The collaboration between Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat is considered one of the most important in art history of the 20th century. Of the approximately 160 works that the two artists designed together, 80 can be seen at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris this Wednesday. A unique exhibition because, as the Austrian co-curator Dieter Buchhart said, their collaboration has never been shown on this scale.
Among the exhibits is one of their last works created as a duo: «6.99». It features a silhouette of a woman, two American football players and numbers. Motifs derived from Warhol (1928-1987), Basquiat (1960-1988) completed them with his signature skull and graffiti elements. Warhol usually began the joint works, which Basquiat then revised.
In the works, it is not only two different visual languages that collide. Basquiat openly criticized capitalism and racism in his art, while Warhol was interested in the aesthetics of consumer society with his portraits of well-known personalities such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley and the serial reproductions.
The Swiss gallery owner Bruno Bischofberger, who owns around 40 works in the Paris exhibition, had the idea of making a duo out of Warhol and Basquiat in the early 1980s. Two artists who could not be more different, not only in their visual aesthetics. Warhol was considered introverted and shy, he was over 50 years old and an international pop art star. Basquiat was a 22-year-old man, musician and painter known only to a narrow circle.
Running until August 28, the exhibition is structured chronologically and illustrates how the duo found an aesthetic balance in their collaborative work. Or the “Third Mind”, as the Foundation quotes the writer William S. Burroughs in its catalogue. This consists of two extraordinary spirits creating a third, unique path. (dpa)