Basquiat’s Defacement: The Untold Story
Chaedria LaBouvier author Johanna F Almiron author
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Guggenheim Museum Publications,U.S.
Published:11th Jul '19
Should be back in stock very soon
An exploration of a formative chapter in Basquiat’s brief career through the lens of his identity and the role of cultural activism in New York City during the early years of the 1980s
Jean-Michel Basquiat painted Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart) in 1983 to commemorate the death of a young, black artist who died from injuries sustained while in police custody after being arrested for allegedly tagging a New York City subway station. Published to accompany a focused exhibition of Basquiat’s response to anti-black racism and police brutality, this catalogue explores a chapter in the artist’s career through both the lens of his identity and the Lower East Side as a nexus of activism in the early 1980s.
With an introduction by Chaédria LaBouvier, Nancy Spector, and Joan Young, and an essay by Johanna F. Almiron are supplemented by commentary from artists, activists, and other cultural figures who were part of this episode in the city’s history, which invokes today’s urgent conversations about state-sanctioned racism. Ephemera related to Stewart’s death, including newspaper clippings and protest posters, and samples of artwork from Stewart’s estate are also featured along with paintings and prints made by other artists from Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, David Hammons, in response to Stewart’s death.
The book examines Basquiat’s exploration of black identity, his protest against police brutality, and his singular language of empowerment—and is an urgent reminder of the work that must be done to banish state-sanctioned racism. -- Lucy Rees * Galerie *
Deeply moving [...] Takes Jean-Michel Basquiat's deeply personal and rarely exhibited painting made the week of Stewart’s death as its starting point, opening a conversation about police brutality that transcends the time in which the work was made. -- Miss Rosen * Vice *
Basquiat’s pieces [demonstrate] a particular violence against black lives that is at once structural, historical, ongoing, and futuristic. -- Johanna Almiron * Lit Hub *
{...] does exactly what art should do: tell us a story we don’t want to hear but need to, about the racist brutality so prevalent in American life. -- Sam Ben-Meir * Jacobin *
[“Basquiat’s ‘Defacement’: The Untold Story”] argues for a fresh look at the impact of the racial tension of the 1980s on Basquiat and his peers. -- Siddhartha Mitter * New York Times *
[“Basquiat’s ‘Defacement’: The Untold Story”] brilliantly portrays the artist's response to police brutality. * Financial Times *
[Basquiat’s ‘Defacement’: The Untold Story] is a small but timely and often surprising powerhouse of a historical show. -- Peter Schjeldahl * New Yorker *
ISBN: 9780892075485
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: 480g
112 pages