Jean-Michel Basquiat has become something of a mythical apparition 34 years after his death at the age of 27, inextricably linked to our understanding of what it means to be a superstar artist: effortlessly beautiful, furiously productive inventor of an entire visual system to contain, ward off, and annotate the world, aloof yet seemingly game, fluent in all manner of celebrity, and ultimately tragic. After all the books, documentaries, films, and retrospectives, the young man himself, whoever he was or could have been, has become increasingly distant, especially as his paintings have become some of the most expensive artworks on the planet.
However, not to his family. They knew Jean-Michel and remembered him as a playful, mischievous, restless person, even after he left Brooklyn for downtown Manhattan and became famous. They managed his estate after he died, but his story was mostly told by others. Then, a few years ago, his sister Lisane Basquiat and her stepmother, Nora Fitzpatrick, "started talking about how we had all these works and they were sitting in a vault and they really needed to be shared and seen," according to Lisane Basquiat. Lisane and her sister, Jeanine Heriveaux, eventually began work on an exhibition of artworks, artifacts, home movies, and video interviews with friends and family, all with the goal of reclaiming their brother as one of their own. It's a pop-up mini-museum and biographical reliquary inside the Starrett-Lehigh Building called King Pleasure, after the musician's name he wrote on one of his canvases, and it'll be open through the summer.
Family and friends gathered two nights before it opened, partying in a re-creation of the Mike Todd Room at the Palladium nightclub. According to Heriveaux, the show's goal was to "complete Jean-narrative." Michel's "To allow people to understand that he had a family, that he had a father, that he had sisters and a stepmother," someone exclaimed, "and that little bit was missing from the story." Everyone applauded as Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock" played over the speakers: "The DJ plays your favorite blasts / Takes you back to the past, music's magic"
Selena Mattei
