BASQUIAT AUDIO TOUR 1. Introduction APARITA...

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1 BASQUIAT AUDIO TOUR 1. Introduction APARITA BHANDARI: [Now’s the time, Now’s the…time, Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now’s the Time, now is the time for Basquiat audio montage opening with different voices layered over one another, approx. 15 secs.] Welcome to Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now’s the Time. My name is Aparita Bhandari and I will be your narrator today as you experience the beauty and complexity of the works of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Famous by the age of 20 for his powerful drawings and paintings, Basquiat took the New York art world by storm in the 1980s, creating groundbreaking works that confronted issues of racism, identity and social tension. Inspired by everything from Michelangelo to modern art, comic books to graffiti, jazz and hip hop to boxing and baseball, Basquiat translated the world around him into a provocative visual language. This is the first major retrospective of Basquiat’s work in Canada. You will see more than 85 large-scale paintings and drawings from private collections and public museums across Europe and North America. Dieter Buchhart, the exhibition’s guest curator, explains the significance behind this show and its title. DIETER BUCHHART:

Transcript of BASQUIAT AUDIO TOUR 1. Introduction APARITA...

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BASQUIAT AUDIO TOUR

1. Introduction

APARITA BHANDARI:

[Now’s the time, Now’s the…time, Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now’s the Time,

now is the time for Basquiat – audio montage opening with different voices

layered over one another, approx. 15 secs.]

Welcome to Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now’s the Time. My name is Aparita

Bhandari and I will be your narrator today as you experience the beauty and

complexity of the works of Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Famous by the age of 20 for his powerful drawings and paintings, Basquiat

took the New York art world by storm in the 1980s, creating groundbreaking

works that confronted issues of racism, identity and social tension.

Inspired by everything from Michelangelo to modern art, comic books to

graffiti, jazz and hip hop to boxing and baseball, Basquiat translated the

world around him into a provocative visual language.

This is the first major retrospective of Basquiat’s work in Canada. You will

see more than 85 large-scale paintings and drawings from private collections

and public museums across Europe and North America.

Dieter Buchhart, the exhibition’s guest curator, explains the significance

behind this show and its title.

DIETER BUCHHART:

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The exhibition Now’s the Time is especially important, because for the first

time we show the themes Jean-Michel Basquiat was working with. It will

show very important works in relation to the themes he was working with.

Now is the time to look differently at Basquiat. Now is the time to really

look at the artwork and not just at the prices of the art market, but really at

the artwork itself and contextualize them in art history.

BHANDARI:

This tour features a variety of perspectives on Basquiat’s works. You’ll hear

from Andrew DuBois, Professor of Poetry and Rap Poetics at the University

of Toronto; Andrea Fatona, Contemporary Art Curator; Bushra Junaid, artist

and arts administrator; Jason McLean, artist; Curtis Talwst Santiago, artist

and musician; and Rinaldo Walcott, Director of the Women & Gender

Studies Institute at the University of Toronto. You will also hear memories

and reflections from Basquiat’s sisters, Lisane and Jeanine.

If you have any questions about this tour, the exhibition or any aspect of

your AGO experience, just ask one of our staff or volunteers. They are here

to help. Please enjoy the exhibition.

[Running time: 2 mins, 50 secs.]

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2. Street as Studio

BHANDARI:

Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in Brooklyn in 1960. His father, Gerard, was

an accountant born in Haiti, and his mother, Matilde, was of Puerto Rican

descent. It was a trilingual household, and Basquiat was fluent in French and

Spanish.

On this wall, you see works that reflect the urban environment of New York

City. Basquiat found inspiration in the streets around him: cars, railroads,

subways, and planes flying overhead.

The many cars also allude to a significant moment in Basquiat’s life. When

he was just seven years old, he was hit by a car while playing in the street.

And he sustained many injuries, spending a month in hospital. While he was

recuperating, his mother gave him a copy of Gray’s Anatomy. This medical

textbook made a lasting impression. You will see Basquiat’s fascination with

anatomy throughout this exhibition.

Basquiat was also hugely influenced by art history. His younger sisters recall

growing up with arts and culture. Lisane Basquiat.

LISANE BASQUIAT:

We grew up in Brooklyn, very close to the Brooklyn Museum, Prospect

Park, the Botanical Gardens – that whole kind of cultural centre in Brooklyn.

The museum has always played a huge role in our lives.

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Actually, we recently were going through some things and found a

membership card to a museum that Jean-Michel received when he was

maybe six or seven, very young. It halted us for a moment because we

realized that, if you look back, that's kind of the start of his relationship with

museums, in a way.

