Exhibition curator Dieter Buchhart speaks of how Jean-Michel Basquiat “dedicated himself with great intensity to struggles against capitalism, inequality and racism.” Basquiat, Buchhart declared, was “explicitly engaged in a critique of capitalism,” wielding his brush “as a weapon” against genocide, police brutality, poverty and a host of other evils.LIZZIE HIMMEL/The Associated Press
In his catalogue essay for Now's the Time, exhibition curator Dieter Buchhart speaks of how Jean-Michel Basquiat "dedicated himself with great intensity to struggles against capitalism, inequality and racism." He made the point even more forcefully earlier this week at a media preview at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Basquiat, Buchhart declared, was "explicitly engaged in a critique of capitalism," wielding his brush "as a weapon" against genocide, police brutality, poverty and a host of other evils.
Admirable as this may be, it's an ethos expressed almost exclusively within the confines of the exhibition itself, with few manifestations of it elsewhere in the AGO. This disjunction is most pronounced in the pop-up Basquiat-themed gift shop the AGO has positioned at the exhibition's exit. Gift shops are, of course, an entrenched, almost unavoidable part of the modern art gallery ecosystem, and no savvy person is going to argue the situation should be otherwise. Yet it's usually in the gift shop where the fine feelings and exalted thoughts of an exhibition are forced to tussle with life in the commercial world (aka capitalism) that's necessary to keep a multi-million-dollar arts institution functioning.
So it is with the Basquiat shop, which is selling an astonishing array of Basquiat- hemed wares, much of it okayed by the artist's estate, which is administered by his two sisters. Among the treasures: $45 T-shirts with Basquiat art on the front; $250 hoodies; a $65 Basquiat perfumed candle; a one-of-a-kind Basquiat-inspired "fabric sculpture" retailing for $1,500. If you want to have your cake and eat it, too, $180 will get you a Limoges porcelain plate, 27 cm in diameter, dishwasher-safe, its surface embossed with a wild Basquiat portrait of himself as Exu, the African trickster god. Likely the priciest item in the shop is a screenprint, number 69 in a series of 85, of Basquiat's 1984 cover illustration for the debut LP from San Francisco punk/ska band The Offs – $30,000 and it's yours. Also for sale: belts with buckles made from used skate-boards, "dish clawths," a $30 "buttah" dish and Madonna-themed bracelets and bangles (Madge was, briefly, a Basquiat bedmate in the early 1980s).
If you weary of the shopping, there's always the respite of the gallery's Frank restaurant. According to a Jan. 29 release, it's presenting, starting Feb. 17, "a series of prix-fixe menus inspired by the artist's Haitian and Puerto Rican roots. Featuring vibrant dishes such as grilled pineapple-and-zucchini salad, vegan gumbo and Puerto Rican crème caramel, these three-course lunch and dinner menus are available for $35 and $45." The restaurant also intends to sell "three signature Basquiat-inspired cocktails."