In the 1980s Jean-Michel Basquiat ジャン=ミシェル・バスキア emerged as probably the first real-deal African-American art superstar. Beginning as a graffiti artist on the crusts of popular culture he rampaged through New York signing his public work as SAMO (meaning — Same Old Shit), he graduated into one of the most prominent painters of the 20th century. An artistic and cultural magpie, he took from and referred to native African art, Da Vinci, Picasso, Pollock and his beloved mentor Andy Warhol. Basquiat, a beautiful man, charismatic, shy with an astounding talent and a massive influence on contemporary art which can still be felt today.
Basquiat and Fashion
In the 1990s, as a student in Glasgow, I was studying theater and literature but also attempting to explore more about music and art. Most student apartments at that time were decorated with posters of work from Rothko, Klimt or the movie posters for Pulp Fiction and Trainspotting. I remember picking up a book or maybe an art magazine and seeing Basquiat’s work for the first time, then seeing a reproduction at a house party and wondering who he was, why did this work touch me and noticing the way text and words played as much a role as images. Basquiat was very much a literary artist as well as a visual master.
In the latter half of the 1990s when the internet became more available and widely used, I began looking at photographs of artists and watched Julian Schnabel’s seminal biopic Basquiat with an unforgettable performance from Jeffrey Wright beautifully portraying Basquiat and capturing perfectly his great and unknowable complexities.
As someone with a burgeoning interest in fashion, however, it was also Basquiat’s clothing which transfixed me. Loose and oversized tweed jackets, crew neck wool sweaters with holes in them caused, no doubt, by joint burns, herringbone, plaid and later, when he became widely successful, Issey Miyake suits, linen jackets and a variety of paint-splattered items from Japanese brand Comme des Garçons.
I later found out that Basquiat had actually walked the runway in 1986 for the Comme des Garçons Homme Plus Spring/Summer 1987 show which you can watch on YouTube, for those of you who are interested. For the Fall/Winter 2018 the Comme des Garçons Shirt line featured eight shirts with Basquiat’s work printed on them cementing the connection between Basquiat’s estate and Comme des Garçons which continues even to this today. The artist’s favorite item of Comme des Garçons clothing was a simple, three-buttoned black overcoat which hung just below the knee. I imagine it to be soft, supple, protective, a replacement blanket for an artist who lived with demons, destruction and a madness which I often share.
When I began researching Basquiat for this article, I noticed that in interviews he had a slight stammer when he spoke. He stuttered nervously. He was sometimes uncomfortable talking about and explaining his craft. He eschewed the criticism and the over intellectualization of his paintings. I also stammer. Mine is far more pronounced than his, but I feel a certain kinship with him. I also associate with Basquiat due to his flirtation with perceived high and low culture. A man of the streets, a bum, a hobo, an artist, a man with a penchant for expensive wine and food, an artist who enjoyed the finer things in life and someone who was at home talking about art and culture on the Lower East Side while sleeping in cardboard boxes in the Bronx or Brooklyn.
High and Low Culture
Basquiat was always an outsider. Another artist also situated on the periphery was Comme des Garçons designer Rei Kawakubo who shunned trends and refused, steadfastly, to play the game. I’ve always been drawn to outsiders. I also feel more comfortable being on the edge, on the outside looking in. It allows for space, for movement. It permits fluidity, freedom of thought. It grants me the liberty to exercise my eccentricities, to wistfully and awkwardly kiss loved ones behind the elbow, to wear my collar poking outside the neckline of a crew-neck sweater, to listen to Public Image Ltd whilst watching live ballet, to eat baked beans every day for months, to shave my hair off for no apparent reason, to cry at Untamed Heart without an ounce of shame, to make my friends cringe with my awful impressions of Al Pacino and Denzel Washington, to talk to colleagues about the profundity of Barthes and Adorno whilst reading gossip magazines and eating Big Macs straight from the carton outside the Chanel flagship in the middle of Ginza. This is the very essence of high and low.
Somehow I think that Basquiat would approve.
Basquiat’s Art and Japan
The most recent exhibition in Japan of Basquiat’s work was Made In Japan, a retrospective at Roppongi’s Mori Art Center Gallery in 2019. I didn’t have the chance to go this show, however, I did read amazing cultural commentator Tracy Jones’ inflammatory essay on this exhibition on his website. As a white middle-aged white Scottish man, I will never claim to feel the same as Jones, however, as a writer and journalist I know how it feels to be an outsider looking in at these kind of events. Being the only foreigner, being shunned or ignored, being made to feel insignificant.
Basquiat’s relationship with Japan was more complicated than first thought. According to art writer Julie Anne Sjaastad, writing for Sothebys, “Tokyo in the 1980s was enjoying rapid economic growth which spurred on its art market. As Japan approached the height of its go-go period, Tokyo’s culture would soon become synonymous with sleek technologies, lightning-speed information, and cutting-edge fashion. During this time, Basquiat often visited Japan, having held six solo exhibitions and ten group exhibitions in the country. The artist was not only inspired by New York, but also by Tokyo, where he began incorporating Japanese words and phrases as well as Japanese characters into many of his works.”
Paintings including Onion Gum and One Million Yen incorporate Japanese references and Japan became, symbiotically, part of the great artist’s milieu. The apotheosis of his connection with Japan came in 2017 when Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa purchased Basquiat’s 1982 untitled skull painting for $110.5 million, setting an auction record for the artist.
When I find myself in the back of a taxi roaring through Tokyo at night, surrounded by the multitudes of signs and signage, neon, text, images, animation, billboards in multiple languages, I’m often reminded of Basquiat’s kaleidoscopic and abundant output of work — considering he passed away at the age of 27. Polygonal, coruscant and inspiring, Basquiat’s work still astounds today and his relationship with Japan and the Japanese people seems as strong as ever.
