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J. FAITH ALMIRON is Assistant Professor of Afro- Jean-Michel Basquiat painted Defacement (The Death of Michael American Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Stewart) in  to commemorate the death of a young, Black artist Her research focuses on the role of art, visual culture, and who died from injuries sustained while in police custody after being performance in relation to social transformation. arrested for allegedly tagging a City subway station. Published to accompany a focused exhibition of Basquiat’s response to anti-black racism and police brutality, this catalogue explores a CHAÉDRIA LABOUVIER is a writer and Basquiat chapter in the artist’s career through both the lens of his identity and scholar. In fall , she organized a one-work exhibition the as a nexus of activism in the early s. of the artist’s painting Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart) () for the Reading Room at Williams College An introduction by Nancy Spector and essays by J. Faith Almiron Museum of Art. and Chaédria LaBouvier are supplemented by commentary from artists, activists, and other cultural fi gures who were part of this episode in the city’s history, which invokes today’s urgent NANCY SPECTOR is Artistic Director and Jennifer conversations about state-sanctioned racism. and David Stockman Chief Curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation. Aajfajk afdjkdaopa fjdios sdoijaf psfsofi adsf adio a sdfadiopa fi dos apso padfoi adfndkop wmdo wieos ds aoif. BASQUIAT'S DEFACEMENT

THE UNTOLD STORY

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BASQUIAT’S DEFACEMENT

THE UNTOLD STORY

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CONTENTS

007 ESSAY TITLE TK Chaédria LaBouvier

050 ESSAY TITLE TK Nancy Spector

075 THE ART OF BASQUIAT BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE J. Faith Almiron

095 INTERVIEWS Michelle Shocked Leonard Abrams Eric Drooker Luc Sante Patrick Fox Peter Noel Rev. Herbert Daughtry More TK

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LENDERS TO THE EXHIBITION

American Museum of Natural History Thomas Borgmann, Berlin Boros Collection, Berlin Daniel Buchholz and Christopher Müller, Cologne Centre national des arts plastiques, France Charpenel Collection, Guadalajara Eileen and Michael Cohen Chantal Crousel Dallas Museum of Art Josef Dalle Nogare Collection

EFG Art Collection, Switzerland Charlotte Feng Ford Collection Joanne Gold and Andrew Stern Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Heinz Peter Hager and Andrea Thuile, Bolzano, Italy Sheldon Inwentash and Lynn Factor, Toronto Ishikawa Foundation, Okayama, Japan

ITYS Collection, Athens König Galerie

and those who wish to remain anonymous.

8 ESSAY OPENING

J. FAITH ALMIRON

THE ART OF BASQUIAT BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE

GUNS, GOONS, AND GHOSTS

Guns. So Primitive.

OKOYE, BLACK PANTHER

The bullets were premonitions, ghosts from dreams of a hard, fast future. The bullets moved on after moving through us, became the promise of what was to come, the speed and the killing, the hard fast lines of borders and buildings. They took everything and ground it down to dust as fine as gun- powder, they fired their guns into the air in victory, and the strays flew out into the nothingness of histories written wrong and meant to be forgotten. Stray bullets and conse- quences are landing on our unsuspecting bodies even now.

TOMMY ORANGE, THERE, THERE

Even as a third grader, Jean-Michel Basquiat recognized the omnip- otence paradox of the police state. In response to a potential buyer’s request, Basquiat composed a Curriculum Vitae (CV) document

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14 FIG 1 outlining his educational journey. [FIG 1] Towards the bottom of the Jean-Michel Basquiat, (CV), . page, the text reads: Paper and pencil.

“(A) SENT A DRAWING OF A GUN TO J. EDGAR HOOVER IN RD THIRD GRADE (NO REPLY).”

By sending a gun in the mail—even if it was merely an illustration, Basquiat turned the gun's aim towards Hoover. Stick ‘em up, Johnny! [FIG 2]

Basquiat intuitively knew how to undermine power structures, because he did not believe in them. [FIG 3] At the BBC documen- tary fi lm premiere at Museum in September , Lisane Basquiat described how her brother, “Pulled the art from (within) himself.” 6 To manifest this formidable destiny, Jean-Michel had to reject any entity that would limit him or his conception of the world including the value systems of Western Eurocentrism and anti- black white supremacy. In the same CV, Basquiat indicates that his “early themes” included “Nixon...Wars...Weapons.”

