Omnipresent in the life of the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, music is also present in his work. As an exciting exhibition on this theme begins at the Philharmonie de Paris, its co-curator Vincent Bessières sheds light on the thousand ways in which music resonates in his paintings.
The exhibition Basquiat Soundtracks has just opened at the Philharmonie de Paris. Rich in dozens of drawings and paintings, some of which are rarely shown, but also videos, photos and a bespoke urban soundtrack, it explores the New York painter’s relationship with music.
DJ in his spare time, Jean-Michel Basquiat, who died in 1988 of an overdose at the age of 27, held the clarinet and the synthesizer in an experimental music group, Gray, and in 1983 he produced a piece of hip -hop, beat bop by Rammellzee and K-Rob. His first canvas, he sold it for 200 dollars to Debbie Harry of the group Blondie. At the head of a collection of 3000 discs, he listened to music constantly, including while working. His tastes were eclectic, ranging from Charlie Parker to Public Image Limited via La Callas, Curtis Mayfield, Beethoven or David Bowie. Omnipresent in his life, music is also present in his work. It constitutes in doing so “a major key to interpretation“, according to the co-curator of the exhibition, Vincent Bessières.
How did you design the exhibition (with Dieter Buchhart and Mary-Dailey Desmarais of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts)?
Vincent Bessieres : Basquiat’s relationship to music is so rich, and the resonances in his work so numerous, that the exhibition is divided into two parts. The first explores the links he had with the music of his time, since he found himself at the confluence of two great musical waves, No wave and hip-hop. This part, of a more biographical dimension, puts Basquiat back in his time and in the small New York artistic community he frequented. In this nebula of around 200 people, everyone knew each other and practiced several disciplines: one day an actor, the next day a poet, painter or musician, as Maripol, who produced the Polaroid portraits presented at the start of the exhibition, tells us. The second part is a dive into his musical and sound visual imagination. She is more focused on how the music finds its way into her works, through her motifs, subjects, quotes, but also through her practice.
Apart from a few portraits, covers or posters, there are few references in his pictorial work to the No wave and hip-hop musical environment in which he was immersed. What dominates in his works is jazz.
It’s true, he doesn’t particularly represent the music of his time in terms of motifs and images, even if we have a beautiful portrait of saxophonist John Lurie of the Lounge Lizards, in particular. This is reflected more in the form, with radical works with punk energy. The music that offers him explicit subjects is jazz, indeed. His father listened to jazz but it was music he rediscovered as an adult, particularly under the influence of Fab Five Freddy, whose godfather was the great jazz drummer Max Roach, a pioneer of bebop who worked with Charlie Parker. Fab Five Freddy [figure clé des débuts du hip-hop à New York] told him anecdotes that his godfather had told him. It probably opened up an imagination in him that he was unaware of as a child. Jazz allows him to talk about the world, racism, invisibilization, with figures to which he can refer, whom he can admire, and with whom he anchors himself in a cultural heritage, but he does not listen than jazz.
What are the resonances between the music and his pictorial gesture?
Already his paintings make noise, visual noise. There is sound in his works. Here there are onomatopoeias, there people singing, references to cartoons, open mouths, car horns, barking dogs, hands playing the piano, a whole profusion of sound images. Then there is his practice of photocopying, cutting, repeating, the way he gives rhythm to his paintings, which echoes sampling in hip-hop. The way in which he quotes himself, to create correspondences between his works, also recalls the use of sampling – for example the title of a piece by his group Gray, Origin of Cotton, which we then find in his paintings. And then there is the influence of jazz in its relationship to composition and improvisation. His painting Kokosoloa tribute to Charlie Parker that can be read like a score, is the best example of this.
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Exhibition “Basquiat Soundtracks” until July 30, 2023 at the Philharmonie de Paris
From Tuesday to Thursday from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m., the Friday from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m., s Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Prices: from 8 to 14 euros, free for children under 16
A cycle of concerts accompanies the exhibition at the Philharmonie, including Yasiin Bey (alias Mos Def) Saturday April 15, James Brandon Lewis & Thomas Sayers Ellis Saturday April 15, Ambrose Akinmusire Bird & Basquiat: Now’s The Time! Sunday April 16, Chassol plays Basquiat on Saturday April 22, Leyla McCalla Radio Haiti on Friday April 21 and Saturday April 22, and Eric Bibb from Mali to Mississippi on Sunday April 23.