Basquiat. A retrospective

Basquiat – a retrospective on the occasion of a what would-have-been 50^th birthday

Foundation Beyeler, Basel

Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful body of work. This slight twist on the phrase “live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse” seems to be a ground rule for membership in the “27 Club,” the morbidly popular term for a group of artists and musicians that died at the age of 27, mostly from drug overdoses. Like Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison before him, or artist Dash Snow after him, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s untimely death secured that history could never look at him the way it can look at those who didn’t check out quite so early; the height of his cultural relevance will remain forever unsoiled by possibly questionable later creative moves or the very simple and inevitable fate of growing old.

Basquiat would have turned 50 this December. To commemorate this would-have-been birthday, Foundation Beyeler presents the first large exhibition of Basquiat’s work in Europe. Over 100 works trace the artist’s development from his early years up until the time an unfortunate run-in with speedballs allowed the later coining of the word “Basquiat-ization” when artist Dash Snow took out his own membership in the “27 Club” last summer. What a perfect opportunity to ponder the concept of “death as a career move.”

NOW IN IT’S LAST WEEKS! May 9 – September 5, 2010 at FONDATION BEYELER, Baselstrasse 101, CH-4125 Riehen / Basel

If you need a place to crash, the culturally connected Krafft Basel should be your pad.

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Categories: Basel, Art

Contributing writer: Melissa Frost