![]() ![]() "the FBI in 1994 investigated a matter in which Vrej Baghoomian, the dealer who represented the painter at the time of his death, had sold five fake Basquiats at a Paris art fair. Phoebe Hoban reported in her biography, "Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art". This invitation was printed in Basquiat's lifetime - making it such a collectible. In the photo, he clutches the copy of Jack Kerouac’s The Subterraneans which Basquiat, an autodidact, is said to have kept in his suitcase wherever he went, (The semi-autobiographical novel is about Kerouac's affair with an African-American woman, and his entree into the world of Jazz.) Basquiat famously had a falling out with the notoriously sketchy Vrej Baghoomian, and he is said to have boycotted the opening reception on April 29th. Some would later say that Basquiat's death seemed almost foreshadowed by the announcement’s austere design, colorless palette, and solemn portrait photograph. Indeed, what makes this exhibition invitation so extraordinary is that this exhibition ended June 11th, 1988 - almost exactly two months before Basquiat's own life ended, at the age of 27, on August 12, 1988. Historic, uncommon offset lithograph fold-out invitation from what would become the very last exhibition of Basquiat's short life. ![]() Offset print, 6″ x 9″ (folded) 10 1/2″ x 9″ (splayed open)īeyond scarce! Exhibition invitation for Basquiat's show at Vrej Baghoomian Gallery, NY, April - June 1988, photograph by (French photographer) Jerome Schlomoff. Offset Lithograph for Basquiat's final exhibition OsloNowhere works closely with Martin and will update social media and our homepage with new works as soon as they arrive.Portrait with Jack Kerouac (Invitation to Basquiat's final exhibition), 1988 We at OsloNowhere have worked with the street-art movement and artists in this genre for a long time, and are very happy about the attention and success that artists like Martin now is experiencing. In September 2020, we had the pleasure of presenting Martins work in an exhibition in an old gas station at Frogner in Oslo. True to form, no gray space stays gray for long in Martins presence, wheter immersing entirely or embellishing a detail, the images dissapear beneath expressive, spray-painted strokes of assorted colours and textures. The ashen tones of the compositions and vacant backgrounds are reminiscent of his alternative canvases, the concrete. Almost stylised, these minimal figures are constructed of a few layers of hand-cut stencils. Delicate and organic characters feature butterflies, ballerinas and animals all rendered in empty grayscale space. ![]() With as many works on walls as on canvas and paper, the relationship between vulnerability and strenght remains constant in each work. His works can be seen to mirror the rise and fall of the streets, as he symbolically recreates the urban environment, then vandalises it to reveal his vibrant transformations. Over the past decade, Martin has developed an unmistakable aestethic combining abstract movement with figurative stencilled compositions. Martin Whatson (f.1984) is a Norwegian street-artist best known for his calligraphic scribbles in grayscale voids.
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