Beschreibung:

Jean-Michel-Basquiat and Andy Warhol Olympics 1984 acrylic on canvas 193 x 310 cm (75 7/8 x 122 in) Signed ‘Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel-Basquiat’ on the overlap.
Provenance Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich Acquired directly from the above by the present owner Exhibited Kassel, Museum Fridericianum, Collaborations – Warhol/Basquiat/Clemente, 4 February–5 May 1996 Munich, Museum Villa Stuck, Collaborations – Warhol/Basquiat/Clemente, 25 July–29 September 1996 Torino, Castello di Rivoli, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Collaborations: Warhol – Basquiat – Clemente, 17 October 1996–19 January 1997 Humlebæk, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Andy Warhol and His World, 14 April–30 July 2000 Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Warhol/Basquiat/Clemente – Obras en Colaboración, 5 February–29 April 2002 Milan, Fondazione La Triennale di Milano, The Andy Warhol Show, 20 September 2004–9 January 2005 Literature Ida Gianelli, Tilman Osterwold, Richard D. Marhall et al., Collaborations: Warhol – Basquiat – Clemente, Castello di Rivoli Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 1996, p. 102 (illustrated in colour) Tilman Osterwold, Trevor Fairbrother, Keith Haring et al., Collaborations: Warhol/Basquiat/Clemente, Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 1996, p. 75 (illustrated in colour) S. Laursen, B. Nilsson et al., Andy Warhol and His World, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, 2000, p. 80, no. 55 (illustrated in colour) Juan Manuel Bonet, Richard D. Marshall, Enrique Juncosa, Warhol, Basquiat, Clemente – Obras en Colaboración, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía/Aldeasa, Madrid, 2002, p. 78 (illustrated in colour) Gianni Mercurio, Daniela Morera, The Andy Warhol Show, Milan: Skira, 2004, p.281, no. 207, (illustrated in colour) J. Vorbach and J. Faurschou, Andy Warhol Portraits: Spots, Stars and Society, Beijing: Faurschou, 2008, pp. 6–7 (illustrated in colour) Catalogue Essay Majestic in scale and radiant in colour, Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel-Basquiat’s 1984 collaborative painting entitled Olympics belongs to a body of work that has finally garnered the critical acclaim it deserves and which is currently celebrated in the exhaustive exhibition Menage a Trois. Warhol, Basquiat, Clemente at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn looking at their collaborations. Filled with rich iconography and deeply layered in meaning, Olympics amalgamates some of the most pertinent recurrent themes found in each of Warhol’s and Basquiat’s oeuvres – race, fame, money and politics – all played out in the sporting arena. Combined in a single stunning artistic dialogue, the mesmerizing depth and breadth of the thematic interplay seen here is extraordinary even for these artists’ collaborations and even more rarely seen in either artist’s individual work. The collaborations came about in late 1983 when the Swiss art dealer Bruno Bischofberger decided to commission work from three of his artists, Andy Warhol Jean-Michel-Basquiat and the Italian Francesco Clemente Their initial three-way collaborations were neither critically nor commercially successful but, unknown to Bischofberger, Warhol and Basquiat continued to paint together. In the mid 1980s, Warhol was at an artistic low, his then recent bodies of work being perceived as repetitive and lacking in depth. Although he was at first unwilling to associate with Basquiat, whom he saw as a wild child, he understood the potential gains of being associated with the rising star of the New York art world. Basquiat, like Warhol, also had a somewhat unhealthy obsession with his own image. He had a complex and powerful need to be accepted as a black artist in the white art world, so he greatly benefited socially from his association with Warhol whom he had courted for years and with whom he was able to reach the upper echelons of society previously barred to him. Although they had known each other from afar and each had already painted a portrait of the other – Basquiat’s 1982 iconic Dos Cabezas and Warhol’s urination painting of a wildly dreadlocked Jean-Michel-– the highly prolific 18 months they spent collaborating would greatly intensify their relationship which was based on a mutual respec