1960-2010: “The Year of Africa” 50 Years On (III)

Depois da viagem no tempo entre "a razao da nossa luta" e "o estado da nossa nacao", regresso a esta serie para uma viagem no espaco que me e’ sugerida por este texto de Ismael Mateus.

Ele transportou-me, ainda que por caminhos um tanto invios, de volta a este apontamento sobre Basquiat – esse que tambem, por seus proprios caminhos invios, nos diz algo sobre o Haiti…

Nao que o perfil e trajectoria dos personagens mencionados por Mateus (os “arlindos”, como lhes chama)* tenham alguma coisa a ver com a vida e obra de Basquiat – embora me ocorra um personagem Angolano, por sinal da minha geracao e, felizmente, ainda vivo, que se lhe assemelha bastante, apesar de se dedicar a outras artes… - e, nao obstante um dos "arlindos" mencionados ja' aqui ter sido apelidado "O Execravel Puto Pe' Descalco", os seus nada teem em comum com os artisticamente descalcos pes de Basquiat!

Tal como o que me levou a Basquiat naquele apontamento nao foi exactamente o proprio, tambem neste caso sao outras as linhas que a ele me transportam: nomeadamente, aquela percepcao de "misplaced identities" (identidades deslocadas, ou fora do seu "espaco de pertenca natural") e esses “seis graus de separacao” (que podem bem ser entre um cadeirao de chefe num novo arranha-ceus envidracado e um luando num velho quintal de terra batida, ou entre a cidade do asfalto e o musseke dos becos), mais a ideia, que se impoe como uma perene espada de Damocles sobre a precaridade de certas “conquistas”, de se estar sempre sujeito a ser-se, de subito, retornado ao lugar de onde se proveio ("go back to where you came from"), associada ao imperativo de, como convem a pobres e insignificantes criaturas, “saber-se sempre o que nos espera!”… Ao que alguns “intelectuais”, mui pomposa e vacuamente, chamariam “involucoes”, "declinacoes", ou "reconversoes" pos-coloniais de uma (ja’ longinqua?) “revolucao” anti-colonial…

Ah!... isso e o 'meu celebre' Basquiat “1960” que, tal como alguns postais ilustrativos da sua obra que comprei em New York no que parecem ser ja’ tempos longinquos, continua sumido num qualquer dos 'trunks' das minhas deambulacoes espaciais dos ultimos anos… mas do qual ontem finalmente (!) consegui encontrar uma imagem aqui – por estranha coincidencia (?) ilustrando (ad infinitum) precisamente um texto que na altura obtive de outras fontes e a que me referi naquele apontamento de ha’ 3 anos!

Et voila, c’est ca la vie au village, avec du bon fufu (funge) et du poisson grille' aromatise' que la grand-mere a prepare', como diria o nosso eterno Manu Dibango – esse que, entre muita outra boa musica criou e tocou Abidjan City, cidade que seria tambem a unica em Africa a ser visitada por Basquiat (embora a influencia do nosso continente na sua obra se revele muito mais vasta, chegando a incluir o Kongo e os seus Nkisi, como pode ser constatado aqui , o que nao sera' de todo uma ocorrencia "out of this world" se atendermos ao facto, aqui notado pelo academico Isaac Bigio, de a populacao do Haiti ser predominantemente descendente de escravos Africanos originarios da regiao Kongo-Niger...) – o que me leva a musica e a esse “You Were There”, ja’ antes bastante tocado neste blog e que aqui volta para nos (re)lembrar de "Marco Mulher" e de como “we're brought into this world” (…talvez em 1960, esse ano seminal para mim, para Basquiat e para a Africa pos-colonial…) e de como “we grow up and get taught the difference between right and wrong” e depois “we grow old and choose for ourselves what’s right and what’s wrong in our own lives”…

You Were There
(Nontuthuzelo Pouane with Marcus Wyatt)

*Entretanto, soube que Arlindo Isabel ja’ se encontra a frente de uma nova editora, a Mayamba...

Um "arlindo" sortudo?

Depois da viagem no tempo entre "a razao da nossa luta" e "o estado da nossa nacao", regresso a esta serie para uma viagem no espaco que me e’ sugerida por este texto de Ismael Mateus.

