Jean-Michel Basquiat

Basquiat created this impossibly rare printed flyer to advertise a band performance within his feature acted film: Downtown 81 / New York Beat in 1980.

• After Jean Michel Basquiat (American, 1960-1988).
• The flyer with text and imagery by Basquiat, promotes a segment performance by Kid Creole and the Coconuts at The Rock Lounge: 285 West Broadway, New York, December 15th, 1980.
• Offset printed flyer.
• Accompanied by a letter of provenance.
• This work is presented unframed.

A much historical work, much notably exhibited and cataloged as part of, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts: Seeing Loud: Basquiat and Music (October 2022 - February 2023) & sister show at the Paris Philharmonic (March - July 2023).

‘In 1980, writer and Warhol associate Glenn O’Brien, Swiss photographer Edo Bertoglio, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, a graffiti innovator and noise music artist who’d just begun to exhibit his paintings, hit the streets of lower Manhattan to make a movie about the bombed-out bohemia they lived and breathed. Left unfinished due to assorted legal and financial issues until it was fully assembled for release in 2000, Downtown 81 follows Basquiat, a naturally compelling screen presence, as he tries to hawk a painting (one of the artist’s own first works) while hustling for a place to sleep. So what was meant to be a document of its time instead became a window into a long-lost world of life on the margins and creative ferment—and it feels especially potent today, when NYC had transformed into an artless ghost town, before escalating racial injustices brought people back to the streets. The film features appearances by John Lurie, Fab 5 Freddy, and Debbie Harry; musical performances by DNA, James White and the Blacks, and Kid Creole and the Coconuts; and, most remarkable of all, a portrait of a more innocent Manhattan in all its mangy glory.’ (Metrograph)

Obtained directly from a noted Basquiat collaborator & friend.

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Seeing Loud: Basquiat and Music): 2022.

Basquiat Soundtracks: Paris Philharmonic (2023).

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts: Seeing Loud: Basquiat and Music (Buchhart, Bessières, Desmarais); entry 164.

New York Beat: O’Brien, Bertoglio, Maripol (pg. 87).