When Basquiat Painted and Partied In L.A. (and Took Madonna to the Fox Commissary)

Jean-Michel Basquiat burst onto the New York art scene in the early 1980s and has been claimed as an NYC legend ever since. “The rap on Jean-Michel was he’s a street kid from New York and the work all comes from his experience of the New York streets,” says art dealer, curator, writer and Basquiat expert Fred Hoffman.

In reality, Basquiat would spend some of the most pivotal years of his short life working in Los Angeles. Made on Market Street — opening during Oscar Week at Gagosian in Beverly Hills on March 7 and curated by Hoffman and Larry Gagosian — is the first exhibit to focus exclusively on works (30 in all) that the artist produced in L.A., from 1982 to 1984.

In April of 1982, Gagosian presented the first West Coast solo show of Basquiat’s work — to rapturous reviews. Back in New York, Basquiat was ready for a change of scenery, says Hoffman: “There was a tremendous amount of pressure on him. A lot of people looking at him, a lot of people being critical — some of the early criticism, especially in New York, is racist in its implications.”

Gagosian offered the perfect solution. “He invited Jean-Michel to come live and work at his new residence, a three-story, fabulous, very contemporary architecture building on Market Street in Venice,” Hoffman says. 

Hoffman — the founder of art publisher New City Editions —  quickly formed a tight bond with the young superstar. “I immediately connected with him,” he recalls. “We were off to the races and had a very active working relationship from that moment on for really the next 18 months.” Hoffman would produce six edition prints with Basquiat, including Tuxedo and Untitled, large-scale silk-screen works on canvas. After a brief return to New York, Basquiat came back to L.A., living at the L’Ermitage hotel and working out of a large warehouse two doors down from Gagosian’s Venice home, where he worked from September of 1983 through May of 1984.

Basquiat plunged headfirst into the city’s vibrant art and music scenes. Says Hoffman, “L.A. offered the opportunity to live the life of a young man — he’s just 21-22 years old — and get on with his goal, which was to paint and focus on his art and go out and have fun with a coterie of friends.” Among them was then-film student Tamra Davis, who would go on to make the 2010 documentary Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child. “I had a camera in my hand all the time. I’d carry a Super 8 or a Bolex. And he said that I should make a documentary about him because he was going to be a really big, famous artist,” recalls Davis in the book about the exhibition. (The show runs through June 1.)

Adds Hoffman, “He loved Mr Chow. He loved to go shopping; he went to Maxfield’s regularly. He would often come back to the studio with a brand-new Armani suit and he went on with his business and started painting in it.”

L.A. collectors, like Eli and Edythe Broad, would also embrace Basquiat’s innovative work. “One of the early groups of people that really got behind Jean-Michel was the entertainment industry,” Hoffman says, noting such early collectors as producer Douglas Kramer, TV exec Scott Spiegel, Barry Lowen and Bud Yorkin. Back in 1983, The Hollywood Reporter covered one of Basquiat’s art openings at Gagosian (though misspelled his last name), highlighting the entertainment crowd that attended. “It’s like a Hollywood premiere,” said art dealer Irving Blum in the story. (See clipping at end of this article.)

One day, Basquiat brought his girlfriend, a then-unknown singer named Madonna, to lunch with some of his entertainment industry collectors in the elevated VIP section of the Fox Commissary. Recalls Hoffman, “Madonna at one point leans over the front of the box and points down to the sea of Hollywood people and says, ‘Someday everybody in this room will know who I am!’ … Basquiat was sort of embarrassed, he blushed.”

But far more important than the glitz and the glamour, Basquiat’s work expanded and deepened during these years. Among the highlights of Made on Market Street is the painting Hollywood Africans, on loan from the Whitney. “He depicts himself alongside two of his buddies …and he basically turns the three of them into new Hollywood celebrities,” Hoffman says. “Text in the painting references [movie star footprints at] Grauman’s and the whole experience of Hollywood.” 

Another standout is the three panel Horn Players, which pays homage to jazz greats Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Three works, Flexible, Gold Griot, and M, include wooden slat supports from his Venice studio’s courtyard fence.

Overall, Made on Market Street is a testament to a brilliant artist who briefly graced the streets of Los Angeles and was inspired by what he saw.  “It’s still an under-appreciated and unrecognized part of Jean-Michel’s career,” Hoffman says of Basquiat’s L.A .sojourn. “Larry and I felt that the time had come to try and set the record straight and put out into the world how important the Los Angeles milieu was to Jean-Michel.”

Adds Gagosian in a statement, “Los Angeles has always been a great city for artists and Jean-Michel seemed to find it a refreshing change from New York. While the immensity of his talent was immediately apparent, it was nonetheless a highlight of my own career to work with him, to introduce him to Los Angeles, and to witness the amazing impact that his art and legacy have made on our culture.”

A version of this story first appeared in the March 6 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.