“In the beginning of his creation, there was the word. He loved words for their sense, for their sound, and for their look: he gave eyes, ears, mouth -and a soul- to words. He liked to say he used words like brushstrokes” [1]

In 1976, Jean-Michel Basquiat met Al Diaz at City-as-School, an alternative school in Manhattan for students with atypical backgrounds, often struggling in the traditional educational system. During a drug-induced conversation, they created the abbreviation SAMO, a contraction of “same old shit”. In 1978, their project took shape: the first SAMO© tags began to appear on Manhattan walls. These were not graffiti art, but disjointed street poetry[2], aphorisms or evocative words that could be found everywhere in the city, from elevators to D-line trains. SAMO© is a strong, recognizable conceptual strategy. Although the adventure with Al Diaz lasted only two years, the legacy of this first artistic project plays a fundamental role in the evolution of Basquiat's work. The © symbol, found in Asbestos, would become an icon inseparable from his persona, reflecting his obsession with notions of identification, authority, ownership and authenticity. But SAMO©'s legacy is not limited to the copyright symbol: in Asbestos, it's clear that the written word forms an essential part of Basquiat's repertoire.

Between the late 1970s and early 1980s, Basquiat frequented Downtown's most fashionable clubs, such as the Mudd Club and Club 27. It was the era of rap, breakin' and hip-hop culture. Basquiat himself was a musician (clarinet and synthesizer) in a noise band, Gray[3]. In this musical climate, marked by scansion[4]and a poetry that was both political and concrete, William S. Burroughs' text-cutting work gained considerable renown.

« Life is a cut-up. As soon as you can walk down the street your consciousness is being cut by random factors. The cut-up is closer to the facts of human perception than linear narrative.”[5]

Inspired by the ideas of William S. Burroughs and concrete poetry, Basquiat's Asbestos is a collage of the reality that surrounds him. Words, symbols and images intertwine to form a rebus open to a multitude of interpretations, both autobiographical and linked to his environment: the richness of the elements invites unexpected associations of ideas. The two locomotives, for example, could evoke the New York subway trains where SAMO©'s first tags appeared, but they could also refer to the trains that Hobos (the “ancestors” of the homeless who populated the United States in the early 20th century) drew on walls to indicate where it was easy to board a train illegally. In Basquiat's visual syntax, Hobo symbols occupy an important place, revealed to the artist through Henry Dreyfuss's Symbol Sourcebook, a compilation of international signs and symbols used for communication purposes. In Asbestos, other references to these symbols can also be found (see figure below).

In Asbestos, Basquiat explores themes which are dear to him, including asbestos (ASBESTOS), a word often featured in his works. He uses it both to denounce the industrial practices responsible for the deaths of thousands of workers, and for its evocation of alchemy.

« Henry Geldzahler : What about the alchemical works, like tin and lead…

Jean Michel Basquiat: I think that worked.

HG: I think so, too.

JMB: Because I was writing gold on all this stuff, and I made all this money right afterwards.

HG: What about words like tin and asbestos?
JMB: That’s alchemy, too. »[6]

Another material that evokes alchemy is gold, found at bottom left next to PESO NETO, a symbol of authenticity. Basquiat is fascinated by all aspects of commerce: buying, selling, exploiting. Gold is a resource on Earth, belonging to all its inhabitants. So why is it the object of manipulation, power and wealth?

There's no shortage of autobiographical references: MESMO, the crown - his emblematic signature -, ©, ARROZ, echoing Arroz con pollo, a childhood memory of the dish his Abuela used to prepare for him, and DISABLED, probably in connection with the accident he had in 1968, when he was hit by a car while playing with a ball. The word DISABLED is fragmented, beginning with BLED. These decompositions, repetitions and erasures intrigue and captivate our gaze.

Asbestos is a chaotic cartography of society and the world around us. The density of symbols and doodles testifies to Basquiat's obsessive relationship with drawing, which for him is above all a necessity, even before being a means of expression[7].

This drawing was first exhibited at the Annina Nosei gallery. Basquiat's first dealer, she discovered him in 1981 at the exhibition New York / New Wave, organized at P.S.1 by Diego Cortez. Intrigued by his work, she visited his studio, a small apartment at 68 East 1st Street. Finding the space too tight, she invited him to move into the basement of her gallery.

“He behaved as if he worked for us; on the first day, he arrived a quarter of an hour after the gallery opened and apologized: “Sorry, I'm late.” I replied, “You're not late, you can come whenever you like.” I replied, “You're not late, you can come whenever you like.” It was all great fun.»[8]

Basquiat's first solo exhibition took place at the Annina Nosei Gallery in March 1982. This event marked a decisive turning point, revealing him and imposing him on the Upper East Side art scene.

[1] Klaus Kertess « The Word », in Larry Warsh Jean-Michel Basquiat. The Notebook, New York, Art + Knowledge, 1993, p. 17

[2] Deitch, Jeffrey. "Jean-Michel Basquiat at Annina Nosei (review)" Flash Art, Rome, May 1982

[3] A tribute to the author of Gray's Anathomy Henry Gray. Basquiat received this book as a gift from his mother in 1968, when he was hospitalized following a car accident.

[4] Scansion in hip-hop refers to the way a rapper sets his lyrics to the rhythm of an instrumental.

[5] William Burroughs, quoted from Tim Head, “Interlude I: A Chance Encounter with William S. Burroughs”, in Colin Fallows et Synne Genzmer, Cut-ups, Cut-ins, Cut-outs : The Art of William S. Burroughs, cat. exp. Wien, Kunsthalle, 2012, p. 32

[6] Geldzaher Henry, From the subways to Soho, Jean-Michel Basquiat in conversation with Henry Geldzahler, Interview Magazine, New York, January 1983

[7] Robert Storr, in « Two Hundred Beats per Min.”, in John Cheim, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Drawings, cat. exposition, New York Robert Miler Gallery, Bulfinch Publisher, New York, 1991

[8] Annina Nosei, conversation with Paul Schimmel, in Dieter Buchhart, Jean-Michel Basquiat, cat. exposition, Paris, Fondation Luis Vuitton, Gallimard, Paris, 2019, p. 131