BHANDARI:

Jeanine Basquiat.

JEANINE BASQUIAT:

My mother took us often, not only just to the Brooklyn Museum, but we

would go into the city and go to the MoMA, and to the Metropolitan and the

Museum of Natural History. It was something that was definitely infused in

our lives very early.

[Running time: 2 mins. 23 secs.]

3. Untitled (1981)

BHANDARI:

This untitled work from 1981 is one of Basquiat’s masterpieces. The

fragmented face reveals the powerful and complex layers that shape human

identity and human history. Here’s Bushra Junaid.

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BUSHRA JUNAID:

I would say that Basquiat is tapped into a larger consciousness or spirituality

or awareness that he's grappling with. The figure with its clenched teeth

appears as someone who is fearful. There's also a feeling of mortality. The

tracks or the scars contribute really to a sense of vulnerability.

BHANDARI:

Curtis Talwst Santiago sees this as a self-portrait.

CURTIS TALWST SANTIAGO:

Due to the meteoric rise of Basquiat's career, I feel, by looking at this

painting, done early on, that he was preparing himself to be exposed to the

world. It's raw. The skin is pulled back. He's on display: his thoughts, his

ideas. He's getting ready to really reveal himself to the art world, which can

be an intense one. This, to me, represented the beauty and complexity of the

black mind.

BHANDARI:

For Andrea Fatona, this painting also speaks to issues of identity.

ANDREA FATONA:

I think we grow up as black folks hearing that in a way we're body, we're not

mind. There's a struggle around the intellect versus the body. Here, what I

see is a peeling back of that physicality to show the intense amounts of

negotiations taking place at a cerebral level. The place in which the

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individual is constantly negotiating external understandings of oneself, and

this happens in terms of identity making whether or not one's black or white

or how one's racialized.

BHANDARI:

Curtis Talwst Santiago.

SANTIAGO:

I would like for visitors to look at Untitled by Basquiat and almost begin to

strip away the layers of their skin and view this skull as if it was their own

skull. What would their skull look like if they were going to recreate this

image?

[Approx. running time: 2 mins., 11 secs.]

4. The Ring (1981)

BHANDARI:

For Basquiat, black athletes and musicians were heroes. He was inspired by

the groundbreaking achievements of everyone from Jack Johnson and

Muhammad Ali to Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. Here, Basquiat’s love of

boxing and music come together in a self-portrait.

Basquiat draws an analogy between the competitive nature of sport and the

worlds of music and art. Here’s Andrew DuBois:

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ANDREW DUBOIS:

In the jazz tradition, they call them "cutting competitions." In hip hop, you'd

say "battles.” There would be different crews going up against each other, or

you would have DJs trying to make a name for themselves. While, on the

one hand, there was an entertainment aspect, a community aspect, there was

also a competitive aspect.

I would also say the boxer's leg – it looks like a note. It looks like a musical

note.

BHANDARI:

Andrea Fatona.

FATONA:

When we look at that note-like appendage, I think it also speaks to the

notion that as black people, as black men, sports and music, particularly

jazz, were really the only ways out if one were to engage with dominant

white society in ways that one might think one is equal.

BHANDARI:

The spear and icons above the boxer’s head also reference West African

cosmology. Curtis Talwst Santiago.

SANTIAGO:

When I look at these symbols in the upper-right corner, I think of the Dogon

tribe from Mali and their belief in Nommos, a water god that descended

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from the sky, that gave them the knowledge of the stars. They mapped the

stars years and years before we had the tools to actually see them through

telescopes.

BHANDARI:

Andrea Fatona.

FATONA:

Whether or not it's the black world and the white world, Africa and the New

World, here and there, past and present, Basquiat's self-portrait is

positioning himself as that mediator between these spaces. The black body,

the black boxer, the black person brings together all of these histories.

[Running time: 2 mins., 20 secs.]

5. Busted Atlas 2 (1982)

BHANDARI:

In Busted Atlas 2, Basquiat brings his innovative style to a classical figure.

In Greek mythology, Atlas is the god of astronomy and navigation, and he

holds up the sky. He has been a common subject for artists throughout time,

and is often depicted supporting the earth on his shoulders.

Elements of this work were certainly inspired by the street. The exposed

wooden stretcher recalls Basquiat’s earliest works, which he created by

using discarded materials he found around the city. You can also see two of

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Basquiat’s signature tags: the crown and the copyright symbol. At the same

time, Basquiat was influenced by many prominent artists, including modern

artists such as Pablo Picasso and American Abstract painters like Jackson

Pollock, Cy Twombly and Willem de Kooning.

