Jean-Michel Basquiat x Komono

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.

Docu-Bonanza!

Dear friends,
It has been a couple of days since my last post, as I have locked myself in with a pile of documentaries that I will share with you.

First up: L'amour fou (2010), a documentary centered around the relationship of Yves Saint-Laurent and Pierre Bergé, his life and business partner, and the auction of their art collection after Saint-Laurent's death.  Told mostly from a series of interviews with the poetic Bergé, the film is revealing and at times touching, but unfortunately failed to engage me, keeping the viewer at arms length.  The final scene of the auction itself should feel like some kind of crescendo but comes across as selling a whole lot of stuff, without knowing the history behind certain pieces with their owners.  Although, I must add that watching art being moved is fascinating for real!

A quote from Bergé:
"C'était une très belle époque, Marrakech. Une époque que je ne me souviens pas avec nostalgie-parce que je n'ai pas de tout de la nostalgie-mais avec beaucoup de joie, c'était une histoire de jeunesse."

 Up next: Jean-Michel Basquiat: the Radiant Child (2010), an awesome documentary on the late artist (who died at 27!!) told with many modern day interviews as well as director Tamra Davis' interview with Basquiat from the 1980s in its VHS glory.  While I have never really been attached to Basquiat's work, I had some familiarity with it, as I had seen Julian Schnabel's biopic years ago when I was going through an Andy Warhol obsession.  While still not more enamored with Basquiat's work itself, I have a giant pile of respect for the man himself and have too, too many good words about this film!  If anything I LOVE LOVE LOVE, learning about someone's artistic practice/process/methods to madness.  Whew! Good stuff!

Would you like a quote?:
"He never copied. He always improvised a total revision, Jean Michel was demanding that, "if you wanna talk about influence, man, then you've got to realize that influence is not influence.  It's simply someone's idea going through my new mind."

Last film: Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006) is a documentary about the development of battery operated electric vehicles that first appear on California roads in the late 1990s.  While there is enthusiasm for the cars, corporate bullying ensues (from car and petroleum industries) and eventually all electric cars are crushed.to.death.
Sigh.
Oh the irony, given that in the present day we now have steady popularity of hybrid vehicles.  I suppose that the hybrid might be a happy medium?  Ok, I'd already seen this film before but I felt the need for a refresher, given that the film Revenge of the Electric Car (2011) is on my list of films to see.

Fave quote: "America is addicted to oil." George W. Bush