I mowed through this book. Lots of name dropping and more focused on the art and club scene in New York in the 80’s, but enjoyable to read nonetheless.

Phoebe Hoban – Basquiat
480 pagine, illustrato
16 Euro + 2,50 euro di spedizione
Casa editrice: Castelvecchi
Lingua: italiano

Jean-Michel Basquiat ( New York 1960-1988 ) era una figura enigmatica, sempre a metà strada tra realtà e finzione. Un ragazzo problematico, perennemente afflitto da un forte senso di inadeguatezza, timido ma molto intelligente. Tra le pagine fitte di aneddoti, emerge innanzitutto un rapporto irrisolto col padre, che gli lasciò in eredità un’irrefrenabile avversione per la disciplina. La biografia di Hoban ha il merito di trasmettere l’atmosfera di un’epoca per molti versi irripetibile. Sono pagine che sanno di jazz, hashish e speranza, che parlano di una generazione votata all’eccesso, in nome dell’arte. Un periodo colmo di energia, creatività e dolore. Il viaggio, consapevole, di Basquiat verso una morte insensata è descritto con dolcezza, come se fosse una favola. L’avventura del primo pittore nero di successo è inserita in un contesto variopinto fatto di musicisti, spacciatori, galleristi, critici e artisti. Appare chiaro come Basquiat rimanga schiacciato tra gli ingranaggi di una macchina più grande di lui; quel successo tanto agognato finisce per svuotarlo dell’energia che aveva generato la sua arte. Arte violenta, iconoclasta, distante dai rigori della tecnica ma brutale, sincera. Pittore, poeta, predicatore, Jean-Michel inizia “sparando” parole e simboli sulle pareti di una livida New York di fine anni ’70. I suoi tag, firmati Samo (The same old shit), ben presto diventano autentici attacchi alla cultura bianca, razzista e schiava del capitalismo. Con gli anni ’80 arrivano i primi lavori su tela, opere che uniscono al graffitismo icone dal forte valore simbolico: espressionismo primitivo venato di cultura pop. Sempre a quel periodo risalgono le cartoline e i collage in stile Rauschenberg; i primi segni del successo e con essi la dipendenza dalle droghe che non lo avrebbe più abbandonato.
Hoban si focalizza sul rapporto tra Basquiat e i galleristi. Dalle pagine del libro emerge la sensazione che l’impatto che ebbero sull’equilibrio mentale del giovane pittore fu devastante. Viene descritto il rapporto conflittuale che Jean-Michel ebbe con Annina Nosei (con la quale produsse le sue opere migliori), Bruno Bischofberger, Larry Gagosian, Mary Boone, Vrej Baghoomian. Pagina dopo pagina assistiamo al declino creativo e fisico di un’artista dalle potenzialità immense. Intorno a lui tutta la comunità artistica newjorkese, da Julian Schnabel a David Salle, da Keith Haring a David Bowes, da Francesco Clemente ad Andy Warhol, che Basquiat venerava come una sorta di idolo-padre. L’inarrestabile percorso autodistruttivo del pittore si alterna alla descrizione degli amori travagliati, della nascita di gallerie e locali alla moda, delle mostre popolate da pop star strafatte, divi del cinema e finanzieri bramosi di facili guadagni. E sullo sfondo le opere di Basquiat, fatte di scritte e colori violenti, scheletri, teschi, corone, croci e palle da baseball.
Il libro, arricchito da un apparato fotografico molto efficace realizzato da Edo Bertoglio, traccia in maniera impeccabile il ritratto di un decennio che bruciò forse troppo in fretta, ma che seppe segnare nel profondo le regole dell’arte generando piccole-grandi stelle come Basquiat: “Non so descrivere il mio lavoro perché non è mai la stessa cosa. È come chiedere a Miles Davis, beh, com’è il suono della tua tromba?”

Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, the first American artist of African descent to achieve international stardom, often referenced Africa or the African diaspora in his work; take, for example, 1983’s “The Nile” (a painting that featured nods to Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Nile and the Nuba in Sudan) and “Gold Griot” (1984). So recently when I found a copy of Phoebe Hoban’s biography Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art — first published in 1998 by Viking — around the house, I was curious to read about Basquait’s relationship with the continent. But I also wondered if Basquait (born in Brooklyn, NY, and son of a Haitian immigrant father and Puerto Rican mother) ever visited there. The book, despite its “national bestseller” status and reviews in high-brow, mainstream US media outlets (reviewed here, here and here) focuses on the tawdry details of Basquiat’s life (sex, drugs, and more sex and drugs). Nevertheless, the book does gives an adequate account of what the the art world in 80s New York City was like (according to reviewers who should know), especially about “the condescension and subtle racism” of Basquiat’s patrons.
But back to my focus. Basquiat, it seems, only traveled to the African continent once: an August 1986 trip for a show the art dealer Bruno Bischofberger had organized at the French Cultural Institute in Abidjan, capital of Cote d’Ivoire. “It was Basquiat’s first and last trip to Africa,” writes Hoban. Bischofberger apparently had warned Basquiat (who was accompanied by his girlfriend Jennifer Goode) “… not to be disappointed that there were paved streets and skyscrapers in Abidjan, not just people living in primitive huts.” Writes Hoban:

‘He [Basquait] was hoping that very unsophisticated African people would see his show,’ said Bischofberger. ‘But everyone was invited there by the government, and there were three or four of the most famous artists in the country, and people who had been trained in Paris. It was not the man in the street who got to see Jean-Michel’s work.’

Despite this, Basquiat “enjoyed” meeting local (Hoban, for affect, uses the term “indigenous”) artists, “although they turned out to be more influenced by Western art than he had anticipated.” Then:

After the show, the group took a car trip through the countryside, to a tribe (sic) in Korhogo. ‘Jean-Michel was smoking so much pot, I wasn’t sure the chauffeur would be able to stay on the road,’ says Bischofberger. His wife, YiYo, took a lot of pictures. ‘The only thing you saw of black people was their eyes in the evening,’ she recalls.

Later in the book Hoban briefly describes Basquiat’s friendship with an Ivorian artist Outtara [Hoban does not provide a first name] who he had met met on a trip to Paris. They had planned to visit Abidjan, the Ivorian capital, in August 1988. Traveling with Kevin Bray, “a young videodirector who had befriended Jean-Michel,” they would “… go to Outtara’s village for a ritual cleansing. Outtara had arranged with the local shamans (sic) to perform a ceremony that would cure him of his addiction.”
But a few days later Basquiat was found dead in his apartment. Hoban, prone to drama (and what one reviewer described as her “Hollywood rendition of black culture”), writes about how Outtara (already in Abidjan) received the news of Basquiat’s death:

Outtara … at first though the news of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s death was a hoax, that Basquiat had staged a cynical ‘publicity stunt.’ When the news registered, he informed the shamans (sic) who who were waiting to cure Basquiat, ‘They did the ceremony for the dead,’ says Outtara. ‘It takes place at night, and involves an animal sacrifice. It’s related to voodoo. They wore masks, and prayed and did mystic dances around the fire all night long.’ As Gerard Basquiat [his father] was claiming his son’s body in the city morque, the African magic men were releasing his spirit in an ancient rite.