In the piece, Basquiat further articulates his cultural identity and transnational origins through migration, generation and education. He describes his mother as “PUERTO RICAN (FIRST GENERATION)” and his father as “PORT AU PRINCE, HAITI.” Between P.S. (Public School)  - I.S. (Intermediary School) , Basquiat inserts “(SOME CATHOLIC SCHOOL DURING YEAR + ½ IN PUERTO RICO ______).” noting the fl ux of traveling between public schools and “some Catholic school” in Puerto Rico. He came of age during a drastic transition in neighborhood demographics from majority working-class ethnic whites to black and brown immigrant communi- ties. In response to “white fl ight,” police presence increased FIG 2 although the relationship between the community and the police J. Edgar Hoover and Amos and was rarely affable.7 Andy Firing. (Original Caption) //-Washington, DC-’Amos’ (Mr. Freeman F. Gosden), John Edgar In a lesser-known interview published in July  of Andy Warhol’s Hoover, Director of the Federal Bureau magazine Interview, Basquiat speaks with fi lmmaker Emile de of Investigation and ‘Andy’ (Mr. Charles. J. Correll), of ‘Amos ‘N’ Andy,’ visted Antonio an “anarchist, ex-professor, author, and the only fi lmmaker the offi ces of the Federal Bureau of on Richard Nixon's enemies list.” 8 [FIG 4] They rap about Nixon’s Investigation on November , . They Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover, “ draw a bead on the photographer in the shooting range at the training school. years the No.  Policeman.”

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15 BASQUIAT: Talk more about J. Edgar Hoover. I think he’s interesting.

DE ANTONIO: J. Edgar Hoover was born January 1, 1895. His father was a bureaucrat in Washington. His grandfather was a bureaucrat. He became head of FBI in 1924, and he was still the head of it in 1972 when he died. He was in the saddle 48 years. Nowhere, not in Russia, not in Nazi Germany, not in the history of the world has one guy run the secret police for 48 years… The minute he died everybody in the FBI was ready to pounce on his files because his files were all about John F. Kennedy and who he was sleeping with, it was about what Nixon really did, it was about what LBJ really did…

BASQUIAT: That would make the great American novel.

DE ANTONIO: That's the truth; he had it on everybody. His files, one at a time, would expose everybody in political life. He wouldn't care about de Kooning or Pollock, and he wouldn't care about baseball players unless they said some- thing. If Babe Ruth got up and said the FBI was full of crooks, then they would have had a file on him, too…I don't know what J. Edgar Hoover knew about painters; I'm sure he knew FI G 3 Jean-Michel Basquiat and Al Diaz nothing about painting…Picasso was a Communist that he knew. as SAMO, SAMO as End to Amos n Picasso was a member of the communist party of France. He did Andy , marker, dimensions unknown, the peace dove. The hardline communists hated his paintings. Photo by Henry Flynt, . The popular radio and television show Amos n Andy They thought he did decadent, bourgeois painting. What those was set in the historic black community people have to say is economically not incorrect; it's artis- of Harlem, New York. It ran from   tically incorrect. They say art should belong to the people, until  and was created written and voiced by two white actors Freeman whatever that means. Gosden and Charles Correll. The SAMO language “END …” could be interpreted BASQUIAT: It does, though. as a critique of the show as contemporary blackface minstrelsy, and “” could reference George Orwell’s book on the Basquiat interjects to distinguish his own belief that indeed art rise of fascism and government control belongs to the people. De Antonio theorizes about how the police at over culture. the federal level monitor artists and the reproduction of culture. Not limited to conspiracy theory around propaganda, De Antonio indi- cates that Hoover would only care about painters if they articulated a forceful statement of social and political signifi cance. According to the extensive research of William J. Maxwell, the FBI recognized the critical role that art and cultural production played in catalyzing FI G 4 social movement and uprising, and implemented in-depth surveil- Gordon Munro, “Jean-Michel Basquiat lance of Black bookstores, arts and literature organizations, artists, and Emile de Antonio,” Interview, July  Interview magazine. Republished on and intellectual leaders since the Harlem Renaissance beginning in Interview.com May , . . 10 [SUPPLEMENTAL FIG 1]

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16 PLATE EXAMPLE Using the Freedom of Information Act, historian Maxwell was able to solicit thousands of FBI fi les on artists and intellectuals such as James Baldwin, The Black Arts Repertory Theater/School, W.E.B. Du Bois, Ebony Magazine, and many more. According to former F.B.I. Agent Tyrone Powers, the aim was, “to weaken and unlink the unifi ed chain” between black consciousness movements from generation to generation. Active at the program’s inception, Hoover's preoccupation with the emergence and expression of black consciousness traced back to targeting pan-Africanist revolutionary leader, Marcus Garvey, and the United Negro Improvement Association. The surveillance program existed for fi ve decades and only expired when Hoover did too, in  . As discussed during the release of Clint Eastwood’s biographical fi lm on Hoover in , apparently Hoover’s ancestry could be traced to African-Americans in McComb, Mississippi.11 Oh, the Irony of Negro Policeman!

As De Antonio and Basquiat continue to discuss the impact and intrigue around Hoover, Basquiat confi rms the information written in his CV sketch. De Antonio fi rst reacts as if the exchange between Basquiat and Hoover would have been friendly, but then shifts his perspective upon recognizing the loaded signifi cance of its subject.

BASQUIAT: I wrote to J. Edgar Hoover as a kid, did you know that?

DE ANTONIO: No.

BASQUIAT: I sent him a drawing.

DE ANTONIO: That’s wonderful, and you got a letter?

