1982; ground), New York, c. 1981 © Pierre Houlès
Given the mythical relationship between the artist and New York City, Basquiat’s West Coast outings have often been overlooked, but with two additional shows after the first (one in 1983, the other in 1986) and many trips in between—often staying at Larry Gagosian’s U-shaped house in Venice Beach—he made Los Angeles an important second home during crucially industrious years of his life.
Derek C. Blasberg is a writer, fashion editor, and New York Times best-selling author. He has been with Gagosian since 2014, and is currently the executive editor of Gagosian Quarterly.
Gagosian director Jessica Beck speaks with Lee Mergner, author and publisher of JazzTimes, about Basquiat’s lifelong engagement with jazz on the occasion of “Bebop Revolution: JLCO with Wynton Marsalis,” two nights celebrating bebop and the genre’s influence on the painter at Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York.
Vincent Gardner, trombonist, composer, and arranger in the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, speaks about the bebop genre and Jean-Michel Basquiat with the Quarterly’s Alison McDonald on the occasion of “Bebop Revolution: JLCO with Wynton Marsalis,” two nights celebrating bebop at Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York.
Jessica Beck addresses Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1982 trip to Italy, considering the effects of the country’s art and history on the young painter’s process and iconography. She focuses in particular on the painting Untitled (1982).
Join Gagosian for a conversation between director, producer, and writer Sophia Heriveaux and actor, director, and writer Roger Guenveur Smith inside the exhibition Jean-Michel Basquiat: Made on Market Street, at Gagosian, Beverly Hills. Heriveaux and Guenveur Smith both share a personal connection to Basquiat: Heriveaux is the artist’s niece and Guenveur Smith was one of his friends and collaborators. The pair discuss Basquiat’s work and legacy, as well as his lasting impact on contemporary art and culture.
The Spring 2024 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available with a fresh cover design featuring Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Lead Plate with Hole (1984).
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s sisters, Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux, met with filmmaker Tamra Davis, art dealer Larry Gagosian, and author and curator Fred Hoffman to reflect on their experiences with the artist during the 1980s in Los Angeles.
Megan N. Liberty explores artists’ engagement with notebooks and diaries, thinking through the various meanings that arise when these private ledgers become public.
Jenny Saville reveals the process behind her new self-portrait, painted in response to Rembrandt’s masterpiece Self-Portrait with Two Circles.
The Spring 2019 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Red Pot with Lute Player #2 by Jonas Wood on its cover.
Fred Hoffman looks back on the creation of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Tuxedo (1983), examining the work’s significance in relation to identity and the hip-hop culture of the 1980s.
Larry Gagosian reflects on Peter Paul Rubens’s The Massacre of the Innocents (c. 1610).
Lars Nittve investigates Truck Trilogy, Walter De Maria’s last work, conceived in 2011 and premiered at Dia:Beacon in 2017.