Andrew DuBois sees a connection between the physicality of abstract art

and Basquiat’s paintings.

DUBOIS:

You certainly see a lot of remnants of Abstract Expressionism, a kind of

abstraction and a use of colour. When I think of what was exciting or what is

exciting about those paintings, was the sense in which these physical

gestures were manifest in the painting. Instead of being hidden, they were at

the forefront. Basquiat as an artist knows all that.

BHANDARI:

Here Basquiat depicts Atlas’s body as fragmented – broken or busted, you

could say. But in relation to graffiti art, “busted” can take on another

meaning.

DUBOIS:

Basquiat's also coming from another tradition: the world of graffiti art. And I

mean no disrespect to Pollock, but it's one thing to make sweeping gestures

with your brush onto a canvas that's sitting on the floor. It's another thing in

terms of the relationship of art to the body to, for instance, carry a backpack

full of aerosol paint cans, jump over a fence, wait till a train comes by to a

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certain point, paint on a wall here, run from there when you hear somebody

coming or if you think the cops are going to bust you.

If you want to talk about the relationship of art to the body, you can't hardly

have a more deeply bodily art than early street art. The body is in actual

physical peril, both in the making of the art and in the implications of the

making of the art. No one's going to bust down the door in de Kooning's

studio and put him in a chokehold until he dies. It's just not going to happen.

As far as the gesture goes, it takes it a whole other level.

[Running time: 2 mins., 54 secs.]

6. Untitled/Self-Portrait (1984), Wire (1983), Untitled (½ Black, ½ White)

(1982)

BHANDARI:

On this wall, you encounter vivid portraits of black men. Here’s Rinaldo

Walcott.

RINALDO WALCOTT:

What these works on this wall seem to signify for me is a certain kind of

angst of black masculinity that North America continually has to deal with.

Pointing to the interior of the black man's body really opens up a lot of

questions about how we figure black men in North American society. How

we often read them as just external. Basquiat is trying to get us to think

about the internal.

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When I look at Untitled/Self Portrait (1984), the cylindrical nature of the

body really points, to me, to this kind of grappling with how to position a

black male body in North American space. The body really makes me ask a

set of questions about why the arms go missing. That crown of dreadlocks

can be quite spectacular. It can be a way to mark someone, but it doesn't

necessarily give you a sense of the interior.

BHANDARI:

Wire from 1983 relays another vision of the interior of the black male body.

Bushra Junaid.

JUNAID:

This line drawing conveys a lot of vulnerability and pain. There's an ear that

isn't listening, teeth that are clenched and unable to speak, eyes that are

penetrating and sending darts of some kind, spotting a fly that can only bring

misery to a body wracked with pain. The arm on the right appears withered

or deformed, and is supported by a splint. The left knee is being held

together with a pin and the toes are spikes. The right calf is blackened, yet

the figure is standing and in forward motion.

BHANDARI:

Curtis Talwst Santiago connects this injured figure to Basquiat’s biography.

SANTIAGO:

I’m drawn to this image by Basquiat because it takes me back to a particular

moment in his history, the one at age seven when he's hit by a car and he's

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bed-ridden. At that time, he becomes obsessed with Gray's Anatomy. The

injuries that he suffered, they mended. But he's still a very sensitive and

delicate, fragile competitor. I see his strength but also his fragility in this

piece. I would like people to begin to start to understand the sensitive,

radiant child that he was and what he did face.

[Running time: 2 mins, 21 secs.]

7. Water-Worshipper (1984)

BHANDARI:

In this work, Basquiat combines allusions to pop culture, the transatlantic

slave trade and West African mythology to confront issues of oppression and

duality.

The work features two people. On the left, Basquiat paints an Aboriginal

figure, representing the quote-unquote “New World.” On your right, you see

a man surrounded by a life preserver, a reference to the logo found on

vintage packs of Player’s Navy Cut cigarettes. Basquiat has subverted this

logo, replacing the usual white, bearded sailor with a shackled black slave.

Andrea Fatona analyzes this figure and his surroundings.

FATONA:

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When we look closer at that image, we see steamboats, more ships crossing

an ocean. The boats for me talk about the ways in which the black body was

stolen, taken out of Africa, moved across the Atlantic Ocean.

