Jean-Michel Basquiat Head Imagery

Jean-Michel Basquiat Head Imagery 2019 INTRODUCTION Shortly after Jean-Michel Basquiat took up residency at Larry Gagosian’s Venice Beach townhouse/ gallery in November 1982, for the purpose of preparing his second exhibition in Los Angeles, Larry contacted me on behalf of Jean-Michel, asking if I would meet with the artist to discuss the production of a silkscreen project the artist wanted to produce. I met with Jean-Michel in his new Venice studio in November 1982, at which time we began our work on Tuxedo, an ambitious 8 x 5 foot silkscreen on canvas, which would be the first of six silk screen editions I produced with him.

I regularly visited Basquiat in his Venice studio. While my primary purpose was to work with him on the silkscreen projects, I was equally drawn to watching him at work. The studio was essentially a gallery space Larry Gagosian had built as the ground floor of his new home on Market Street in Venice. It was about 1500 square feet, with a ten foot high ceiling and four clean white walls. In the middle were a few rolling tables covered with paints, brushes, oil paint sticks, pencils, drawings, color photocopies, magazines, books, and newspapers.

These tables soon became cluttered with a vast array of various working materials, all of which the artist would use to make his paintings. In one corner there was a mattress on the floor, next to it a boom box and piles of cds. This was the one place in the studio where I could hang out--- removed, able to observe, even talk to Jean-Michel and, at the same time, stay out of his way.

Basquiat often got to work in the early afternoon, then worked late into the night. On the walls there were paintings in various states of completion, some with only a move or two, others labored over with multiple layers of paint, imagery, text, collaged drawings and photocopies. There was no one way he developed a canvas.

Some started with the application of abstract passages of paint, others with an image or collaged text drawing. In most cases Basquiat would lay down a body of “content” and then obliterate a good portion of it, leaving only a fragment of the original. Whatever approach he chose, Basquiat worked at a breakneck pace, constantly in motion, going from paint, images and texts on one canvas to starting another. Watching Jean-Michel Basquiat at work was one of my greatest experiences in the art world. His strategies, intuition, fluidity and talent were unique for his time.

During my time with Jean-Michel Basquiat in Venice in 1982-1984, he often confided in me about his creative expression and his career. It was therefore appropriate when British curator Mark Francis reached out to me in late 1983 to put him in contact with the artist to present his work at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh. This would become Jean-Michel Basquiat’s first museum exhibition.

Prior to this, Basquiat’s work had been recognized in one person exhibitions in

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galleries in New York, Los Angeles, Zurich, Rotterdam, Tokyo, and Modena, inclusion in the key international group exhibition, Documenta 7, in Kassel, Germany, and other group exhibitions in the United States and Europe. When it came to making selections for this first survey of his work by a major cultural institution, Jean-Michel focused primarily on works he had kept for himself, as well as some acquired by the astute young collectors, Herbert and Lenore Schorr, with whom he had developed a close friendship. Of the sixteen included in the exhibition, eight were his own, four were from the Schorrs, and four were from others, including one from Andy Warhol.

With one exception, all of the works from Jean-Michel Basquiat’s collection remained in his possession during his lifetime (many are still owned by the artist’s estate). While most included in the Fruitmarket Gallery exhibition were also included in the major museum surveys presented after the artist’s death, one remained in the collection of his estate, but it fell into relative obscurity. From the time of its initial exhibition in 1984 until it was sold by the estate at Sotheby’s, New York in 2015, Masonic Lodge was almost completely overlooked. Parenthetically, after it was acquired by its current owner, it went on exhibition here at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. PART I The overriding subject of Masonic Lodge is the anatomy of the human head, primarily to major structural parts; texts in the painting include FRONTAL BONE CROWN TEMPORAL RAMUS PARIETAL BONE JAW HINGE CHINBOX OCCIPITAL. Throughout his career, Jean-Michel Basquiat was drawn to images of the human anatomy. During his hospitalization at age eight after having been hit by a car, his mother brought him a copy of Gray’s Anatomy. His interest in anatomy is best evidenced by the numerous works he produced which refer to Leonardo da Vinci’s studies of human anatomy, including Leonardo’s Greatest Hits and Academic Study of the Male Torso.

In Masonic Lodge, Basquiat chose to depict aspects of the skull from above, and from different sides. These parts and partial views and texts are not presented with a concern for accurate placement, but more as fractured or broken apart, yet linked together by their shared representation in a white or yellow line set against the luminescent purple-blue background.

