In my days of youth Andy Warhol reined supreme in my art life and was my gateway to awareness of other artists' work, such Jean-Michel Basquiat. But truth is, Basquiat didn't quite stick. Years went by, I watched the Schnabel film, then Tamara Davis' doc and while I was filled with oodles of respect and love of the works' raison d'etre, the art itself never resonated. Shit, I just wasn't feel it!
I read a Vanity Fair article on early champions of Basquiat's work and admired their art intuition while established institutions dismissed it. Recent auction history has shown that Basquiat's oeuvre has more than stood the test of time.
For those who don't have 48$M kicking around and want a little bit of JMB in their life, the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat reached out to Belgian watch and sunglasses maker Komono to create a limited edition collection of watches featuring the artist's work. So when I walked into Boutique Oxford for the Basquiat x Komono Montreal launch, I felt like I had a new (older? different?) set of eyes. What has changed? The work remains the same, as I admired the signature scribbles, the crowns (even on the watch dial!) and the instinct-driven personal pieces that would come to compose watch straps of the Komono Curated series. Has time worked its magic on me? Has time been a gentle erosion on my own views and pillars of art and has finally let in the genius I have stubbornly never "felt"? It's fitting that the Estate's latest collab marks the marching of time and the enduring nature of Basquiat's art.