The three-dimensional wooden slats, it seems to me to replicate something

that one would actually stack the kinds of commodities like cotton, like

sugar, like tobacco, like rum that the black body, the black male and female,

black people produced in the New World, but also the black body as

commodity in the context of slavery.

BHANDARI:

Andrea Fatona also explains the importance of the title, Water-Worshipper,

as a reference to West African culture, brought to Haiti via the transatlantic

slave trade.

FATONA:

I think it encompasses it in terms of the mythologies around African

cosmology that I know that Basquiat draws upon. In terms of Yoruba

culture, Yemaja is the keeper of waters. She is a major deity. This notion of

an unseen force, an unseen force that is female, really grounds that work for

me.

BHANDARI:

Basquiat’s references to West African culture and the slave trade also speak

to ideas of duality and double consciousness.

FATONA:

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This double consciousness is one that allows the black diasporic subject to

always, out of necessity, think about the past, the history of Africa in

relation to a history of a present in the New World.

[Running time: 2 mins., 39 secs.]

8. Dark Race Horse – Jesse Owens (1983)

BHANDARI:

Basquiat’s subject for this painting is Jesse Owens, an African American

track and field athlete who gained international fame at the 1936 Summer

Olympics in Berlin, hosted by Nazi Germany. Owens won four gold medals,

a feat that flew in the face of Hitler’s idea of white supremacy. Here’s

Andrew DuBois.

DUBOIS:

I don't think anyone needs to be educated at this point on the awful irony of

that, insofar as he could be a hero in Berlin, and when he came back home

he would be treated the way that black people in America in 1936 were

treated, and in 2014, for that matter.

Let's take a look at the way that he's named the painting. I thought it said

“Dark Horse Race.” Who's the dark horse in the race? But by switching that

cliche, he's emphasizing the racial aspect of the race. He's basically making a

very powerful pun there.

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I noticed the arrows. The arrow would seem to me to signify an Achilles

heel. What is the Achilles heel in the case of Jesse Owens? The Achilles heel

is race. This is also another way of saying that the man can be reduced to the

body part that gives him his power.

BHANDARI:

Rinaldo Walcott.

WALCOTT:

We think from a Jesse Owens to jazz to a Jean-Michel Basquiat. If we think

of contemporary hip hop culture, yet another gift – the gifts that the USA as

a nation state can give the world. So many of the most powerful, so many of

the most memorable, so many of them that are world-changing come out of

black culture. For me, the metaphor of this work and the kind of social

commentary that this work asks us to engage in, this notion that what black

people give to the US in terms of making the US a legitimate nation state is

so much more than what is given back to them.

I think that if you're looking at what's happening in Ferguson right now in

the USA, if you're looking at what's happening in New York City in the

USA, if you're looking at smaller but less concentrated similar problems in

Canada, then what we see are black people dying at the hands of the state

and asking for very little back.

That's why I think this Basquiat show, now is the right time because it

speaks so urgently to everything that we're living and experiencing and

witnessing right now.

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[Running time: 2 mins., 30 secs.]

9. The Wolves (1982)

BHANDARI:

When Basquiat was a boy, he loved comic books and wanted to be a

cartoonist. In The Wolves, he combines layers upon layers of paint with

cartoon-like figures, described here by Jason McLean:

JASON MCLEAN:

These little characters are getting eaten up, it seems like, by the wolves. The

expression of the faces, they're playful and sinister at the same time. They're

comical and fierce. In some ways, it's like a puppet show. You can deal with

content that's very political. People think comics, cartoons, friendly, ha-ha,

but you're actually touching upon issues in an approachable, non-

confrontational way.

BHANDARI:

Basquiat covers the painting in gold paint, speaking to issues of value and

commercialism in the art world. The Mickey Mouse–like stick figure you

see on your left is displayed on a milk carton, as a product to be served to

the toothy, hungry wolves. Andrea Fatona elaborates.

FATONA:

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This work is an interesting comment in terms of the economy of art, as well

as the ways in which the artist is produced within the sphere of art, as both

object to be consumed but also the ways in which they're valorized.

The crowns, both upside-down on your left and in red at the bottom, speak

not only to Basquiat as a particular kind of golden child, but also to the ways

in which artists are produced to be a particular kind of auteur or genius: the

one, the singular king.

I see the wolves on your right as representing the ways in which, not only

collectors, but also we as consumers of art will wolfishly devour what is

presented to us as the epitome of what art is.

[Running time: 1 min., 51 secs.]