Basquiat’s references to parts of a human head are to both its internal and exterior structure. Sometimes he includes portions of human physiognomy, notably the rendering of the ear; a fairly complete portrayal of the lower jaw; BULGE OF T(EETH© and the only fully illustrative image in the painting, an eye. Some of the artist’s anatomical references are more schematic, such as the diagram of the top of the head in the lower left section of the painting. The text beneath this image is CRANIAL MASS; EGG SHAPED BRAIN CASE OF THE SKULL. Under this he wrote

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FACIAL MASS: HALF CUT CYLINDER OF THE FACE

+ LOWER JAW. While the first line refers to the schematic imagery above, the second line has no related image. To the right is a linear side-view of the head with the text HORSESHOE OF JAW in the lower right quadrant of the painting.

One of the more fully rendered images in the work is the artist’s representation of the lower jaw, just to the right of center, with the word RAMUS directly above. In the human skeletal system, the ascending parts of the mandible— the horseshoe-shaped bone lodging the teeth—are called rami. These “branches” attach to muscle.

Basquiat’s depiction of the human head is not realistic . He portrays it from different aspects: a jaw facing left, an ear facing right. Taken together, the various parts constitute a head facing three quarters to the left, while the eye in the center stares straight out toward the viewer, ---- a simultaneous representation of two very different views. This is a pictorial strategy Basquiat had begun to explore some eighteen months before the execution of this work, first in a black oil paint stick work on paper.

This work is one of Basquiat’s most intense forays into the reductive language of Picasso. This entirely line-drawn work also suggests the artist’s inspiration from sub-Saharan African sculpture. The work’s specific focus on both Picasso and African sculpture separates it from the other head images produced at this same time. Basquiat’s black and white drawing presents many views of a single head. While the both eyes and mouth are frontal, the cranium is viewed from the side. In this work, Basquiat’s concern is the simultaneous depiction of exterior and interior realms. While the drawing portrays the projecting facial features of eyes, nose and mouth, it also has a much less obvious interior dimension.

With the execution of this work Basquiat would come to realize that cohesiveness could give way to a true dis-assembling of disparate but related parts.

Masonic Lodge, executed eighteen months after Basquiat’s earlier black and white head study, represents the culmination of his interest in a fracturing of related parts of the same form of the human head. He pushed the limits in Masonic Lodge, challenging himself to present an integrated subject with a minimum of structural integrity.

More elusive are the two partially circular lines at the top center of the painting, whose anatomical references only become clear from the texts adjacent to them: FRONTAL BONE PARIETAL BONE. The linear form directly above this descriptive phrase is the artist’s rendering of the forehead. The line next to the text PARIETAL BONE is Basquiat’s rendering of the bone that forms the central side and upper back part of each side of the skull. These two curvilinear forms thereby bring to mind the shape of the top of the skull, especially as viewed from the side.

Reinforcing his depiction of a bifurcated skull, Basquiat drew a white line running from the top to bottom, dividing the picture in half. Perhaps he meant to represent the spinal column and the pathway by which sensory stimuli are conveyed to the brain. Basquiat’s interest in this is in numerous works, possibly best evidenced in Back of the Neck, which not only shows the artist’s continued

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fascination with human anatomy and physiology, but also how perception, cognition, and by extension consciousness, become possible.

While Basquiat’s bifurcation of his canvas served his intent to distinguish the two halves of the human skull, I would propose that it also served his interest in alluding to two realms of consciousness: the recognition of our physical existence, at the same time acknowledging an, internal realm of being. Basquiat continually sought to portray a duality informing phenomenal experience. Whether it was the representation of the scales of justice, the juxtaposition of the words GOD and LAW, or the painting of the same title with the text FLESH and SPIRIT, throughout Basquiat’s short career he remained fascinated by this concept and theme.

In many ways Masonic Lodge came to represent for Basquiat a new Rosetta Stone. an even more abstract means of capturing the duality of flesh and spirit. In retrospect, this would be another reason that the artist felt compelled to create the work and retain it throughout his life.

