The Fondation Beyeler in Basel puts a new twist on the Jean-Michel story Basquiat this summer, featuring “Basquiat: the Modena Paintings” (11 June to 27 August), which collects eight large-scale works done in Modena, Italy, in 1982. The paintings, including “The Guilt of Gold Teeth”, are now in eight collections private individuals in the US, Asia and Switzerland.
Italian gallerist Emilio Mazzoli invited Basquiat to carry out works for a one-off exhibition, providing the workplace and painting material. Basquiat painted on discarded canvases used by another artist, Mario Schifano, scribbling “Modena” on the back. But complications in paying for the works led to the cancellation of the planned exhibition in Europe.
In a 1985 interview with the New York Times, Basquiat described how much he disliked the Modena experience, in an environment he described as a “sick factory”. Working on the premises of the supplied warehouse seemed to him “like a factory, a sick factory. I hated that." The works found new buyers through the Basquiat in New York at the time, Annina Nosei.
The “Modena Paintings” share several motifs and stylistic features, according to a statement by the Fondation Beyeler, including “a monumental figure, often black, against a background of broad, gestural and expressive brushstrokes… the human body and the animal occupy center stage”.
Sam Keller, director of Fondation Beyeler, told The Art Newspaper: “With each new generation, the importance of the work of Basquiat increases even more. His combination of images and words referring to high and popular culture, history, science, social and economic injustice was truly ahead of its time and more relevant today than ever. The Modena paintings were created more than 40 years ago and have never been shown together before. It will be exciting to finally bring them together.” The average insurance value of each of these works is US$ 100 million, with the group of eight works totaling US$ 800 million.