BASQUIAT: I didn’t get any letter back. It was one of the first art things I did. I must have been eight or nine.

DE ANTONIO: He answered practically everything unless he thought it was insulting.

BASQUIAT: I got no letter back. It was a design for a gun.

DE ANTONIO: That he might not have answered.

PLATE 1 BASQUIAT: It was by a child, though. The bullets were really, Jean-Michel Basquiat really big… Irony of a Negro Policeman,  Acrylic and oilstick on wood  x  in. ( . x  . cm)

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17 Born in , Basquiat would have been in the third grade right seven Black Panthers died, including Alprentice "Bunchy" Carter at the swell of social tumult between  and . This period ( ) and John Higgins ( ) shot on UCLA's campus, and leaders likewise refl ects dramatic shifts in his private world. In an interview Fred Hampton ( ), and Mark Clark ( ) who were killed in their with Becky Johnston, Basquiat shares that his most vivid childhood homes by police. Fifty years later in , an equally conservative memory was getting hit by a car while playing in the street, “I remem- federal administration has employed eerily similar rhetoric to crim- ber it just being very dreamlike, and seeing the car sort of coming inalize dissent and social protest. Using the problematic category at me and then just seeing everything through sort of a red fi lter.” 12 “Black Identity Extremists,” This campaign traps and targets poor and He would spend a month in Kings County Hospital, Brooklyn where working-class black and brown youth for speaking out against police his mother Matilde Andradas gifted him with Gray’s Anatomy—key abuse and brutality. source material that he would eventually draw great infl uence from. That year would also mark the separation between Jean-Michel’s A primary example of how this wrong and dangerous policy this parents—Matilde Andradas and Gerard Basquiat.13 exists in Ferguson, Missouri following the impactful death of Michael Brown. A string of nefarious deaths has followed the non-indictment In the essay “Black Liberation and ,” Donna Murch explains: of white offi cer Darren Wilson ( ) including the following leaders in the Movement for Black Lives —Edward Crawford ( ), [FIG 5A / SUPPLEMENTAL FIG 4 EDWARD CRAWFORD] Darren Seals ( ), DeAndre In reassessing 1968 from a half-century of hindsight, what Joshua, ( ), Shawn Gray ( ), and Danye Jones ( ) who was is most striking is how definitive the year was for the found hanging from a tree in his mother’s yard. His mother Melissa criminalization of radical black protest, ranging from the McKinnes has rejected the police reporting it as a suicide. In a punitive attack on urban rebellions that swept the country heartbreaking post featuring a photo of her son wearing a suit and after King’s assassination to the targeted assaults on the corsage, she wrote, “They lynched my baby.” segment of the black liberation movement that confronted domestic racial violence through the lens of state socialism From In the Wake: On Blackness and Being, cultural studies scholar and anticolonial struggle.14 Christina Sharpe explains, “Black deaths are produced as normative still leaves gaps and unanswered questions for those of us in the Empowered by President Nixon's campaign promise in the election wake of those specifi c and cumulative death…In the wake, the past of  to dispose of “troublemakers,” Hoover declared militant that is not past reappears, always, to rupture the present. Since Black nationalist organizations namely the Republic of New Africa, the end of formal Trans-Atlantic slavery, police have been monitor- the National Committee to Combat Fascism, the Black Liberation ing black arts and cultural movements as a way to track the pulse Front and the Black Panther Party, “the greatest threat to the of social movements. Basquiat’s artwork likewise illuminates the internal security of this country.”15 Hoover's singular goal was to cultural crisis to inspire social transformation. In honoring Basquiat's infi ltrate and to dismantle revolutionary organizations through inten- belief that art indeed "belongs to the people," then We-the-People sive counter-intelligence programs or more commonly known as must retrieve and reclaim its life force from the thin rarifi ed air of COINTELPRO. Murch further describes Hoover’s “virulent campaign” exclusionary spaces and ground it back to what Hawaiians call the to destroy the Black Panther Party (BPP) unleashes at the very aina or the land, planet Earth. moment the BPP initiates strident community survival programs for working poor communities such as the free medical clinics, commu- Beyond sporting a matching pair of Basquiat-inspired socks and nity ambulance services, legal clinics, and children services like the knickers, viewers can best appreciate the artwork by engaging free books and breakfast program.16 its challenging social subject matter. In multiple works across the stretch of his ouvre, Basquiat visualized the savagery of anti-black In the following year of  when third-grader Basquiat sent his police terror in contemporary America and beyond. mailer to Hoover, the police arrested  Panthers, and twenty-

028 | BASQUIAT'S DEFACEMENT 029 | THE UNTOLD STORY

18 PLATE EXAMPLE

PLATE 2 Michael Stewart—USA for Africa,  Enamel and acrylic on canvas  x  in. (  x  cm) Lindemann Collection, Miami Beach

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PLATE 3 Jean-Michel Basquiat Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart),  Acrylic and marker on wood, framed  x  ½ in. (. x . cm) Collection of Nina Clemente, New York

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