Basquiat + Warhol + Clemente Collaborations
Warhol and Basquiat first met in October 1982 and their collaborative work really began a couple of years later. Bruno Bischofberger forced this relationship a bit in 1984 after he initiated what amounted to a Brotherhood of the Traveling Canvas between Basquiat, Warhol and Italian artist Francesco Clemente. The rules were simple: each artist was to begin three separate paintings and one drawing each. They’d leave enough “mental and physical space” (Bischofberger’s words) for the other artists to contribute to the painting. They’d then send their unfinished work on to the next artist kind of like the stories you’d write with your friends where someone would begin with a paragraph – sometimes stopping mid sentence – and the next person would begin to tell their own story, apropos of nothing but their own imagination.
The three artists continued this experiment between them for about a year but in late 1984 Warhol and Basquiat began secretly collaborating on their own, thereby leaving Clemente out of the club for good. During the Warhol-Basquiat collaborations, Warhol would usually be the one to (unsurprisingly) begin the painting. He’d often silkscreen a recognizable logo or product – something so typically him – onto a canvas, which Basquiat would promptly write or paint over, leaving his own mark on the work. On Tuesday, April 17, Warhol mentioned in his diary “[Jean Michael] came up and painted over a painting that I did, and I don’t know if it got better or not”.
Unfortunately, the grand experiment ended not in celebration but with the artists barely speaking. Their relationship became increasingly strained as their partnership wore on and all but ended in September 1985, when “Warhol and Basquiat: Paintings” opened at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in Soho to mostly negative reviews. Warhol’s death in 1987 deeply affected Basquiat and drove him further into the dark world of drugs that ultimately cost him his life.
The three artists continued this experiment between them for about a year but in late 1984 Warhol and Basquiat began secretly collaborating on their own, thereby leaving Clemente out of the club for good. During the Warhol-Basquiat collaborations, Warhol would usually be the one to (unsurprisingly) begin the painting. He’d often silkscreen a recognizable logo or product – something so typically him – onto a canvas, which Basquiat would promptly write or paint over, leaving his own mark on the work. On Tuesday, April 17, Warhol mentioned in his diary “[Jean Michael] came up and painted over a painting that I did, and I don’t know if it got better or not”.
Unfortunately, the grand experiment ended not in celebration but with the artists barely speaking. Their relationship became increasingly strained as their partnership wore on and all but ended in September 1985, when “Warhol and Basquiat: Paintings” opened at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in Soho to mostly negative reviews. Warhol’s death in 1987 deeply affected Basquiat and drove him further into the dark world of drugs that ultimately cost him his life.