Ele transportou-me, ainda que por caminhos um tanto invios, de volta a este apontamento sobre Basquiat – esse que tambem, por seus proprios caminhos invios, nos diz algo sobre o Haiti…

Nao que o perfil e trajectoria dos personagens mencionados por Mateus (os “arlindos”, como lhes chama)* tenham alguma coisa a ver com a vida e obra de Basquiat – embora me ocorra um personagem Angolano, por sinal da minha geracao e, felizmente, ainda vivo, que se lhe assemelha bastante, apesar de se dedicar a outras artes… - e, nao obstante um dos "arlindos" mencionados ja' aqui ter sido apelidado "O Execravel Puto Pe' Descalco", os seus nada teem em comum com os artisticamente descalcos pes de Basquiat!

Tal como o que me levou a Basquiat naquele apontamento nao foi exactamente o proprio, tambem neste caso sao outras as linhas que a ele me transportam: nomeadamente, aquela percepcao de "misplaced identities" (identidades deslocadas, ou fora do seu "espaco de pertenca natural") e esses “seis graus de separacao” (que podem bem ser entre um cadeirao de chefe num novo arranha-ceus envidracado e um luando num velho quintal de terra batida, ou entre a cidade do asfalto e o musseke dos becos), mais a ideia, que se impoe como uma perene espada de Damocles sobre a precaridade de certas “conquistas”, de se estar sempre sujeito a ser-se, de subito, retornado ao lugar de onde se proveio ("go back to where you came from"), associada ao imperativo de, como convem a pobres e insignificantes criaturas, “saber-se sempre o que nos espera!”… Ao que alguns “intelectuais”, mui pomposa e vacuamente, chamariam “involucoes”, "declinacoes", ou "reconversoes" pos-coloniais de uma (ja’ longinqua?) “revolucao” anti-colonial…

Ah!... isso e o 'meu celebre' Basquiat “1960” que, tal como alguns postais ilustrativos da sua obra que comprei em New York no que parecem ser ja’ tempos longinquos, continua sumido num qualquer dos 'trunks' das minhas deambulacoes espaciais dos ultimos anos… mas do qual ontem finalmente (!) consegui encontrar uma imagem aqui – por estranha coincidencia (?) ilustrando (ad infinitum) precisamente um texto que na altura obtive de outras fontes e a que me referi naquele apontamento de ha’ 3 anos!

Et voila, c’est ca la vie au village, avec du bon fufu (funge) et du poisson grille' aromatise' que la grand-mere a prepare', como diria o nosso eterno Manu Dibango – esse que, entre muita outra boa musica criou e tocou Abidjan City, cidade que seria tambem a unica em Africa a ser visitada por Basquiat (embora a influencia do nosso continente na sua obra se revele muito mais vasta, chegando a incluir o Kongo e os seus Nkisi, como pode ser constatado aqui , o que nao sera' de todo uma ocorrencia "out of this world" se atendermos ao facto, aqui notado pelo academico Isaac Bigio, de a populacao do Haiti ser predominantemente descendente de escravos Africanos originarios da regiao Kongo-Niger...) – o que me leva a musica e a esse “You Were There”, ja’ antes bastante tocado neste blog e que aqui volta para nos (re)lembrar de "Marco Mulher" e de como “we're brought into this world” (…talvez em 1960, esse ano seminal para mim, para Basquiat e para a Africa pos-colonial…) e de como “we grow up and get taught the difference between right and wrong” e depois “we grow old and choose for ourselves what’s right and what’s wrong in our own lives”…

You Were There
(Nontuthuzelo Pouane with Marcus Wyatt)

*Entretanto, soube que Arlindo Isabel ja’ se encontra a frente de uma nova editora, a Mayamba...

Um "arlindo" sortudo?

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT, OR… THOSE “SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION”

“Every line means something”

There is that fine line between reality and fiction, truth and untruth, face and mask, genuine and fake, real and imagined which we all claim to know… and it seems to me that nowhere in life that line is more blurred than in art… fortunately, or unfortunately. In fact, there’s those ‘six degrees of separation’ which some claim to have we all in the planet at a short distance from each other through a chain of interconnections, but in reality always seem to keep us apart… as if at such a short distance we could all claim to ‘know’ each other, but never quite so… or maybe not! Whatever the case, I always think of these things when I think about Jean-Michel Basquiat. And, when I think about Basquiat, I always think of the strange, often devious, ways in which issues of identity, authenticity and the like are resolved, or unresolved, in (or through) art and in life in general…

