On the occasion of the “Basquiat Soundtracks” exhibition at the Philharmonie de Paris, Vladimir Cagnolari offers us a stroll through the ears of the American painter and musician Jean-Michel Basquiat. Our guests: Vincent Bessières, co-curator of the exhibition; Maripol, stylist and Chassol, musician.
⇒ Basquiat Soundtracks at La Philharmonie de Paris.
The Philharmonie de Paris is organizing the first exhibition devoted to the powerful relationship between Jean-Michel Basquiat to the music. Giving to hear as much as to see, Basquiat Soundtracks offers itself as the heroic, multiple and abundant soundtrack of a dazzling work, for which music proves to be an essential key to interpretation, from Beethoven to Madonna, from zydeco to John Cage, from Louis Armstrong to the Zulu Nation .
The visionary improvisations of Charlie Parker or the fire removed from the airs of Callas, the songs of the bluesmen or those of the griots, the symphonies of Beethoven, the Bolero of Ravel and so many other musics still form the sound backdrop of the practice. painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat. Those who, moreover, came to his studio remember that the painter always worked while listening to music. Basquiat indeed lived, painted, danced, invented and transgressed at a time when New York was experiencing one of the most creative periods in its musical history, with the birth of new urban sounds such as no wave, new wave and hip hop. The artist even had a brief career as a musician in the very experimental group Gray, founded in 1979 with Michael Holman. How to read or understand the significance of this art in his imagination? What is music in the eye of the painter Basquiat? And can we “hear” his works? The Basquiat Soundtracks project marks an important moment in our programming and in the life of our institution. On the one hand, in consideration of the novel nature of the subject. For the first time, the work of Basquiat is given to hear as much as to see. And for good reason: his paintings very often find their structuring principles in the music of his time, as revealed by the curators of the exhibition, Mary-Dailey Desmarais, Vincent Bessières and Dieter Buchhart, after three years of research. On the other hand, the ambition of this project is to experiment through and with music a new way of exhibiting Basquiat and visually translating the sonic imagination of his works. The inspiring reflection undertaken with the sound engineer Nicolas Becker was decisive in this respect. This project is also important to us because it seals the third collaboration of the Philharmonie de Paris with a partner of choice, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. After We Want Miles (2009) and Marc Chagall, the triumph of music (2016), this new exhibition, conceived together, pushes the experimentation of the visual potential of music ever further and, conversely, of the musicality of the pictorial gesture. Finally, the Philharmonie de Paris, East side, and the Louis Vuitton Foundation, West side, are delighted to develop an unprecedented collaboration built on the complementarity of their programming dedicated to the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat. While, West side, will be presented the duet work of Basquiat and Andy Warhol, the painter’s work will be exhibited and unveiled, East Side, in its strictly musical dimension. Now’s the Time…
Basquiat Soundtracks is the first exhibition devoted to the role of music in the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), one of the most fascinating artists of the 20th century. Born in Brooklyn, to a Haitian father and a Puerto Rican mother, Basquiat was immersed in the musical effervescence of New York at the turn of the 1980s, marked by the emergence of new urban forms such as no wave and hip-hop. Powerful and daring, his expressiveness has developed in tune with this soundscape, giving birth to a work that owes both to street art and to Western tradition, questioning aesthetic conventions and revealing a sensibility both critical and poetic. A great music lover, Basquiat is said to have had a collection of more than 3,000 records ranging from classical to rock, including zydeco, soul, reggae, hip-hop, opera, blues and jazz. In his studio, several sound sources could coexist simultaneously. However, the music is far from having only formed a soundtrack to his life and his practice. Beginning with an evocation, rich in archives, of the musical scenes frequented by the artist in New York in the 1970s and 1980s, the exhibition highlights his experiences as a musician and record producer. Exploring in detail her sonic imagination, she examines the many references that dot her work, revealing how music has informed her performances and influenced her compositional processes. The way in which Basquiat inscribed it in his works testifies, moreover, to his deep interest in the heritage of the African diaspora and to his acute awareness of the political stakes linked to racial questions in the United States. The music thus appears as a celebration of black artistic creativity while pointing out the complexities and cruelties of history. It offers a key to interpretation for a work which, in its self-invention, has succeeded in integrating the beat of an era, the blues of a people, the gesture of sampling and the epic symphonies of a turbulent modernity.
playlist
– US3 Cantaloop see the clip
-West Side Story America see the clip
– Gray Drum Mode audio link
– Brian Eno & David Byrne America is Waiting see the clip
-Madonna Everybody see the clip
– Blondies Rapture
– K-Rob, Rammellzee & Basquiat beat bop audio link
-Louis Armstrong King of the Zulus
– Chassol plays Basquiat, see the clip.
For further
Podcast link “Basquiat, a ticket to Africa” by Vladimir Cagnolari.