Full Volume: Basquiat and Music | Basquiat’s musical drive

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) has just concocted a major exhibition on New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, who died tragically in 1988 at the age of just 27. His angle: exploring the abundant links that exist between music and his visual work.

John Siag
The Press

Jean-Michel Basquiat was a music lover, of course, who had an impressive collection of more than 3,000 albums, but he was also a DJ – among others in the clubs Area and Palladium –, played in the experimental music group Gray, which he had co-founded with Michael Holman, went to nightclubs – at Club 57, the Mudd Club or CBGB – and mingled with the artists of the music scene.

“He played the clarinet, synths and also a kind of machine-cart designed by Peter Artin, says curator Vincent Bessières, invited by the Museum of Music – Philharmonie de Paris. But he didn’t play in an orthodox way, he had no musical training. He approached artistic creation in the same way, refusing existing aesthetic channels. »

Influenced by the musical currents of his time, in particular punk rock, no wave, hip-hop, jazz and even opera, Jean-Michel Basquiat approached his work “musically”. In themes, subjects, poetry and style. One thinks among others of his portraits of artists from the world of hip-hop (Toxic, A-One, Ero).

According to curator Dieter Buchhart, a specialist in Basquiat’s work, who has been behind 22 retrospectives of the artist around the world since 2010, the New York artist had “the habits of a musician in his art”.

The route designed by the MMFA’s chief curator Mary-Dailey Desmarais – with the other two curators of the exhibition, Vincent Bessières and Dieter Bucchart – has been divided into seven sections and includes around a hundred works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, but also sound clips and videos.

Not only did Basquiat design publicity material for groups he liked – like DNA, Lounge Lizards or Mofungo – but he exhibited his works in clubs (at the Mudd Club, for example, or the Palladium) or in galleries or alternative spaces. like at the Fun Gallery or at the Area – outside the traditional exhibition circuits.

Music and politics

Dieter Buchhart believes that several keys allow us to better understand Basquiat’s work through the musical prism. The most important being the political key. “Anything related to racism, police brutality, slavery, colonialism,” he says.

All of these topics can be seen through the prism of music, since he has extensively represented these themes through jazz musicians, “who have experienced racial segregation in the United States head-on.” Louis Armstrong, Max Roach, King Pleasure.

Throughout his works, there is also a constant reference that we find inscribed in all sorts of ways in the paintings and objects of Jean-Michel Basquiat: that of the saxophonist Charlie Parker, who died in 1955, five years before his birth. Sometimes called Charlie, Bird or Charles The First. Basquiat even refers to Parker’s deceased daughter: Pree.

How to explain the fascination of Jean-Michel Basquiat for the American jazzman, represented among others in the circular work Now’s the Time (1985)? But to whom he also paid homage in his installation Klaunstancesix small cubes covered with drawings and words, made in situ in 1985 at the Area from one of his compositions recorded in 1947.

“Charlie Parker was for him a figure of identification, answers Vincent Bessières, who had designed the exhibition Miles Davis, jazz facing its legend, presented at the MMFA a dozen years ago. He is also a tragic figure, who died young. »

Works that are difficult to borrow

The vast majority of the exhibited works belong to private collectors. A challenge for Commissioner Dieter Buchhart.

“I’m starting to get to know collectors well, tells us this specialist from Basquie, but yes, it’s still a challenge. Fortunately, there are museums that are beginning to acquire his works. Today, his importance is no longer in doubt, but ironically, the more he is recognized, the more difficult it is to borrow his works. »

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts owns two of his paintings: A committee of experts, 1982 (which is part of the exhibition); and Seascape, 1983. Jean-Michel Basquiat’s younger sister, Jeanine Heriveaux, was present at the MMFA on Wednesday. His family lent the painting Left Hand-Right Hand1984, 1985.

The youngest of the family, who administers the estate of Jean-Michel with her sister Lisane Basquiat, has also mounted the exhibition Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure, in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York. An exhibition that brings together more than 200 works by his brother, which has been extended until January 2023.

The music is of course present in the various rooms – here a video of James White and the Blacks, there Rammellzee and Toxic or Debbie Harry from the Blondie band – but for an exhibition centered on music, it is relatively discreet. A voluntary choice, says Dieter Buchhart, who did not want the music to vampirize the exhibition either.

“It was important for us to allow the visitor to focus on the work. If the music is too present, it prevents our brain from appreciating the visual aspect, which is difficult to interpret, so we had to find a balance. » An augmented reality application can be downloaded and allows the visitor to have access to multimedia content, photographs and additional music.

After his stay in Montreal, the exhibition Full Volume: Basquiat and Music will be presented at the Museum of Music – Philharmonie de Paris.

Full Volume: Basquiat and Music. At the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts from October 15, 2022 to February 19, 2023.

Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure. At the Starrett-Lehigh Building, Chelsea, New York, until January 2023.