“I cross out words so you will see them more – the fact that they are obscured makes you want to read them”
"The History of Black People"

In the words of Robert Knafo, one of his biographers, “In his short life (1960-1988), Jean-Michel Basquiat came to personify the art scene of the 80s, with its merging of youth culture, money, hype, excess, and self-destruction. And then there was the work, which the public image tended to overshadow: paintings and drawings that conjured up marginal urban black culture and black history, as well as the artist's own conflicted sense of identity. He was, all at once it seemed, the ultimate party animal, a wannabe street kid and graffitist hiding his black Brooklyn middle class roots, an advocate and interpreter of the marginal and dispossessed at the court of the mainstream, an angry black aspirant to the all-white art canon, a precocious talent, a creature of cynical marketing and a fraud, a proto-multiculturalist, an American original.”

Indeed, in his angry aspiration to that "all-white art canon” he met Andy Warhol, the ring-master of the so called 'Neo-Expressionist movement' and of clever, cynical marketing fakery - some, certainly Knafo, would call it fraud - to whom in their first encounter he sold a postcard for one dollar, and went on to date Madonna while keeping his “real life” heroes Malcolm X, Jimi Hendrix and Charlie Parker close to heart until he died of a drugs overdose aged 28. Born of a Haitian father and a Puerto-Rican mother, his art is perhaps the best, albeit most disturbing, expression of a misplaced Black/African identity in spite of Knafo's claim of him being “an American original”… or maybe not… or maybe yes... because that’s what makes for “American originality”: misplaced identities, isn't it? Anyway, I’m not an art critic and after all here’s what he thought of them: “I don’t think about art when I’m working. I try to think about life… I don’t listen to what art critics say. I don’t know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.”

I also always think of Basquiat when I think of that movie, made out of a stage play, “Six Degrees of Separation” (1993), featuring Will Smith (in what I think is his best role ever!), Donald Sutherland and (Sir) Ian McKellen among other fine actors such as Stockard Channing, who was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Oscar for her role in it. Why? I haven’t got the faintest idea! Having seen it twice, I don’t recall anything in it relating to Basquiat… but maybe he was just away from the plot by six degrees... because Paul (Smith) - while presenting himself as "the son" of Sidney Poitier (something also evocative of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"), whose father was in reality, as Basquiat's, of Haitian descent - plays the ultimate faker and double-crosser in his angry quest for an all-white cultural "background" and behavioural and literary canon... or just because Louisa (Channing) and Flanders (Sutherland) play rich NYC art dealers, while their South African business partner Miller (Mckellen) brings them all to his “reality” about race relations… or, probably, because Paul eventually dies, just as Basquiat very young but not of drugs, in prison, when he was finally taken back to the "reality" of his own social and racial condition, or, put shortly, when he was taken back to "where he came from"!... I don’t know. There’s a movie that’s really about him though, “Basquiat” (1996), starring David Bowie, Dennis Hopper and Benicio del Toro, which I haven’t seen yet.

You can find Basquiat works (mostly print copies) and memorabilia pretty much everywhere these days. And it can come cheap too, from as low as ₤3 to an average ₤30 per print, on eBay for instance, unless you are well off enough to get a signed copy at something like ₤1200… but it doesn’t seem really to go over ₤2000-₤3000 on average, so apparently you don’t need to be very rich to buy something signed Basquiat these days (of course I'm not talking about the really pricey originals here - most of them held in museums and not for sale anyway; or auctioned by big houses, where they can get to millions of pounds)*.

I’m not rich, old or new, so I got mine some 12 years ago (a print copy titled “1960”, which apparently is rare since I couldn’t find it anywhere on the web…) for ₤10 at the ever so popular Camden Market!

[See more about Basquiat here and here]

*E.g. his Untitled (1981) sold one month after this post was written by Sotheby's (New York) for $14,600,000 or his Grillo (1984) sold by Phillips de Pury & Company (London) yet a month later that same year for £4,948,000!

