Gagosian's first retrospective of Jean-Michel Basquiat's work produced in Los Angeles

The first-ever exhibition of the works of Jean-Michel Basquiat (New York, 1960 - 1988) produced in Los Angeles: titled Jean-Michel Basquiat. Made on Market Street, it is curated by Fred Hoffman and Larry Gagosian , and is being held at the Gagosian ’s Beverly Hills location from March 7 to June 1, 2024. Arranged by Stefan Beckman, Made on Market Street features loans from the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat, MoMA New York, the Whitney in New York, the Nicola Erni Collection in Steinhausen, Switzerland, the Broad Art Foundation in Los Angeles from the Brandhorst Museum in Munich, and several other public and private collections.

Between November 1982 and May 1984, Basquiat produced about a hundred paintings, numerous works on paper and six silkscreened editions in Venice, California. For an artist closely associated with the New York art scene of the 1980s, Basquiat was extraordinarily prolific in Los Angeles. Made on Market Street reflects on this important era by bringing together nearly thirty works, many of which are among his most important paintings. “Los Angeles has always been a great city for artists, and Jean-Michel seemed to find it a refreshing change from New York,” notes Larry Gagosian. “Although the immensity of his talent was immediately apparent, it was still a highlight of my career to work with him, to present him in Los Angeles and to witness the extraordinary impact his art and legacy have had on our culture.”

After meeting Basquiat for the first time in 1981, Gagosian invited him to Los Angeles. Basquiat’s solo exhibition with the Larry Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles (the first time his work was presented on the West Coast) opened in April 1982, soon after his first solo show in New York at Annina Nosei’s gallery. The Los Angeles exhibition was seen as the arrival of a significant voice by both the public and collectors. In November 1982 Basquiat returned to California, living and working in Gagosian’s Market Street residence, a three-story structure with an interior courtyard open to the light and air of the nearby beach.

That same year, Basquiat met Fred Hoffman, who ran New City Editions, and together they produced six editioned prints, including Tuxedo (1982) and Untitled (1983), large-scale silkscreen works on canvas. Featuring white text, sketches and directional arrows on a black background, Tuxedo contrasts with Basquiat’s intensely colored paintings of the time, with its dense collection of allusive phrases rising to the crown at the top. For Basquiat, working in Venice represented a respite from the distractions and pressures of the New York art scene. Many of the paintings he produced in Venice were exhibited at his next show in Los Angeles, which opened on March 8, 1983 at the Larry Gagosian Gallery and featured some thirty paintings, including Hollywood Africans, Horn Players, Museum Security (Hollywood Meltdown), Luna Park, and Year of the boar (all 1983). Made on Market Street will again present many of these crucial works together for the first time.

A highlight of the exhibition is Hollywood Africans, a work that depicts Basquiat along with fellow artists Toxic and Rammellzee as new black celebrities in a palette that evokes the bright Southern California sun. Fusing drawing, painting, and text in three panels, Horn Players pays homage to jazz greats Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Emphasizing the importance of music to Basquiat, the work conveys the vitality of bebop in a visual style informed by contemporary graffiti and hip-hop. The same year it was painted, Basquiat produced the influential hip-hop track Beat Bop on his Tartown Record label, featuring Rammellzee and K-Rob.

In the summer of 1983 Basquiat returned to Los Angeles. He returned to Market Street, this time establishing his studio a few doors down and remaining there until the late spring of 1984. One night, while Basquiat was working, he went out to a fenced-in yard just behind the studio, where he encountered a homeless man sleeping there. After this encounter, the backyard fence was removed, but instead of disposing of the wooden planks Basquiat integrated them as a support for some of his most iconic paintings-Flexible, Gold Griot, and M (all from 1984), all of which are on display together for the first time since they were created. With Flexible, Basquiat expanded his representation of the black male, presenting an extraordinary figure whose elastic and expressive arm gestures combine the artist’s interests in anatomy, symbolism, and the qualities he characterized as “realness, heroism, and street.”

Made on Market Street is accompanied by a catalog that reproduces the works on display along with archival material, including installation images from the 1982 and 1983 exhibitions at the Larry Gagosian Gallery, historical artifacts and exhibition reviews, as well as previously unpublished photographs of Basquiat in his studios. A conversation between Larry Gagosian, Fred Hoffman, director Tamra Davis and the artist’s sisters, Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux, will be presented, along with an essay in which Hoffman reflects on the works Basquiat produced in Los Angeles, discussing the complex symbolism and restless innovation that permeated his work. The Larry Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles presented three exhibitions featuring Basquiat during the artist’s lifetime: Jean-Michel Basquiat: Paintings, at the 619 North Almont Drive location, April 8-May 8, 1982; Jean-Michel Basquiat: New Paintings at the 510 North Robertson Boulevard location, March 8-April 2, 1983; and Jean-Michel Basquiat at the 510 North Robertson Boulevard location, January 7-February 8, 1986. Made on Market Street is the seventh exhibition of Basquiat’s work that Gagosian has presented since the artist’s passing in 1988.

Gagosian's first retrospective of Jean-Michel Basquiat's work produced in Los Angeles

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