10. Exu (1988)

BHANDARI:

This painting is one of Basquiat’s last before his untimely death on August

12, 1988, at age 27. It is a portrait of the Yoruban deity Exu, the trickster.

Here’s Rinaldo Walcott.

WALCOTT:

When I look at Exu, it transports me right back to Haiti and right back to the

religious practices of voodoo. But it also immediately then transports me

back to West Africa to think about the ways in which those West African

gods continue to play a significant presence in the lives and in the world of

black people.

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Exu is also a celebratory figure, within voodoo. I see a work that is as big

and as magnificent as Exu is as a way of Basquiat celebrating his Haitian

heritage, but also opening up all of the power and the wonder that

transatlantic slavery brings to the Americas.

BHANDARI:

On your right, Basquiat references his own name, leading some to see this as

a self-portrait. Curtis Talwst Santiago.

SANTIAGO:

Basquiat, by playing the trickster, he's disobeying society's rules. He is fully

aware of the line of the highbrow art world and the street, and he's going to

say, "Forget it all," and play the game on his own terms. I view the cigarettes

around him as almost offerings from the Europeans, or from those collecting

the work, because they're [laughs] praying that this piece will bring them

more wealth.

BHANDARI:

As the trickster at the crossroads, Exu also represents double identities and

the various roles Basquiat had to play in his life.

Rinaldo Walcott.

WALCOTT:

Basquiat is also an Exu figure. He says to us as viewers, "You think you've

got me figured out, but I am playing with you. And when I'm done playing

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with you, I will even tell you, let you know that I've been playing with you."

That's the kind of figure that Exu is. That's why he stands at the crossroads,

because he can actually decide where and how to proceed or where and how

we proceed.

[Running time: 2 mins., 25 secs.]

11. Alto Saxophone (1986)

BHANDARI:

This detailed drawing references jazz, as well as Basquiat’s fascination with

anatomy and his lifelong love of comic books.

Jason McLean.

MCLEAN:

This piece is called Alto Saxophone. The scale is interesting. He really fills

the space and has the list very much inspired by the cartoony, MAD

Magazine list, picture and word, almost like modern comics.

BHANDARI:

Although Basquiat repeatedly writes the words “alto saxophone” on this

drawing, its many elements reference the human body more than music.

Andrew DuBois.

DUBOIS:

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He's giving us a title that doesn't seem to have an obvious relationship to the

image itself. So, there's a little bit of trickery going on there. A little bit of

leading us down one path, and then we find that we're actually on another

path. Probably the most famous trickster in the African American oral

tradition is the signifying monkey. It is interesting that you have this figure

repeated eight or nine times.

BHANDARI:

Basquiat was interested in all kinds of signs and symbols. You will find

everything from Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and laundry symbols to

hobo code in his different works. Andrew DuBois connects the symbols at

the bottom of this drawing with historical as well as present instances of

violence.

DUBOIS:

In the lower-right-hand corner, we have this kind of figure that seems both

to have human characteristics and the characteristics of a tree. If you look at

it and you think about what it's called, “dead body,” and you think about the

history of lynching, you'll see a black body and you'll see a tree

simultaneously in that picture. And he could have drawn the emblem that is

both the broken black body and the tree from which the body hangs and

expected that some version of those emblems would occur in real life.

We also have this character in the very middle of the bottom. With the hands

up it seems very apt, does it not? That a teenage black person was shot,

apparently with his hands up, saying, "Hands up! Don't shoot!" But in a way

it's not a coincidence at all. It's more like an ongoing narrative.

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[Running time: 2 mins., 39 secs.]

12. Natchez (1985)

BHANDARI:

Here, Basquiat combines multiple colour photocopies of his drawings to

create a single work. Basquiat was inspired by great modern collage artists,

such as Pablo Picasso and Robert Rauschenberg, as well as beat writer

William S. Burroughs’s cut-up technique of story making.

This detailed work also connects with the world of music. If you look

closely, you will find detailed lists of jazz musicians, titles of blues songs,

and music-related words and phrases.

There is likewise a comparison to be made between Basquiat’s use of

collage and the early hip hop scene of the 1980s, as Andrew DuBois

explains here.

DUBOIS:

I think it's fair to think about Basquiat in relationship to rap and hip hop.

Some of the music that would have been influencing him is a collage-based

music. First, in the very early days, in terms of having two turntables and

mixing from break to break, that's a kind of collage that's repurposing a little

snippet of something that would have been much longer.