“Every line means something”

There is that fine line between reality and fiction, truth and untruth, face and mask, genuine and fake, real and imagined which we all claim to know… and it seems to me that nowhere in life that line is more blurred than in art… fortunately, or unfortunately. In fact, there’s those ‘six degrees of separation’ which some claim to have we all in the planet at a short distance from each other through a chain of interconnections, but in reality always seem to keep us apart… as if at such a short distance we could all claim to ‘know’ each other, but never quite so… or maybe not! Whatever the case, I always think of these things when I think about Jean-Michel Basquiat. And, when I think about Basquiat, I always think of the strange, often devious, ways in which issues of identity, authenticity and the like are resolved, or unresolved, in (or through) art and in life in general…

“I cross out words so you will see them more – the fact that they are obscured makes you want to read them”
"The History of Black People"

In the words of Robert Knafo, one of his biographers, “In his short life (1960-1988), Jean-Michel Basquiat came to personify the art scene of the 80s, with its merging of youth culture, money, hype, excess, and self-destruction. And then there was the work, which the public image tended to overshadow: paintings and drawings that conjured up marginal urban black culture and black history, as well as the artist's own conflicted sense of identity. He was, all at once it seemed, the ultimate party animal, a wannabe street kid and graffitist hiding his black Brooklyn middle class roots, an advocate and interpreter of the marginal and dispossessed at the court of the mainstream, an angry black aspirant to the all-white art canon, a precocious talent, a creature of cynical marketing and a fraud, a proto-multiculturalist, an American original.”

Indeed, in his angry aspiration to that "all-white art canon” he met Andy Warhol, the ring-master of the so called 'Neo-Expressionist movement' and of clever, cynical marketing fakery - some, certainly Knafo, would call it fraud - to whom in their first encounter he sold a postcard for one dollar, and went on to date Madonna while keeping his “real life” heroes Malcolm X, Jimi Hendrix and Charlie Parker close to heart until he died of a drugs overdose aged 28. Born of a Haitian father and a Puerto-Rican mother, his art is perhaps the best, albeit most disturbing, expression of a misplaced Black/African identity in spite of Knafo's claim of him being “an American original”… or maybe not… or maybe yes... because that’s what makes for “American originality”: misplaced identities, isn't it? Anyway, I’m not an art critic and after all here’s what he thought of them: “I don’t think about art when I’m working. I try to think about life… I don’t listen to what art critics say. I don’t know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is.”

I also always think of Basquiat when I think of that movie, made out of a stage play, “Six Degrees of Separation” (1993), featuring Will Smith (in what I think is his best role ever!), Donald Sutherland and (Sir) Ian McKellen among other fine actors such as Stockard Channing, who was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Oscar for her role in it. Why? I haven’t got the faintest idea! Having seen it twice, I don’t recall anything in it relating to Basquiat… but maybe he was just away from the plot by six degrees... because Paul (Smith) - while presenting himself as "the son" of Sidney Poitier (something also evocative of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner"), whose father was in reality, as Basquiat's, of Haitian descent - plays the ultimate faker and double-crosser in his angry quest for an all-white cultural "background" and behavioural and literary canon... or just because Louisa (Channing) and Flanders (Sutherland) play rich NYC art dealers, while their South African business partner Miller (Mckellen) brings them all to his “reality” about race relations… or, probably, because Paul eventually dies, just as Basquiat very young but not of drugs, in prison, when he was finally taken back to the "reality" of his own social and racial condition, or, put shortly, when he was taken back to "where he came from"!... I don’t know. There’s a movie that’s really about him though, “Basquiat” (1996), starring David Bowie, Dennis Hopper and Benicio del Toro, which I haven’t seen yet.

You can find Basquiat works (mostly print copies) and memorabilia pretty much everywhere these days. And it can come cheap too, from as low as ₤3 to an average ₤30 per print, on eBay for instance, unless you are well off enough to get a signed copy at something like ₤1200… but it doesn’t seem really to go over ₤2000-₤3000 on average, so apparently you don’t need to be very rich to buy something signed Basquiat these days (of course I'm not talking about the really pricey originals here - most of them held in museums and not for sale anyway; or auctioned by big houses, where they can get to millions of pounds)*.

I’m not rich, old or new, so I got mine some 12 years ago (a print copy titled “1960”, which apparently is rare since I couldn’t find it anywhere on the web…) for ₤10 at the ever so popular Camden Market!

[See more about Basquiat here and here]

*E.g. his Untitled (1981) sold one month after this post was written by Sotheby's (New York) for $14,600,000 or his Grillo (1984) sold by Phillips de Pury & Company (London) yet a month later that same year for £4,948,000!