Fondation Louis Vuitton explores Basquiat and Warhol’s creative alliance

Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, hosted a noteworthy art exhibition in 2018 on Jean-Michel Basquiat, a Neo-expressionist artist and one of the most significant painters of the 20^th century. The showcase corresponded to the Foundation's objective to promote contemporary art and historical art, chronicling the artist's career trajectory in its entirety while attempting to narrate the story of the Puerto Rican-Haitian American to European audiences. This year, the foundation pursued a further exploration of Basquiat's artworks, unveiling a majority of works produced during his collaboration with the 'Pope of Pop'—Andy Warhol.

Eighty canvases jointly signed by the two American artists come together in an exhibition titled Basquiat x Warhol. Painting four hands, being hosted at the coveted venue. The showcase is curated by art theorist and visual artist Dieter Buchhart and curator Anna Karina Hofbauer, in partnership with the foundation’s curator Olivier Michelon. The exhibition dawns as an ode to a creative alliance and fosters the idea of duality over polarity.

Both Basquiat and Warhol, born 30 years apart, heralded revolutionary aesthetic sensibilities in their times. Warhol was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to immigrants from Slovakia who were wealthy and devoted to their Eastern European catholic heritage. As a child, Warhol suffered from a neurological disorder that provoked his absence from school and encouraged an interest in comic books, Hollywood magazines, and other modes of pop culture engagement. A few years after relocating to New York to pursue a career as an illustrator, he rose to fame with his silkscreens of popular icons such as Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Campbell's Soup Cans, and Brillo Boxes, a project representing elitism and consumerism. As against Warhol’s fairly well-off beginning, Basquiat was exposed to challenging economic realities since he was born in 1960, in Brooklyn, New York, to an immigrant father from Haiti and a mother from Puerto Rico. After dropping out of school at 17 and leaving home to explore the life of an artist, his hard work paid off in the 80s when his graffiti tag called SAMO (Same Old Shit) took over the streets of downtown Manhattan. His work was filled with images commenting on racial relations in America and drawing from diaspora culture.

When viewed in the present scenario, their individual and social histories reveal a microcosm of the United States of America's liminal experience since the end of the Cold War.

The story of the two avant-garde artists began at Warhol’s New York studio The Factory when Basquiat ambitiously visited the space to experience the city's exclusive art scene. The two officially met through their Swiss art dealer—Bruno Bischofberger, who later encouraged them to collaborate. At the time, Warhol already had a career that spanned two decades, and he was wary of art criticism dominating a decade with portrait commissions. He wished to rebrand his art as High Art—one that achieves a balance between subject matter (relevant social issue) and style (innovation in style such as the breakthrough of abstract art). Basquiat, at the time, had only begun receiving acknowledgement from the cosmopolitan art scene, and he sought further access. Their friendship was symbiotic, each redeeming what one lacked in the other's creative practice. Basquiat offered a renewed perception to Warhol's practice, in return for legitimacy and exposure facilitated by Warhol's critical standing in New York's art scene.

The exhibition Basquiat x Warhol. Painting four hands opens with portraits of the two artists, painted by each other. The exhibition also features several sets of artworks based on Warhol's mass media subjects, newspapers, logos of General Electric, Paramount, and the Olympic Games. The display continues to feature artworks from Basquiat and Warhol’s early collaborations with the Italian artist Francesco Clemente with whom the duo accomplished 15 key works.

Post the collaboration with Clemente, the two artists began to meet regularly and with enthusiasm. These powered liminal exchanges are omnipresent via the displayed artworks across all galleries in the exhibition. One of the galleries also reveals the artists' large-scale sculpture Ten Punching Bags (Last Supper) which explores the effects of the AIDS epidemic, which scarred the gay community in the 1980s.

Ronnie Cutrone, assistant to Warhol and a vital art figure amongst others such as Keith Haring, observed the creative brewing alliance of the duo and described their relationship as “some crazy-art world marriage.” In his words, “The relationship was symbiotic. Jean-Michel thought he needed Andy's fame, and Andy thought he needed Jean-Michel's new blood. Jean-Michel gave Andy a rebellious image again.” Later, Haring would observe Basquiat and Warhol’s friendship as a “conversation occurring through painting, instead of words” and their collaboration as a “third distinctive and unique mind."

In addition to art displaying the camaraderie between the two pioneers, Painting four hands also features artworks by other key artists of the 80s including Futura 2000, Michael Halsband, Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, and Kenny Scharf. Interestingly, the decade is a palimpsest relevant for assimilating the anthropological nature of the contemporary United States.

Basquiat and Warhol’s collaboration is a timeless example of how art imitates life, and life imitates art. Paralleling the art world, in the socio-political realm, a former American movie star, Ronald Raegan, was elected the President of the country, which marked the coming of a new currency—affluence. Raegan's presidency corresponded with the success of Warhol's art culture of popular art. Both Raegan's presidency and Warhol's creative practice changed the course of the United States, one through the mass reproduction of art and the other through facilitating supply-side economics. Today, the United States pioneers global economic scales for its hyper-consumerist demographic. The exhibition illustrates this conversation in various styles and forms, addressing critical issues like the inclusion and representation of the African-American community in the history of North America—the homeland of Warhol's popular art and icon-making.

Basquiat x Warhol. Painting four hands is on display till August 28, 2023.

(Text by Sakhi Sobti, Asst. Editorial Coordinator (Arts))