I liked your review of the Basquiat film...
There is actually a book out containing his entire oeuvre... a German publisher I believe... pretty thick coffee table production. I've seen it at Barnes and Noble at some point in the past 6 months or so... but haven't picked it up due to its high price; I'll wait for the library to stock it.
Contrary to the impression I may have given... I actually do believe that his work was not only a standout from the entirety of "popular" 80s celebrated art, but also the most blatantly (next to Haring's) exploited and over-hyped. It is no surprise that since both of these characters are dead... and "seemingly" died at the "height" of their powers, that the "industry" would lionize each and every scrap of output irrespective of quality.
But in spite of that... there is no question in my mind that he was far and away the most superior of the painters at the time; in fact, he is still very much extremely relevant and dauntingly formidable for sheer audacity, astounding "automatic response" and free-wheeling stream of consciousness creativity. His work stands out and apart from the common-place art school mentality.... and therein is its value. Basquiat's works absolutely outstrip previous, peer and latter day artists' attempts at a similar anarchy of mark-making, paint handling and content. To my mind, the work was genuinely unique by way of spring-boarding off of "popular" and "entertaining" such that of as Perdo Bell, comics, doodles, etc. and still maintain the gravitas of serious art. He certainly did this better than Raushenberg, Picasso, Warhol, Salle and Dunham.
In Basquiat's case... the milking of his legacy is somewhat justified... unlike of course the usual type of exploitation that has been going on in this manner since James Dean died and ever since has been billed as this giant talent of unsurpassed acting ability... not-to-mention a personality of such complexity and depth that it is required to be studied 50 years after his demise.
Having said that... it is therefore an unfair dilution of his significance when he is often times exploited as being aligned with lesser celebrities... such as Warhol, Madonna, etc. This is not to say that he wasn't a willing participant in "playing the game," nor that his work did not suffer from the game. His longevity is strongly rooted in the fact that an audience irrespective of their exposure to "any" art of "any" kind, will find an entertainment value in the work.
I went to see the Anselm Keifer show at the Gagosian gallery over the weekend. Over-the-top cinematic dioramas and stage set type of works; excessive materials and even more excessive "implied" significance. I was struck at how under the supposed guise of "guilt" and "distancing" from the Nazi legacy so many German artists actually unconsciously exhibit pride in the Third Reich. Disturbing on a few levels... but not the levels the critiques peddle.
The fine art venues (galleries, museums, books, magazines, etc.) have been completely engulfed and overtaken by marketers (i.e., marketeers). Of course this began to happen as far back as the 1870s in Vienna, Paris, Berlin and London. Thus, only a completely detached sensibility would not or could not have seen it coming.
On the plus side... as is happening in the popular music world... after decades of careerists dominating the charts... the advance of affordable home production gear, computers, etc. has now allowed the music artist to not be reliant on the industry "methods"... and now the internet has circumvented the marketing and distribution monarchy. The hope being, that when you take the profit out of an activity... the only ones left practicing it will be those who can't help it. The theory therefore extends that "those who can't help it" are more interesting than the careerist mentality. I'm not sure that is always or even partially true at the end of the day.
All of the arts are that deft combination of craft, content and sensibility... and not unlike catching a break, is a rare combination. For example, being at the the right place at the right time is actually more complex than that... it is more correctly being at the right meeting on the right day with the right attitude pushing the right product to the right person in the right mood with the right need and the right capacity to act upon it. Thus, that is simply too many ducks to line up and therefore the rarity of it happening is reduced to magic.
For my part... I've felt this all my life. I've been at junctures wherein the craft was right but the content blew and the sensibility was misplaced... or the content was right but the craft wrong... or the sensibility spot on but the content wrong and the craft way off track. In those cases when all three seem to dovetail and thus the resultant work "works," the entire effort is out-of-time. These are simply too many conditions to control or monitor and thus the only way to tame them is to approach them with any significant remote promise of success is as a careerist.
It is as if one said... I'm looking for the new Beatles... but I hate bands that look cute, pander to the mass audience, peddle mundane "messages," perform live, tour incessantly, are willing to do whatever it takes to get a record deal, record exactly what the market is hungry for, willing to let the press into their private lives and above all... execute significant work. Obviously, this is like saying I am looking to discover the already discovered.
"New" doesn't always mean "different" and just as the political spheres of the 21st century are developing through the revisitation of roots (i.e., Tea Party, democratic socialism, etc.) the role of art requires certain revisitations lest it devolve into pure antics as we've seen throughout history.
By this I mean that in 1911 it was completely undigested, understood or perceived that Picasso was modern not because his art was "weird" or "different;" but rather he was modern because he was a harbinger of the future. He was arguably the first painter to have no allegiance to "style" as it was generally understood. For Picasso, it was the reading that counted not the "style" of the writing. For example... to write... "Yonder flung fair locks of bonnie golden flecks overtake my choked heart and wrestle the chains of restraint that bound me to the mortal path of chastity" is a definite style that implies a certain approach to writing and expression. In contrast, to write... "Over hump, flat dune, squint the lemon sun. Folded flits, unka and ooze of thrust. Drag it," makes little contextual sense while depositing a palpable sense of "something." So, Picasso synthesizes these and writes... "Golden flecks of silken locks grind and hump the ooze of my lemon heart until the chains flit, the chains unka, the choking fold. Split. Flung far. Fair cheek of pink petals. Squinting drag."
He's sweet, mean, savage, civilized, immoral, chaste, respectful, cruel, restrained and loud all in the same picture. He's unpinnable. He's "free." What happened was the synthesis and the required knowledge and skill that being a successful synthesist engenders were overlooked... and all that was perceived was the "freedom" of his acts. This of course led to the perspective of... "Hmmm... well there is no one as free as my guileless young cousin... therefore, my cousin could paint like that... which is to say... who "can't" paint like that?"
Thus, I'm simply proposing the return to certain historical forks in the road that became monumental forks. Such as The fork from Giotto to Michelangelo, DaVinci and Raphael.... the fork from Titian to Rubens, Velazquez and Rembrandt... the fork from the Pre-Raphaelites to the Impressionists and post-Impressionists... the fork from Picasso to Matisse to Pollock and Rothko... the fork from DeKooning to Warhol to the 1980s... the fork from 80s and 90s "international" poly tolerance to the present.
In other words... we can not confront the new without understanding how we arrived at a point where we find ourselves hungry for the new. This is significant because the hunger for the new in artists is completely different form the hunger of the new that a market eager for "new" products has. For too long... these two "news" have been confused as being the same "new;" namely the market's version.
