Cover of ‘Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Notebooks’ (all images courtesy Collection of Larry Warsh/Copyright © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat, all rights reserved/Licensed by Artestar)
Those familiar with the artwork of Jean-Michel Basquiat will agree that he is a writer. Language and text factor heavily in all his work, evidenced by the early graffiti pieces (done under the pseudonym SAMO) that launched his career. The Unknown Notebooks, on view at the Brooklyn Museum, features the pages of eight of his notebooks lining the gallery walls in vitrines and frames. While this show does much to bring forward the image of Basquiat as a writer, encountering hundreds of pages of text in the exhibition space is challenging for even the most fair-weathered museumgoer. In her New York Times review of the exhibition, critic Roberta Smith claims, “The show could have used an area for visitors to sit and study the catalog — there’s space for it.” Seeing and reading the pages in the gallery certainly make one want to spend more time with Basquiat’s writing, and Princeton University Press’s forthcoming facsimile of the notebooks provides this time for closer study.
The Notebooks, which looks and feels like a cheap composition notebook — Basquiat’s medium of choice for writing — presents actual-size reproductions of the pages of his eight notebooks, with no interruptions or annotations, save the brief forward by the editor and their owner, the art publisher Larry Warsh. The book offers the intimate reading experience one expects when engaging with an artist’s private musing. Although while reading through these pages, it’s striking how little they seem private. The lettering is as deliberate and composed as that in his painting, if not more. While there are certainly pages that seem more like sketches than final products, these writings are not tests for ideas to be finalized in paint; they are poems in the vein of Basquiat’s influences such as William Burroughs and Rene Ricard. Their status as poetry is noted in Jennifer Clement’s Widow Basquiat, the story of Suzanne Mallouk, Basquiat’s on-and-off girlfriend: “Jean-Michel comes into the bar every day. He reads Suzanne his poems from his ‘Black and White Notebooks.’”
Spread from ‘The Notebooks’ (click to enlarge)
Throughout his writing Basquiat continually reuses words and phrases, each time building and layering further. He writes, “I FEEL LIKE A CITIZEN IT’S TIME TO GO AND COME BACK A DRIFTER” as a single line across the top quarter of a page in the first notebook. The following page continues:
I FEEL LIKE A CITIZEN IN THIS PARKING LOT COUNTY FAIR
IT’S TIME TO GREYHOUND AND COME BACK A DRIFTER
PUT IT ALL IN ONE BAG
Haunting, the capital letters, appearing like hieroglyphs, scream at the reader. His mark-making is both chaotic and deliberate. Dieter Buchhart notes in his Brooklyn Museum catalogue essay, “The line itself remains a graphic element, however, that is randomly variable, with the letter E frequently appearing as three parallel lines — as is the case in the two poems above, where the two Es in “FEEL” appear as six linked lines, visually dragging the phrases as they are elongated across the page. This elongation is also auditory. In reading the collected poems in one sitting, flipping back and forth between its pages, patterns emerge — the repetition of words and phrases and the layout of text across the page call to mind the concrete and beat poets, who engaged with spatial layouts and auditory rhyming and pacing. There is a singsong quality to his use of “GREYHOUND,” forcing the noun to play as a verb. At times it seems like only sounds unite the various words in a line.
LEAPSICKNESS
THE LAW OF LIQUIDS
THAT THORN IN MY HEAD NAGGING MY FISTS CLOSED
VICTIMS OF EMBELLISHED HISTORY
THE SPORES FLOATE
The alliteration of the first two lines unites the words despite how unrelated the imagery may be. And then there are those clumsy three lines, seemingly added only to elongate the final word a little more. In an essay on Basquiat and poet Kevin Young, John Yau ties these “discontinuities (staccato rhythms, inversions of meaning, parodies of familiar phrases and tunes, harsh puns, shorthand slang, obsessive lists of words, and quotes)” to “improvisational music,” particularly jazz. There is certainly a musical quality to “LEAPSICKNESS / THE LAW OF LIQUIDS,” which Basquiat repeats throughout the notebooks. Phrases like these echo throughout, something that is harder to notice without the easy ability to flip back and forth between the pages.
Spread from ‘The Notebooks’ (click to enlarge)
In a more rounded handwriting, the phrase “LEAPSICKNESS / THE LAW OF LIQUIDS,” appears again in the second notebook.