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Then, you have sampling, which comes a bit later. You take a small part of a

preexisting song and you loop it or you chop it up and repeat it. In the

process, you get a new song. It's certainly a radically collage-based sonic art

form. I think that's one of the things that you see here on a visual level.

[Running time: 1 min., 39 secs.]

13. Big Shoes (1983)

BHANDARI:

In this intensely layered work, Basquiat collages personal and historical

narratives. The word “Pree” in the upper left corner refers to Charlie

Parker’s daughter, who died when she was only two years old. There is also

a portrait of Basquiat’s girlfriend, Suzanne Mallouk, on the right. Cartoon-

like drawings in the lower right are a nod to the artist’s love of sports. But

the work also speaks to art history and North American history, two vast

subjects with which Basquiat often grappled.

Curtis Talwst Santiago.

SANTIAGO:

When I look at Big Shoes, I can hear Basquiat's voice in my head, and it's

saying, "Believe it or not, I can actually draw." The sepia image in the centre

of the canvas represents Basquiat's understanding of the history of drawing

and the greats. I think of Michelangelo's, his drawings, they were this colour.

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But then you come to his radiant child style and his cartoon work, this

embodies his ability to stand on opposite ends of the drawing spectrum.

BHANDARI:

Rinaldo Walcott.

WALCOTT:

What interests me is Basquiat's ongoing meditation on history. In this work,

the various pieces cross numerous histories. But that tiny centre, "origin of

cotton," seems to signal to me where all of these histories actually come

from. Basquiat invokes that long history of slavery. To think about the origin

of cotton in the context of the USA is to think about how and why black

people arrived in that space in the first instance.

As you look on the left panel of this Big Shoes work, there's bit of it that's a

little bit disturbing, which is that it looks as though feet are lifted up and

could definitely be men hanging. Could definitely be a lynching, could

definitely be the "Strange Fruit" that Billie Holiday sang so beautifully of.

Basquiat is a master assembling multiple histories and then taking us back to

the foundation of where those multiple histories have sprung from.

[Running time: 2 mins., 32 secs.]

14. To Repel Ghosts (1986)/Tour conclusion

BHANDARI:

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For this, the last stop on our tour, you see a poetic work from 1986, To Repel

Ghosts. Curtis Talwst Santiago.

SANTIAGO:

This touches on Basquiat's street roots, his original work where he was just

laying out these phrases on walls that left people just questioning. By ’86,

he's lost some friends along the way. People are probably questioning: is he

still that guy from the streets? There's a term, a rap term that I like. When

you have your “hater-blockers” on. This is like his hater-blocker piece. No

shade.

BHANDARI:

Andrew DuBois.

DUBOIS:

The materiality of the thing just hits you right in the face. In addition to

being reminiscent of a gravestone, this is also like a door. This thing stops

you and gives you congress into another world simultaneously. It feels like a

spiritual or a magical object. It's meant to do precisely what it says, to repel

ghosts.

BHANDARI:

This work is a particular favourite of Basquiat’s sister Lisane.

LISANE:

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To Repel Ghosts is a work that really resonates with me. It seems to serve as

a barrier to the real versus the unreal. It's a piece that for me, reminds me to

stay present versus in the realm of things that are existing on the periphery.

BHANDARI:

We’d like to leave you with a few parting words from Basquiat’s sisters.

Here is Jeanine Basquiat.

JEANINE:

I'd like the visitors at the AGO to know that Jean-Michel had an unwavering

determination, and he made tremendous sacrifices in his life to make sure

that his art got out there, that his voice was heard. I have a tremendous

respect for him, for that.

APARITA:

Lisane Basquiat.

LISANE:

What you have in Jean-Michel is an example of a human being who lived.

He lived a relatively short life, but he lived. What you have in Jean-Michel

as an artist and the legacy he has left is a prompting to live courageously and

live without fear. Express yourself without fear and without self-judgment.

If you have something to say, if there's something that you want to do, go

ahead and do it.

BHANDARI:

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Just as the people on our tour have shared their thoughts on Basquiat, we

hope you’ll join in the conversation about art, ideas and the world today.

Why do you think now is the time for Basquiat? What does Basquiat mean

to you? We invite you to visit the lounge just outside the exhibition to share

your thoughts and reflections on what you’ve experienced today. You can

also participate via social media. Our Twitter handle is @AGOToronto, and

the hashtag is #BasquiatAGO.

Thank you for visiting the exhibition.

[Repeat of “Now’s the time” montage]

[Running time: 3 mins., 35 secs.]

[Total running time of audio tour: 34 mins., 46 secs.]