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‘Untitled (Just Sour)’ (1982) by Basquiat.

(The Estate of Jean--Michel Basquiat /

ADAGP, Paris / ARS, New York 2014)

ON VIEW

‘Jean-Michel Basquiat Drawing:Work From the Schorr FamilyCollection’ atAcquavella GalleriesBY ANDREW RUSSETH 6/11 8:20AM

This show of 21 drawings and two paintings by Jean-MichelBasquiat from the collection of Herbert and Lenore Schorr,organized by Fred Hoffman, is invigorating andheartbreaking. And for anyone interested in gaining a fullerunderstanding of an artist who has recently becomefashionable again, it should be required viewing.

Most of the works date to the first half of the 1980s, whenBasquiat was in his early to mid 20s. They are denselypacked with images and writing: quick sketches sharespace with lists, poems and stories.

In his paintings, Basquiat used oil and acrylic to attack andconceal, making rough marks to form the inimitable heads,bodies, monsters, dogs and skeletons that seem to pop offhis paintings’ surface and obscure much of the freneticactivity humming away underneath. In the drawings,though, all is revealed. In the best of the pieces here at

Acquavella, you get a close-up view of that action, the rare chance to survey the tight network ofideas, signs and symbols that undergird Basquiat’s art.

Two- and three-word phrases glide down pages in his trademark sharp scrawl—“just sour,”“Smelting process ©,” “inatimate” (perhaps an elision of inanimate and intimate?) in a jumpy 1982number. (All the drawings are untitled.) Those words hint at moods, scenes and people; there’soften a dark, strangely familiar tang to them. “One or two words containing a full body” is how thelate poet Rene Ricard once put it, writing about Basquiat’s work.

There are schematics (one for what looks like a stereo system), maps (to the Schorrs’ Westchesterhome), what appear to be preparatory compendia (with hints of humor: some goofball faces, a cutepig, “invaders of Krypton”), the odd telephone number and an epic boxing match (a crowned figurepummeling the challenger).

There’s also a tall, grimy portrait, all quick scratches, of a king with an almost doglike face,surrounded by a field of tiny stars, scribbles, lines and texts (“Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr. Mr.…”) and two

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‘Untitled’ (1982) by Basquiat. (The

Estate of Jean--Michel Basquiat /

ADAGP, Paris / ARS, New York 2014)

‘Untitled (Grid)’ (1981) by Basquiat. (The

Estate of Jean--Michel Basquiat / ADAGP,

Paris / ARS, New York 2014)

9LikeLike TweetTweet 9 submit

beasts, one ferocious, the other beleaguered. It’s 60 by 40inches and a masterpiece of emotional turmoil. Basquiat let theworld into his art to a degree that few contemporary artistshave dared. Since his death of a drug overdose in 1988, noone else has come close.

Not every piece in thisshow is perfect. Someworks are too spareand look unfinished.He was prolific. Whenhe was in his zone,there’s not a linewasted. Even thedensest drawings lookelegant and restrained;even in his weakerpieces, there’sguaranteed to be a passage that sticks with you, like thisbit from a 1983 portrait of a grinning Charlie Parker:“Composed, repeated, improvised, repeated.” It could havebeen a mantra for Basquiat’s brief, unrelenting career.

(Through June 13, 2014)

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TAGS: ACQUAVELLA GALLERIES, BASQUIAT, JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT, ON VIEW

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