LEGENDS: WARHOL / BASQUIAT, is the title of the Sotheby's auction sale exhibition proposed in the S|2 space which showcases compelling works by the two legendary artists, Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The exhibition will debut at the inaugural Shanghai International Artwork Trade Month this November, which features West Bund Art & Design, ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair, and over a hundred art and cultural events.
There are few artists who become true legends and fewer legends who form legendary friendships as in this case. Immortalized in art history is the epochal coupling between two of the greatest and most influential artists of the late 1982th century, Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Lasting for six years from 1987 until Warhol's death in XNUMX, the deep, mutually inspired friendship for the two artists, whose highly distinctive works have each been eternally emblazoned within the highest echelons of art.
And it is in honor of these two extraordinary and intertwined lives that, LEGENDS: WARHOL / BASQUIAT presents a specially curated selection of works that powerfully captures the dynamic magic of 80s New York, juxtaposing Warhol's refined pop aesthetic with Basquiat's singular raw expressionism.
Yuki Terase, Head of Contemporary Art, Asia at Sotheby's, commented: “The friendship between Warhol and Basquiat has captivated the art world for decades. To be able to showcase the works of these two legendary artists side-by-side for the first time in China is quite an honor, and also a reflection of an increasingly sophisticated market in its tastes for blue-chip Western artists. With numerous museum retrospectives for each of the two artists held around the world over the past few decades, we are thrilled to bring this distinctive curation to China and Hong Kong.”
Andy Warhol (1928 – 1987)
Born in 1928 in Pennsylvania, Andy Warhol is widely recognized as the founder and leading figure of Pop Art, pioneering a combination of avant-garde and highly commercial sensibilities. A 1949 graduate of Carnegie Institute of Technology with a degree in Pictorial Design, Warhol turned to painting and revolutionized form conceptually and technically, producing works on mass-produced goods and celebrities – such as his now-iconic 1962 Campbell Soup cans and Marilyn series Diptych. He used the silkscreen technique, a process that removed evidence of the artist's hand while allowing for the repetition of an image with variations. Since the early 60s, his work has explored the relationship between publicity, fame and artistic expression through media including painting, screen printing, sculpture, film and photography. At the time of his death, he was one of the best known artists in the world. With works that simultaneously satirized and celebrated materiality, fame, and a voyeuristic personality with a clear taste for money and fame, Warhol shaped many successive generations of artists. His works are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and many others
Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960 – 1988)
Despite receiving no formal art education, Brooklyn painter Jean-Michel Basquiat rose from the bustling downtown New York scene in the late 70s to become one of the most influential and internationally renowned artists of the late 20th century . After dropping out of high school and leaving home in 1976, he first gained attention with the enigmatic graffiti he created under the name SAMO, befriending artists and downtown luminaries and starting to paint and draw with an effort more focused. In the mid-80s, the artist collaborated on several works with the most famous artist of the time, Andy Warhol. His street art and neo-expressionist works are characterized by visually striking and psychologically powerful combinations of anatomical diagrams, charged words and cryptic sentences, numbers, pictograms and commercial graphics. Dichotomies of social issues, as well as allusions to African history and African American pop culture, are some of the themes commonly present in his art. Basquiat's works can now be found in museum collections around the world, including The Broad, Los Angeles, the Museu d'Art Contemporani, Barcelona and The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. At Sotheby's New York Contemporary Art Evening Sale in May 2017, his 1982 masterpiece Untitled sold for US$110.487.500 to a private Asian collection, setting a world record for a work by an American artist worldwide. auction at that time.
S | 2 is the gallery arm of Sotheby's Global Fine Art Division dedicated to hosting sale exhibitions on unique artists or themes.