A slight digression here. More or less overlooked in the literature on the Venetian master Titian is the Portrait of Archbishop Filippo Archinto (1558) (Philadelphia Museum of Art). Titian shows Archinto in a chair, from a three-quarter angle, the so-called seated-bishop position, found in several mid-sixteenth century Italian Renaissance portraits. What distinguishes this obscure work is the depiction of a filmy curtain dividing the figure in half, running from the top of the canvas two-thirds of the way down to the bottom. Titian’s veil defines and at the same time obscures the figure being portrayed. The literature is scant on both this work and this particular archbishop. I propose that Titian turned to this “device” not to tell us something specific or unusual about his subject, but rather to allude to two realities, which together define not only his figure, but all of mankind. As this highly unusual work declares, that which is clear and visible relates to an external reality, that which is obscured by the mysterious curtain suggests the internal realm. Jumping forward 450 years, Basquiat, fully versed in modernist history and practice, presents this same duality through a simple, vertical, linear element.

****** Completing this summary review of the most immediately recognizable text-images in Masonic Lodge (we will shortly turn to the less apparent, even hidden text-images in the underpainting), Basquiat wrote and then painted over portions of the words PARANOID SCHIZOPHRENIA enclosed within a rectangle in the upper left of the painting. While partially obliterated, this declarative text, positioned as if it is the title of the work, is a reminder that Basquiat’s choice of subject matter is much more than a visual characterization of anatomical parts.

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In contrast to other works in which Basquiat drew from his fascination with the anatomical studies of Leonardo da Vinci (such as Leonardo’s Greatest Hits, Untitled: From Leonardo, Leg of a Dog, or Academic Study of the Male Torso), here the young artist has not turned to any specific historical and/or scientific source.

Unconcerned with an accurate portrayal, and not alluding to any one source, Basquiat was free to create a different kind of schema: the portrayal of the fractured parts of a human head, both external and internal, loosely held together by a linear form with no reference to a human anatomical part. It begins with a small circle continuing as a looping line running along the horizontal axis of the work, and ends in an arrow after “passing by” the eye. Like the orbital path of a planet around another, Basquiat’s line revolves around a human eye, the only fully realized image in the painting. Basquiat’s celestial-reference circles a vortex or central source. This configuation does not, however, reference planetary movement. Rather, it became a new means for the artist to bring together related parts, suggesting that their unification heralds an awakening of consciousness. **** Movement is a subtle and significant element in Basquiat’s work. Whether it be the implied movement in the artist’s expressive gestural paint application, or the directionality of clearly recognizable symbols, in Basquiat’s work the viewer is primarily led from bottom to top.

Two of Basquiat’s most obvious suggestions of movement are his use of arrows and ladders. The ladder image is repeated in both Tuxedo and Pegasus. An upward pointing arrow is found in countless works on paper, a wonderful example is Ascent (one of the 32 works on paper in the Daros Collection), where Basquiat’s image of an upward pointing arrow is accompanied by the word ASCENT, making it clear that the image implies not merely physical movement but psycho-spiritual transformation.

Movement in a circular trajectory, as found in Masonic Lodge, is rare in Basquiat’s work, found in only a handful of paintings, and in each case suggestive of a transformative experience.

PART II: JMB’s Execution of Masonic Lodge Along the left side edge of Masonic Lodge there are letters painted in black on the raw, unprimed canvas. From top to bottom we see H E; E T; T; R and N. These letters indicate that prior to the stretching and priming of the canvas, Basquiat had begun work on what would eventually become a picture. In all likelihood, these letters were the beginning of words that continued onto what became the front of the stretched canvas. Jean-Michel Basquiat could begin a canvas in a variety of ways; in

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this particular work, it appears that the artist’s means of “getting into the work” was to execute a series of markings on an unstretched piece of canvas, probably while it was lying on the floor of his studio. After making these initial marks, Basquiat had the canvas stretched and primed with white gesso, this layer of paint essentially burying any indication of the first letters, words or texts that he first laid down.

While the letters on the left side of the canvas picture support do not seem to be a part of the painting, they provide insight into an important aspect of the artist’s working process, especially in this particular painting. At first, the viewer is drawn to the texts, words, diagrams and anatomical images, all on the surface. On second glance, you notice there is texture and information underneath. Some of the earlier text-imagery is apparent from frontal viewing, a good deal more when viewed from the side.

