Jean-Michel Basquiat
Wolf Sausage, 1982-3, 2019
Screenprint in colours
“Jean-Michel lived like a flame. He burned really bright. Then the fire went out. But the embers are still hot” (Fred Bathwaite cited in: Enrico Navarra, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Paris (1996)
There's a magic and mystique to Basquiat that remains as powerful as ever. His career was meteoric and evolved a great deal over an incredibly short time. Just six years elapsed between his first solo show and his death at the age of 27.
While he was prolific, most of the work that appears at auction consists of paintings and works on paper. He made very few signed prints during his lifetime and they fetch incredible prices, so unless you have at least six figures to spare there aren't many opportunities to start collecting his work.
This is where our new purchase comes in. For some years now, the Basquiat Estate has been authorising sporadic releases of screenprints based upon some of the artist's most iconic paintings. They're incredibly desirable and appear at all the major auction houses. This one is stamped and signed by Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux, the artist’s sisters and the administrators of the Estate.
This is literally the closest a collector can get to owning a Basquiat without buying one of the paintings or drawings (and when you remember that the auction record is $110 million, this is an incredible value proposition). It's authenticated and approved by his sisters. It's made to the highest technical standards. In short, it would be the jewel in any contemporary collection.
It gets better. This piece reproduces a work that was originally made in 1982-83. When it comes to desirability, 1982 is *the* year that admirers go weak at the knees for. It was the year when Basquiat made the definitive shift from the street to the studio and found the full expression of his vision. In general the market for Basquiat's prints, whether lifetime or posthumous, focuses on the years 1981-84.
The image features a typically fragmented array of commercial images, repeated ironic references to the Liberty Peace Dollar and its iconic motto "In God We Trust", and erased sections of narrative. It represents elements of his cultural heritage and speaks of urban alienation and the ghosts of racial segregation. It's extremely powerful.
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