Text by Chaédria LaBouvier, Nancy Spector, J. Faith Almiron, Greg Tate. Contributions by Luc Sante, Carlo McCormick, Jeffrey Deitch, Kenny Scharf, Fred Braithwaite, Michelle Shocked, et al.
Police brutality, racism, graffiti and the art world of the early-1980s Lower East Side converge in one painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat painted Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart) on the wall of Keith Haring’s studio in 1983 to commemorate the death of a young black artist who died from injuries sustained while in police custody after being arrested for allegedly tagging a New York City subway station. Defacement is the starting point for the present volume, which focuses on Basquiat’s response to anti-black racism and police brutality. Basquiat’s “Defacement”: The Untold Story explores this chapter in the artist’s career through both the lens of his identity and the Lower East Side as a nexus of activism in the early 1980s, an era marked by the rise of the art market, the AIDS crisis and ongoing racial tensions in the city.
Texts by Chaédria LaBouvier, Nancy Spector, J. Faith Almiron and Greg Tate are supplemented by commentary from artists and activists such as Luc Sante, Carlo McCormick, Jeffrey Deitch, Kenny Scharf, Fred Braithwaite and Michelle Shocked, who were part of this episode in New York City’s history, which parallels today’s urgent conversations about state-sanctioned racism. Basquiat’s painting is contextualized by ephemera related to Stewart’s death, including newspaper clippings and protest posters, samples of artwork from Stewart’s estate and work made by other artists in response to Stewart’s death and the subsequent trial, including pieces by Haring, Andy Warhol, David Hammons, George Condo and Lyle Ashton Harris.
Chaédria LaBouvier is a writer and Basquiat scholar. In fall 2016, she organized a one-work exhibition of the artist’s painting "Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart)" (1983) for the Reading Room at Williams College Museum of Art.
Nancy Spector is Artistic Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation.
J. Faith Almiron is Assistant Professor of African-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research focuses on the role of art, visual culture, and performance in relation to social transformation.
Keith Haring's "Michael Stewart—USA for Africa" (1985) is reproduced from 'Basquiat's "Defacement.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
New Yorker
Peter Schjeldahl
[Basquiat’s ‘Defacement’: The Untold Story] is a small but timely and often surprising powerhouse of a historical show.
Financial Times
[“Basquiat’s ‘Defacement’: The Untold Story”] brilliantly portrays the artist's response to police brutality.
New York Times
Siddhartha Mitter
[“Basquiat’s ‘Defacement’: The Untold Story”] argues for a fresh look at the impact of the racial tension of the 1980s on Basquiat and his peers.
Jacobin
Sam Ben-Meir
{...] does exactly what art should do: tell us a story we don’t want to hear but need to, about the racist brutality so prevalent in American life.
Lit Hub
Johanna Almiron
Basquiat’s pieces [demonstrate] a particular violence against black lives that is at once structural, historical, ongoing, and futuristic.
Galerie
Lucy Rees
The book examines Basquiat’s exploration of black identity, his protest against police brutality, and his singular language of empowerment—and is an urgent reminder of the work that must be done to banish state-sanctioned racism.
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“It could be argued that "Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart)" (1983) is Jean-Michel Basquiat’s most personal painting,” curator Chaédria LaBouvier writes in the Guggenheim Museum’s recent release, Basquiat's "Defacement": The Untold Story. “A first among equals in an oeuvre noted for its intensity and intimacy, no other work from Basquiat’s body of work has surfaced with more unfiltered feeling and vulnerability, nor has depicted a current event that touched his life so directly. The location of the work’s primary pulse as decidedly emotional rather than strictly political is remarkable, for Basquiat mostly favors temporally distant subjects over contemporary, nameable, concrete enemies. 'Defacement' demonstrates an exceptional if temporary shift in Basquiat’s body of work from verisimilar depiction to a more deeply felt, personal veracity. It is a rare painting by the artist that does not portray black masculinity and its traumas with the heroism and valor that he so deeply admired—at times relied on—as a bulwark against the marginalization of racism and the threat of its violent enforcement, the legacy of colonialism and slavery. Though an outlier among the artist’s highly singular output in terms of style and substance, 'Defacement' has the potential to serve as a Rosetta stone to help us better understand Basquiat’s work as a whole.” continue to blog
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FORMAT: Pbk, 6.5 x 9.5 in. / 168 pgs / 60 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $29.95 LIST PRICE: CANADA $39.95 GBP £24.95 ISBN: 9780892075485 PUBLISHER: Guggenheim Museum AVAILABLE: 7/23/2019 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: WORLD
Police brutality, racism, graffiti and the art world of the early-1980s Lower East Side converge in one painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat
Published by Guggenheim Museum. Text by Chaédria LaBouvier, Nancy Spector, J. Faith Almiron, Greg Tate. Contributions by Luc Sante, Carlo McCormick, Jeffrey Deitch, Kenny Scharf, Fred Braithwaite, Michelle Shocked, et al.
Jean-Michel Basquiat painted Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart) on the wall of Keith Haring’s studio in 1983 to commemorate the death of a young black artist who died from injuries sustained while in police custody after being arrested for allegedly tagging a New York City subway station. Defacement is the starting point for the present volume, which focuses on Basquiat’s response to anti-black racism and police brutality. Basquiat’s “Defacement”: The Untold Story explores this chapter in the artist’s career through both the lens of his identity and the Lower East Side as a nexus of activism in the early 1980s, an era marked by the rise of the art market, the AIDS crisis and ongoing racial tensions in the city.
Texts by Chaédria LaBouvier, Nancy Spector, J. Faith Almiron and Greg Tate are supplemented by commentary from artists and activists such as Luc Sante, Carlo McCormick, Jeffrey Deitch, Kenny Scharf, Fred Braithwaite and Michelle Shocked, who were part of this episode in New York City’s history, which parallels today’s urgent conversations about state-sanctioned racism. Basquiat’s painting is contextualized by ephemera related to Stewart’s death, including newspaper clippings and protest posters, samples of artwork from Stewart’s estate and work made by other artists in response to Stewart’s death and the subsequent trial, including pieces by Haring, Andy Warhol, David Hammons, George Condo and Lyle Ashton Harris.
Chaédria LaBouvier is a writer and Basquiat scholar. In fall 2016, she organized a one-work exhibition of the artist’s painting "Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart)" (1983) for the Reading Room at Williams College Museum of Art.
Nancy Spector is Artistic Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation.
J. Faith Almiron is Assistant Professor of African-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research focuses on the role of art, visual culture, and performance in relation to social transformation.