After priming his canvas with white gesso, Basquiat applied a coat of saturated, luminescent purple-blue paint, on top of which he drew texts, some of which are still visible upon careful inspection, especially as viewed from acute side angles. After filling up portions of his picture surface with words, short phrases and images, the artist covered them with a layer of thinned-down purple-blue paint. In some areas, the earlier application of the more luminous blue paint shows through the top layer. It creates the effect of a glowing veil underlying the top layer. Caught between layers of paint that function as foreground and background are Basquiat’s array of partially-visible texts and images. Many are only individual letters, which may have been parts of words. In the top-right quadrant of the work appear the letters EDGAR. Above the central eye are the letters AIOLO, which may also be part of a word. Directly below the partially recognizable phrase PARANOID SCHIZOPHREN(IC) or (IA) the artist has depicted the top of a number of domed structures, possibly sacred places of worship.

The underpainting in Masonic Lodge plays a significant role in the overall resolution of the work’s subject matter and meaning. Some of this underpainting is visible, while other parts are only evident with ultra violet lighting and captured through photography. The dialogue between the work’s underpainting and its topmost layer of paint application is one of the defining features of the work, making Masonic Lodge one of the artist’s most complex usages of this pictorial technique. Buried in the layer of paint below the schematic outline of the head and the text HORSESHOE OF JAW in the lower right, Basquiat wrote SICKLES MATTOCKS FORKS AXES. None of these words seem to directly relate to the artist’s various depictions of the human skull. Also embedded in the underpainting in this same area are the words FRONTAL HEAD, and below, BIG EYES, tying this phase of the painting’s execution to what Basquiat depicted on the final paint surface. As part of the preliminary execution of the painting, above the partially crossed-out text PARANOID SCHIZOPHREN(IC) OR (IA) at the top of the work Basquiat wrote GROTES, most likely a reference to the word GROTESQUE. Also embedded in this area is the name LEONARDO DA VINCI. While none of the recognizable head imagery in Masonic Lodge can be traced to Leonardo’s own anatomical head studies, Basquiat always had the Renaissance master in mind when focusing on the subject of human anatomy.

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Another fascinating set of images embedded in the underlayer of paint is a number of ghost-like human heads. One is below the image of an ear, another to the right of the schematic head in the lower right, another above the center-left text BASE LINE and a fourth, with bulging eyes, to the right of the ear. These heads function as voices from another, less tangible realm or time in communication with the more visible layers of content in the work. It is for this reason they are described as “ghost-like.” They do not feel part of our lived experience, and their presence is hidden from our view. While they have an undefined, haunting relationship with the work’s subject matter, they become an important sub-theme in our understanding of the work. These heads become PROPHECES, suggesting that the work contains a deeper meaning than just the depiction of that which is readily observable. Most appropriately, in careful viewing from a side angle, the viewer can make out the words MASONIC LODGE lying beneath the top layer of paint directly above the eye.

While this assortment of texts and images is only partially visible, the artist clearly intended that they be assimilated with the more readily viewable imagery and text in the final layer of paint.

Delving into the layers of paint, imagery, words and texts contained within this painting provides insight into Jean-Michel Basquiat’s working procedure. It reveals an artist with the confidence to experiment as he undertook the execution of a work of art, and the insight that certain subjects could best be captured by a spontaneous approach. Basquiat rarely trusted or felt comfortable trying to achieve a “final” result from only one set of actions. Instinctively he knew that however he started a painting, it would in all likelihood trigger new and possibly unexpected responses, which in turn would lead to additional layers of paint and imagery. As a careful reading of Masonic Lodge makes apparent, an initial set of actions created the context for an even more insightful exploration of the subjects and themes of the painting. And just as the “final” painting was the result of a building up of multiple layers of information, so too is the process by which we “decode” this particular painting.

PART III The media frenzy surrounding the May 18, 2017 sale at Sotheby’s New York of Untitled (Head) by Jean-Michel Basquiat for $110.5 million to newly anointed mega-collector Yusaku Maezawa has somewhat obscured the focus not only on this particular artwork, but also on the subjects and themes as Basquiat reached artistic maturity in late 1981 and early 1982. The media, and subsequently the public, have become consumed with a history-making price; and the focus has shifted away from artistic intent and the relationship of this particular work to other works produced by

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the young Basquiat. In fact, the subject of this work, a large, expressive head executed with a bravura performance of both brushwork and color, was the subject of other paintings and works on paper executed in 1981–1983.

Between 1981 and 1983, Jean-Michel Basquiat produced many of his most compelling and challenging works in which the subject matter is the human head. In some paintings it’s a single head, in others, a group, and all are all representational.

