Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) - Ishtar - Artestar licensed print - COA

Photolithography by Jean-Michel Basquiat (*)
High-quality reproduction of the work “Ishtar” created by Basquiat in 1983.
Luxurious edition on Monte Carlo high-grade watercolor paper (300 g/m2).
Print authorized by Artestar New York.
Copyright of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Includes Certificate of Authenticity (COA).

Specifications:

- Support dimensions: 50 x 31 cm
- Stain dimensions: 40 x 21 cm
- Condition: Excellent (this work has never been framed or exhibited, and has always been stored in a professional art folder, therefore it is offered in perfect condition).

The work will be carefully handled and packaged in reinforced cardboard. The shipment will be certified with a tracking number, operated by the leading transport companies.

The shipment will also include full insurance for the final value of the work with full reimbursement in case of loss or damage, at no cost to the buyer.

(*) Jean-Michel Basquiat was the first of the three children of Matilde Andrades and Gerard Basquiat. His father was a financially solid Haitian accountant and his mother a Puerto Rican graphic designer of great prestige in her profession. Jean-Michel grew up in a fractured family environment; his parents divorced and, because of this, he had to change schools many times. He studied at a private Catholic school, later at a public school and finally, at 16, entered City-As-School, a school for gifted adolescents, from which he was expelled, out of rebellion, a year before graduating.
Already in his youth he came into contact with the subculture of the big city, related to drug use and street gangs. In 1977, together with Al Diaz, he entered the world of graffiti, painting on subway cars and in the SoHo areas, the New York neighborhood where galleries proliferate.
The following year he left school one course before graduating from high school and left home to live for two years on the streets, in abandoned buildings or with his friends in Lower Manhattan, surviving by selling postcards and T-shirts that he himself decorated. He continued to devote himself to graffiti; his writings and inscriptions carried a lot of poetic and philosophical weight, but above all satirical. The pseudonym of his alter ego shared with Al Díaz was SAMO (short for “Same Old shit,” meaning “the same old crap,” with which they both signed their tags and graffiti with cryptic messages. The use of this name was decisive in his life.
These murals bore inscriptions such as “SAMO saves fools” or “SAMO ends religious brainwashing, the politics of nothingness and false philosophy.” An article about SAMO’s street writing published in The Village Voice was the first indication that the art world was taking an interest in him.
The artist had several relationships that influenced his work; one of the most significant was with artist Andy Warhol.
Also, on the sentimental front, he had relationships with several women, one of the most well-known today being Madonna. Lower Manhattan was the area where they lived at that time, and in 1982 they began spending more time together and going to parties at galleries. A theme that united them, she mentions in an interview: “I was a big fan of Miles Davis and Charlie Parker.”
In 1988 exhibitions were installed in Paris and New York, and in April of that same year he tried to overcome his addictions and retreated to his home in Hawaii. He returned to New York in June, announcing that he had freed himself from addictions, but on August 12, 1988, at the age of 27, he died of a heroin overdose, becoming the most successful visual artist in the history of Afro-descendant art. He is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Throughout his brief but intense artistic career he would have more than 40 solo exhibitions and participate in around 100 group shows. Self-promotion and publicity were primary factors for Basquiat, as they had been for Andy Warhol or Julian Schnabel before him.
Neo-expressionism came to dominate over appropriationism, partly thanks to the economic upsurge that raised art prices to new heights, especially painting, and partly thanks to the support of gallerists and collectors. Critics, however, were not unanimous in their appraisal, and the lack of theoretical grounding of neo-expressionist discourse was often criticized. It was claimed that the art neo-expressionists practiced had no political or social meaning, was mere merchandise and, therefore, subject to market fluctuations. Neo-expressionist painting was reduced to a consumer product and, as such, to a creatively disqualified and vulgar act.

(**) No theme is more powerful or coveted in Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work (1960-1988) than the singular skull. For this enigmatic artist, the human head was more than an obsession. As suggested by the title “In This Case” (1983), the head is a box or cage that houses a cog-filled machine of impulses and ideas.
This work stands among Basquiat’s greatest achievements: a cranial abyss into which the artist has poured the content of his visual imagination, fusing centuries of stylistic influence.
“In This Case” is one of the three monumental skulls Basquiat painted. The painting’s intensity and immediacy are unparalleled in Basquiat’s oeuvre.

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