To probe Jean-Michel Basquiat’s relations with the African continent, let’s first go back to the artist’s trajectory: a return to his New York childhood, and to his rebellious and wandering adolescence in lower Manhattan, where the scene underground is boiling. It is in this chaotic and fertile ecosystem that Basquiat asserts himself, first through his enigmatic tags on the walls, then his representations of urban chaos. He even tries his hand at music.
With Vincent Bessierescurator of the exhibition Basquiat Soundtracks (Philharmonie de Paris, April to July 2023), and Ernest Duku Ivorian painter.