Many of Basquiat’s head studies have been interpreted as masked figures rather than living beings. This conclusion stems from the somewhat generalized way in which the facial features have been rendered. As previously discussed, a few of these works evidence the artist’s initial foray into the abstracting language of Picasso, Cubism, sub- Saharan African, and Oceanic art. Even in this particular group of works, the head is more often life-like than not.

When the subject matter was representational, Basquiat was drawn as much to what existed underneath the features as he was to the surface. This is surely what motivated him to undertake what I will refer to here as the Maezawa head. This seminal work shows the artist’s fascination with the face as a passageway, via the eyes and mouth, into the hidden realms of the emotive life, the character’s psychology. The eyes see out, and invite the viewer in. The mouth expresses words and thoughts, and draws energy in. While this head hardly appears to represent a “real” person, with its individualized expression and articulated emotive content, it displays basic human attributes of passion and expression.

It is noteworthy that at the time of his death, in addition to Masonic Lodge, Basquiat possessed no fewer than twenty-seven head studies executed in 1982. We know this to be true because twenty-seven works on paper, each depicting a unique head image, were presented in the seminal “Basquiat Drawings” exhibition at the Robert Miller Gallery in November 1990. All the works included in this exhibition came from the estate of the artist. In the exhibition, these works were all presented on one wall, and are a portrait gallery of personages in a diverse array of psychological states. They are a key link to the artist’s development of his singular voice and visual language.

Basquiat kept this group of images for a couple of different reasons. In a few instances, a specific drawing was subsequently photocopied and collaged onto a canvas to appear as part of a later painting. That Basquiat kept a great number of the early 1982 head drawings can at least partially be explained by the fact that most early collectors of the artist were primarily focused on the artist’s paintings. More importantly, it reflects his desire (and possibly need) to stay close to his sources, to maintain a connection with the psychological environment from which he constantly drew his artistic energy and motivation. While it remains unclear whether any of the highly expressive head images from this formative moment depict specific individuals, each resulted from the artist reflecting on or contemplating a specific experience, whether external or internal.

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Basquiat thought of his diverse head studies as a portrait gallery. This seems obvious in the multi-panel paintings Six Crimee and Mitchell Crew, the former executed at the same time as the head drawings in 1982, the latter following only a few months later. In Six Crimee there are six heads, each fully frontal, eyes and mouths wide open, gazing directly out at the viewer. While none of the heads in this work can easily be identified as a portrait of a specific person, each figure’s hair and dark skin coloration is different, giving the impression that they represent the artist’s “crew.” With a radiant nimbus above each head, these souls are made eternal, existing in memory as they once were as functioning beings.

The idea of presenting an array of characters as the subject for a painting is played out again in Mitchell Crew, where Basquiat transforms his interest in individual head studies into a complete portrait gallery. In this major multi-panel masterwork, the artist now presents nine distinct heads, many sharing facial features with the early head studies. As the phrase, repeated two times in the work states, the Mitchell Crew are part of the artist’s “Hall of Fame.” ***** Basquiat’s most important achievement of this type is Philistines. The work presents three frontally placed figures, two of which are rendered as head and half torso, the third simply head and neck. Harking back to the earlier head motifs, the eyes are over-life-sized, seeming to bulge out of their sockets. The mouths also appear unnaturally large, open and baring the teeth. Basquiat bestows on these figures the same dual function of outward focus and internal penetration that he earlier explored in his first head studies. The eyes of the figures almost appear to hunt us down, not allowing escape from their psychic hold on the viewer. The psychological presence of these figures pushes out toward the realm of the viewer. At the same time, these open orifices invite the viewer to peer into the figure’s internal life. This duality is also asserted in the rendering of the two half torsos. In the central figure, the chest cavity is opened up, exposing both ribs and spine. The viewer is made privy to the figure’s central channel of energy. In Masonic Lodge, this same central channel has been reduced to a continuous white line.

That Basquiat desired to establish a more direct relationship between these figures and the viewer is further supported by the artist’s expressive paint application. Permeating the physicality of his figures, his vibrant brushstrokes unify figure and ground, pushing the figures forward into the realm of the viewer.