GIVE THE BALDHEADED MAN A QUARTER
PULL IN A DOG TO DRAW SANDPAPER
CENSOR HIS HABITS
FREEZE FRAME ON A DRUNK IN THE PLAZA
LEAPSICKNESS
THE LAW OF LIQUIDS
Like following characters in a novel, the collected notebook pages allow the reader to follow the echoes of motifs — such as colonies of egg-laying roaches, floating spores, or the girl with “HER THIRD EYE.” In accurately reproducing and maintaining the order and handwriting of Basquiat’s notebooks, the book not only demonstrates his development of motifs and rhymes, but also the progression and variation of his lettering style. For example, the roaches first appear in the final stanza of a poem midway through the first notebook:
THE COLONY OF ROACHES IN THE OVEN LAY EGGS
UNDER TINFOIL IN THE OIL SWAMPS OF
BROILED STEAKS.
COOKED AND RECOOKED
Spread from ‘The Notebooks’ (click to enlarge)
In the first notebook, the letters are neat and tight. But when the roaches appear in the final notebook, they have shifted both visually and verbally. Relegated to the bottom right of the page they appear in list form in bulky letters that hang over the ruler lines:
ROACH EGGS
ROACH EGGS
ROACH EGGS
ROACH EGGS
ROACH EGGS
ROACH EGGS
ROACH EGGS
Writhing down the page as one would imagine the hatched roaches. This is not to draw an overly simplistic correlation between the presentation of the words and their meaning, but rather to highlight that besides being an integral and informative element of Basquiat’s visual practice, text was equally informed by visual concerns. Rather than the existing narrative of Basquiat as a talented painter and draughtsman very much engaged with the written word, the facsimile of his notebook pages allows us to imagine him as a poet, very much engaged with the imagery of daily life, whose writing exhibited the vision of a painter.
I was so excited to see this show, the early writings from the primitive legend. As much as I love Basquiat, I was a bit dismayed by it in the total picture. Here I saw the primitive, who wasn’t a primitive at all, he writes better than I ! Immaculate note books, ( a better speller than I, no spell check needed ) with this stunning graphic ,”E”. Yes always searching for fame, his endearing private notebooks, yet it taught us much more about his rise. Everything was premeditated. I always thought that when I was looking at his paintings, they were from this starving street kid living on a park bench on 14th street, who couldn’t afford canvases so he would paint on anything, including discarded doors, yet he was anything but. Well educated, ( they included his Brooklyn Museum Jr. membership card ) the bohemian scratching himself to the surface discussing lamb chops, food, anatomy, fame, nickels, not some well educated heron addict who was playing a game. Loosing his penmanship when he painted because it fit the billing. Wished I would of never gone. Dismayed.
Yep, it was his addiction to herons that killed him. You think heroin is dangerous? Try injecting herons!
On a more serious note, yes, Basquiat and his entire image was utterly contrived and reinforced in numerous, often racially questionable ways by his dealers and NYC art writers of the time.
His work is interesting, of course, but I tend to think that is not a product of genius or even great talent but of running a number of ideas taken from other artists through a definite, though modest and never truly even developed talent. Without the craze of the 80s art scene he would likely have never been heard of, much less be seeing in major publications and museums.
Totally disagree. His work is an important chronicle of the late 20th century; the urban condition; fame and poverty; celebrity and solemnities. His popularity (then and now) is explained by his genius and not some marketing fad. The proof is that his work endures beyond anything that is considered “1980’s”. His “art” flowed through him and out of him like blood and like bleeding. His output was one of the great summations of modern life. The fusion of visual and linguistic art…post Madison Avenue.
Actually, his art doesn’t seem to have endured all that well in comparison to many other artists of the time who were actually important. Sure, he endured better than “the 3 Cs” and Schnabel in terms of the art world, but Haring and others are far more relevant and for reasons beyond the need of collectors to keep the value of their holdings.
Also, I disagree with your description of his work. He wasn’t really doing much that hadn’t been done before by people like DuBuffet, DeKooning, etc…
“primitive” “here I saw the primitive” “he writes better than I”
you don’t know anything.you don’t understand anything.
Jean hated all of this – ”primitive” “monkey with a paintbrush” “primal” .
you don’t deserve his art , you don’t deserve his poetry.
be ashamed .
Well he sure knew how to milk the cow, or show I say the entire farm. LOL
Saw this at the Brooklyn Museum on my visit to NYC in May…what a great day it was. Also, was surprised to see that the Metropolitan Museum of Art only displays one of his paintings in the hallway on the 5th floor, though they own several of his works. When your in NYC it is a must see.
Frankly, this whole notebooks and poetry thing feels distinctly like gallerists and collectors trying desperately to keep the value of their Basquiats high. After all, we are talking about an artist who was a huge star in the 80s but has since failed to be very influential in terms of other artists or of critical dialogue (excepting, of course, dialog on race, in which he rightly has a place. His work just tends to fail to extend past that one topic)