Basking in Basquiat

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Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now’s the Time is currently the main attraction at Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario. With more than 80 works of art, this is the most significant retrospective of Basquiat’s work in North America since 2005, and is one that aptly captures his soul and that of one of his inspirations, the streets.

The exhibit itself is stimulating and jarring to behold. The show begins with a famous monochromatic self-portrait of the late artist commissioned by Interview in 1982 and shot by renowned Harlem Renaissance photographer James van der Zee. Legend has it that van der Zee, then 95, gave the 21 year-old Basquiat his blazer to cover up the younger artist’s paint-stained shirt. The result is serendipitous; it captures Basquiat’s dual identity of high art and street art, paint and words, artist and black man in 1980’s New York City.

This concept of duality and double identity is present throughout the rest of the exhibit. Basquiat consistently explores the themes of black and white, dark and light, good and evil. To many, some of his works look more like scribbles from a young child than from an art virtuoso, but this is the nature of Basquiat’s artistic prowess. Looking beyond the surface, his art reveals an artist who is keenly aware of composition, expertly filling his canvases with a variety of means. The raw energy, emotion, and power that result are dazzling.

Basquiat was deeply disturbed by the perils of consumerism and by social justice issues that ranged from the lack of black figures in art to police brutality, which the exhibit captures exceptionally well in his tributes to black athletes and jazz musicians. One of the most stirring pieces is “Irony of a Negro Policeman,” which captures the death of the artist’s friend and fellow graffiti artist Michael Stewart at the hands of NYC police officers.

Perhaps the biggest flaw of the exhibit lies in its immediate conclusion into a Basquiat-themed gift shop, where one can purchase a t-shirt emblazoned by Basquiat’s signature crown symbol for $48.00. Though the gift shop model has long been engrained into the art gallery system, it seems like a rather ill-fitting choice to conclude an exhibit that derided capitalism so vehemently. The very nature of it opposes the ethos of the exhibit, and gives a bitter aftertaste to an otherwise thought-provoking and thoroughly impressive exhibit.

The name of the exhibition, Now’s the Time, derives from a blues tune from Charlie Parker, one of Basquiat’s favourite musicians, and from the incantation Martin Luther King used in his famous, “I have a dream” speech in 1963, both of which are played at various points of the show and act as cathartic stimuli for audiences. The title is also an indication of Basquiat’s relevance today in the heat of Ferguson, and the ongoing issues regarding race in the aftershock.

The world of art is comprised of powerful talent. But Basquiat’s star does not just shine – it is engulfed in the raging fire of his unprecedented creativity and by his insatiable frustration towards social inequality. He is a bonafide icon, and there is no better time than now to witness his dynamic interpretations of the human condition.

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