Who are the Philistines? Basquiat presents them as formidable foes. They are smug, possibly indifferent, somewhat antagonistic. He presents them as a strong, authoritative force, which must be reckoned with. While these personages are confrontational, even a bit scary—you would not want to run into them in the “real” world—the energy that they exude is irresistible. It is an experience we want to be part of. Basquiat is not concerned with physical forces of power and destruction as much as he desires to draw attention to those psychological forces that tear into oneself, possibly revealing a truer or fuller being. *****

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Basquiat was also focused on a more conceptual treatment of the human head. As Basquiat began his pictorial career, he understood that he had insight into a deeper aspect of human experience; and that he could also create visual equivalents of “an internal life” through the image of the human head. While his focus remained on observation and representation, he also sought to portray the recognition of self.

Basquiat saw the depiction of the human head as a vehicle for presenting the process by which one becomes aware of one’s identity.

The most compelling of the conceptually-driven head images is Untitled, in the Broad Collection, and what I shall refer to as the Broad head. Other important examples are La Colomba (1983) and Masonic Lodge (1983). While Basquiat executed hundreds of portraits, there is only a handful of head images in which the portrayal of consciousness is the work’s underlying subject.

Sometime in the early months of 1981, a full 18 months prior to painting the Maezawa head, Basquiat began a painting of an oversized head extending across the pictorial field, an image that had no precedent in earlier sketches, drawings, or paintings. Showing little regard for either physiognomic accuracy or individual likeness, Basquiat chose to counter the expressive qualities of his head image with aspects of an internalized state of being. With its public presentation, this painting declared Basquiat’s arrival as a new and authentic voice in the world of contemporary art.

Unlike many of his later paintings, which were completed quickly, the Broad head was begun and then put aside for several months, to be finished later in the year. One can only speculate about the reasons for this hesitation, but several individuals close to the artist—including myself and Annina Nosei, the artist’s dealer at the time—suspect that the young, unseasoned artist hesitated to complete the work because he was caught off guard, possibly even frightened, by the power and energy emanating from this unexpected image.

While the painting was presented in the artist’s debut exhibition in New York as Untitled, when it entered the collection of its current owners a few months later the word Skull had been appended to the designation Untitled and accompanied the painting through numerous exhibitions. This renaming was a misinterpretation of the work that may be attributable to the uniqueness of its subject matter. Most likely, the change in title was the result of confusing the work with the more traditional iconography of the memento mori, in which a skull implies death.

However, Basquiat’s head—having little if any precedent in modern art history— requires more careful analysis. Close inspection reveals that this head, unlike a skull, is alive and responsive to external stimuli; as such, it seems alert to our world while simultaneously allowing us to penetrate its psycho-spiritual recesses.

Basquiat’s representation of a single enlarged head is a breakthrough. The visual information it contains provides insight into many of the strategies of dichotomy the artist would adopt over the following eighteen months.

The Broad head depicts the left upper and lower teeth, possibly accounting for the work’s misinterpretation as a skull by some. But it clearly also shows

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functional features as well: the left ear, both eyes, and the nose. There is even a suggestion of hair. While the handling of these features could hardly be characterized as realistic, neither are they grossly distorted or misrepresented.

Rather, the way they are portrayed clarifies the artist’s intent in depicting a vitally interactive being fully in possession of the means to process external stimuli. That is, the artist also reveals the subtle neural pathways connecting the sense organs to their internal processor. This concern for sensory and cognitive activity negates the interpretation of the head as an inanimate skull. What this work ultimately captures is the fluidity between external and internal—the complex, living processes connecting seeing, hearing, smelling, and knowing.

The Broad head indicates that, from the outset, Basquiat was fascinated by greater realities than meet the eye. This work introduces the unique x-ray-like vision he brought to his subjects. His work appears to break down the dichotomy between the external and the internal, and thereby revealing aspects of the psychic life. In so doing, the artist extends the interest in spiritual truths advanced most notably by the Abstract Expressionists four decades earlier. Artists such as Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Jackson Pollock, and Barnett Newman, attempted to represent a world beyond that which is identified solely with physical experience. Though Basquiat came from a completely different social milieu and historical context, he was equally engaged in the pursuit of fundamental truths. However, he did not achieve this through abstraction, but through newly discovered possibilities for representation.

As he pursued his creative activities, the young painter recognized that his breakthroughs would occur in direct relationship to his ability to penetrate intuitively the façade of physical form and appearance and allow other truths and realities to surface.

One might ask why Basquiat undertook the Maezawa head after being so mystified by the Broad head that he was only able to complete it at the end of 1981 after putting it aside for a number of months. I suggest that Basquiat knew that the subject he was able to realize in the earlier work was such an outlier that he wanted to show himself that he was capable of producing a different type of expressive head.

