Art Madrid'23 – Jean-Michel Basquiat in Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

With an Haitian father and mother from Puerto Rico, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) always defended its origins in the streets of Brooklyn, where he was born and raised, marking their facades, underground hydrants, their cars, walls, Dumpsters with paintings. He just turned 18, when he signed as SAMO (Same old shit, "the same old shit") and stood among teenagers in the neighborhood for his intellectual and artistic skills, skills that transformed their graffiti on allegations against social inequalities, by the defense of disadvantaged minorities, true graphic files on the harshness of the time in that city.
Panel de expertos, 1982.
 
 
His first solo exhibition, at age 21, showed those same lines, colors, this young and gifted nerve in dozens of large paintings, objects, papers, being the first graffiti artist (... with Keith Haring) on ??exhibit in a gallery Art, opening new doors to Fine Arts and all contemporary art. The show was a success and all the pieces were sold.
 
In 1982 he participated in Documenta VII and the Whitney Biennial and was in those years when the clever Andy Warlhol adopted him as fetish and they became inseparable, they portrayed each other and signed a friendship / admiration that transcends both. Basquiat's reputation grew as they performed exhibitions in North America and Europe; soon he became a prolific artist and media personality in the cultural field.
Andy Warhol y Basquiat.
 
 
Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now is the time, is an exhibition organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario in partnership with the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, explores some of the most important issues of the innovative work of Basquiat over a hundred paintings and drawings by the artist, ordered for the first time from a thematic perspective.
 
The exhibition is articulated in 8 sections: The street as a studio, Heroes and saints (homage to the "black man"), Claiming stories, Reflex (dedicated to racist episodes of his time, slavery), Dualities and double identity, Playing to cheat: drawings and provocations, a seventh section with collaborations with Warhol, Francesco Clemente, Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf, and finally, Sampling and scratching. Music, words and collage, their sources of inspiration.

Moises y los egipcios, 1982.

 

His artistic perspective, in which Basquiat fit their entire universe, African-American history, his musical tastes, jazz, street drugs, friends, sports, news, through symbols, text, shapes and images Sometimes seemingly unrelated ... it continues to inspire many current artists and continues to pose to the viewer an invitation to think critically about the world around us.

Los seis de Crimea, 1982.

El hombre de Nápoles, 1982.

 

 

In the year 2020 in the heart of Barcelona a wandering gallery was born, the same one that in February 2021 would debut at Art Madrid with an exhibition proposal focused on contemporary portraits; with this subject matter it would manage to create a powerful dialogue between artwork and audience and make the seal Inéditad remain in the history of the event that contained it.

Jean Carlos Puerto. Protección. Oil and copper leaf on wood. 60 x 48. 2021. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Since that first time and until today, the wandering gallery has managed to build projects on otherness, has repositioned in the spotlight the discourses on the LGTBIQ+ collective, has consolidated a group of artists who share its principles of resilience and empathy and the best thing is that it continues to bet from the professionalism and commitment to give voice to the difference.

Claudio Petit-Laurent.. El Joven de la Perla. Oil on wood. 30 x 30 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Inéditad Gallery, thanks to its founder Luis López, its collaborators and the infinite possibilities manifested in the works of the artists it represents, is a gallery that has demonstrated its capacity and courage to stimulate the sensibility of the public through art and seduce a generation that moves between the glass window and the analogical story. Inéditad is a nomadic gallery that has gathered around it a community of artists and has moved the context with exhibition projects that think about LGTBIQ+ art without prejudices.

Pepa Salas Vilar. Las marcas del arcoiris. Oil on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 2022. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Pride and Prejudice was inaugurated. An exhibition that brings together the works of sixteen artists: Abel Carrillo, Alex Domènech, Carlos Enfedaque, Silvia Flechoso, Jamalajama, Daniel Jaén, Claudio Petit-Laurent, Jean Carlos Puerto, Fernando Romero, Pablo Rodríguez, Pepa Salas Vilar, Jack Smith, Pablo Sola, Bran Sólo, Elia Tomás and Utürüo. Painting, illustration, photography and digital art are the manifestations that bring into dialogue around fifty neatly threaded pieces, in a discursive line that discusses such a latent phenomenon as discrimination. To achieve this, the artists invited to the exhibition question themselves whether: Does discrimination exist within the LGTBIQ+ collective?

Pride and Prejudice Official Poster. Image courtesy of the gallery.

With approaches on and from the body, the proposal invites to celebrate diversity, proposes to question and self-question the prejudices and attitudes of society against the collective. Pride and Prejudice is a space for dialogue about the constructs imposed on us by society. It is also an oasis in which to deconstruct with tolerance and respect the subjectivities that sometimes prevent us from approaching the production of the participating artists, simply because "the beautiful" does not fit in an androgynous body. The subjugation of stereotypes are pressed with determination to find the beauty of diversity in other palpable facets of reality.

Pablo Sola. All men are dogs. Photography. 2014. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Throughout these three years Inéditad has stimulated the vindictive projection towards bad practices, has questioned estates around the LGTBIQ+ body and the most admirable thing, is that these capacities have resurfaced around the dialogue and the visual narrative of the stories that are told from the visual: Artworks that are people, art that is, per se, humanity. Overcome impositions and accept what is different in order to continue fighting against homophobia, biphobia, lesbophobia or transphobia and defend the equal rights that all the acronyms of the collective deserve in our community.

That's Pride and Prejudice: One creature, the happiest in the world. And maybe other projects and other people have said it - or felt it - before, but none so fairly.

Silvia Flechoso. Hola, soy maricón. Oil on canvas. 73 x 54 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

From June 8th until June 22nd you can visit Pride and Prejudice. Carrer de Palau núm. 4. Canal Gallery space. Barcelona.