The story of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s soaring success, from subway graffiti to posh galleries in five years, is rooted in the mythologies of early 1980s New York. Since his 1988 death of a heroin overdose, age 27, Basquiat films, books and auction prices (along with exhibitions such as last year’s ‘Basquiat x Warhol. Painting 4 Hands’ at the Fondation Louis Vuitton) have only multiplied, yet one perspective has not been documented until now: the formative time he spent in Los Angeles.
‘Made on Market Street’ at Gagosian in Beverly Hills is the first show to present works made by the young artist between 1982 and 1984 when he worked for extensive periods of time at a studio in Larry Gagosian’s house in Venice, California, and later at a studio down the block, both walking distance to the Pacific.