Structurally, the two works share a number of features. Both present a single head image against a similar background of powder blue covering a significant portion of the background. The earlier head occupies a larger space. The later work relies much more on the over painting of thick black lines to drive its emotive content. There is subtle articulation of internal parts of the head—the eyes, the ear, mouth, the brain—in the first work. As Basquiat worked his way through the second work, he recognized that he was able to execute a powerful, yet significantly different type of painting, primarily addressing emotive content, less an expression of the dialogue between external perception and internal cognition. With the completion of the Maezawa head Basquiat successfully completed the counterpoint to his earlier undertaking. Far less conceptual, the later head is part of the lineage of expressive heads from the artist’s studio production in 1982. Basquiat did not, however, abandon the exploration of the conceptual implications of his initial head

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painting. With the execution of Masonic Lodge, several months later, Basquiat again turns to a head image as his means of exploring the polarity of external and internal realms of experience. ***** Masonic Lodge is the most fleeting head image in Basquiat’s oeuvre. At first glance one might not recognize it as a human head. It is a work that could only have been created after the outpouring of more recognizable, less-abstracted head images. With the numerous portraits and self portraits as a background, and having undertaken more conceptual head images focusing on the subject of consciousness, Basquiat attempted something less structured and predictable.

Masonic Lodge did not have the same appeal to his audience as his other head images. Even though Basquiat struggled with the Broad head, requiring him to return to the work over many months before completion, the work quickly left his studio when finished as did Basquiat’s second expressive head—the Maezawa head (Untitled,1982). Because both works were quickly claimed by collectors, Basquiat knew that he needed to keep something that expressed the energies and vision of his earlier head paintings. He recognized the importance of having a work referencing his breakthrough achievement of simultaneously capturing aspects of an external (physical) existence and the equally apparent reality of the soul. It was for this reason that he undertook Masonic Lodge, a work presenting a new articulation on the subject of identity. The resulting image must have been seen as an outlier because none of Basquiat’s dealers made any attempt to acquire it for their collectors. It remained for the artist alone to understand its place in his artistic evolution.

The head depicted in Masonic Lodge only marginally conforms to anything commonly understood as representing this part of human anatomy. For the most part, the images in the painting present diverse schematic representations of aspects of the head, accompanied by more or less realistic images of an ear, the lower jaw, and an eye. These disparate parts come together into an overall form approximating the human head, positioned more or less where we would expect to find them.

Further aiding recognition of a human head, the semi-circular linear configuration rotating in front of and around the eye implies the volume of mass associated with a head. The head portrayed in Masonic Lodge is hardly a recognizable illustration— an image conforming to how we physically see ourselves. This is a head which has been taken apart, that has been fractured in order to facilitate different kinds of conclusions. This is a head that invites, even welcomes the viewer to enter into its interior, yet at the same time challenges us, suggesting that there is more than “meets the eye.” Metaphorically suggesting “getting inside someone’s head,” it equally suggests the more elusive process of recognizing a deeper sense of self.

Jean-Michel Basquiat did not follow any belief system, spiritual practice, or tradition, but, in his titling of a painting Masonic Lodge he suggested that the inward quest is as real and meaningful as our outward experience. While there is no documentation that Jean-Michel Basquiat was in any way familiar with the ideas or

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the foundational beliefs of the Freemasons, Masonic Lodge suggests a kindred spirit with the masons’ original worldview.

In Ulysses James Joyce wrote “Art has to reveal to us ideas, formless spiritual essences... The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring. All the rest is the speculation of schoolboys for schoolboys.”1 Jean-Michel Basquiat’s life was short, and his career as an artist only ten years. It is amazing that this young man made the important contributions to twentieth century art that he did. Even more impressive was his awareness and sophisticated interpretation of his world. He must have been aware of his unique gift long before he began his practice as an artist. By the time of his first one person exhibition, the depth of his insight was apparent. His themes had profound meaning, were rendered with a mature artist’s recognition of traditions and techniques that had gone before him; Basquiat leapt forth with a totally new voice.

Like the spiritual masters, Basquiat seemed to possess an understanding of fundamental truths. He must be recognized as a painter equal to Picasso, Pollock, and Rauschenberg, but also as a visionary able to touch our innermost souls. © Fred Hoffman 2019

1 James Joyce, Ulysses, Vintage Books, New York, 1986, p. 152.

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