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

Jean-Michel Basquiat Lithography (*)
High-quality reproduction of the work “Ishtar” created by Basquiat in 1983.
Luxury edition on Monte Carlo high-gram 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/print area 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 offered in perfect condition).

The artwork will be carefully handled and packed in reinforced cardboard. Shipping will be certified with a tracking number, operated by top transportation companies.

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

(*) Jean-Michel Basquiat was the eldest of the three children of Matilde Andrades and Gerard Basquiat. His father was a Haitian accountant of respectable financial solvency and his mother a Puerto Rican graphic designer of great prestige in her profession. Jean-Michel grew up in a torn 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, he enrolled in City-As-School, a school for gifted teenagers, from which he was expelled, in rebellion, a year before graduation.
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 Díaz, he entered the world of graffiti, painting on subway cars and around SoHo, the New York neighborhood where art galleries proliferate.
The following year he left school one year short of 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 paintings and writings carried a lot of poetic and philosophical charge, but above all they were satirical. The pseudonym of his alter ego shared with Al Díaz was SAMO (short for “Same Old shit,” i.e., “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 like “SAMO saves idiots” 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 hint that the art world was taking an interest in him.
The artist had several relationships that influenced his work, one of the most significant being with artist Andy Warhol.
Also, on the romantic side, he was involved with several women, one of the most famous today being Madonna. Lower Manhattan was the area where they lived at that time; 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 opened in Paris and New York, and in April of the same year he tried to abandon his addictions and retreated to his home in Hawaii. He returns to New York in June, announcing that he had freed himself from his addictions, but on August 12, 1988, at 27 years old, he died of a heroin overdose, becoming the most successful visual artist in the history of African-descended art. He is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn.

Throughout his brief but intense artistic career he would hold more than 40 solo exhibitions and participate in about 100 group shows. Self-promotion and advertising appeal were priority factors for Basquiat, as they had been for Andy Warhol or Julian Schnabel before him.
Neo-expressionism came to dominate over appropriationism, partly due to the economic surge that elevated art prices, especially painting, and partly due to the support of galleries and collectors. However, critics were not unanimous in their assessment, and it was common to denounce the lack of theoretical basis in neo-expressionist discourse. It was claimed that the neo-expressionist art they practiced lacked any political or social meaning, was merely merchandise and, therefore, subject to the ups and downs of the market. Neo-expressionist painting was reduced to a consumer product and, as such, a creatively disqualified and vulgar act.

(**) No theme is more powerful or more 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 geared machine full of impulses and ideas.
This work is among Basquiat’s greatest achievements: a cranial abyss into which the artist has poured the contents of his visual imagination, fusing centuries of stylistic influence.
“In This Case” is one of only three monumental-size skulls Basquiat painted. The painting’s intensity and immediacy are unmatched in Basquiat’s oeuvre.

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