Repelling Ghosts at the MFAH: Basquiat Reviewed

Jean-Michel Basquiat was an artist born and raised in Brooklyn. Born to an ambitious Puerto Rican/Haitian family, he was a preternaturally bright kid, but did not excel in the public school system. In the 11th grade he dropped out, pursuing a career in art despite no formal training. Along with his friend Al Diaz, he came into his own as a graffiti artist under the name of SAMO, through which he'd eventually be discovered by the illustrious "scene."

He was a man of contradictions, simultaneously cocky and self-doubting, Bohemian and lavish. This duality, along with racial identity and various symbol systems, would become one of the hallmarks of his short, tremendous, and in most respects tragic career — short in that Basquiat died of a heroin overdose at the age of 27, a mere seven years after he’d become the shining star of the contemporary art world; tragic in that it was in nearly every way, shape and form a cautionary tale of excess and commodity.

Walking up the stairs to the second floor of the MFAH, you’re pretty much immediately informed just how big that career was. The first two pieces, side by side, are a painting of the artist with Andy Warhol and a large-scale collaboration between the two. Andy Warhol! Large scale! Loud noises! Perhaps the strongest point of the show is the room of works on paper, evoking the Cy Twombly show from the Menil Collection earlier this year — not only for the style, to which Basquiat is indebted, but for the way it tackles the theme of heroes, both mythological and flesh-and-blood real. A pantheon of African-American legends, among them Sugar Ray Robinson and Robert Johnson, are juxtoposed with Basquiat's signiture crown and halo icons, creating a sense of reverence that everyone can truly appreciate, especially if they like stuff like rock music, sports or other niche entertainment.

Toward the end of his career, Basquiat moved away from canvas and paper, opting instead for found materials like doors and cabinets. It serves as a nice end point for the show as well, his graffiti beginnings taken to their logical fine art conclusion. This show has more hits than those Time Life compilations they advertise at 3 a.m., only you won’t have to sit through an infomercial with Regis Philbin to enjoy classics from the 80s like Untitled (Head), the Eroica series or SAMO© photographs. It’d be easy to write a few thousand words doing nothing but listing the great pieces in the show, so the cut it short: They’re all winners in Houstonist’s book. The artwork lends itself well to musical accompaniment, so be sure to bring your iPod or shameful non-iPod MP3 player equivilant. Houstonist suggests loading it up with Death Comet Crew.

The MFAH is only the third museum in the United States to dedicate a show to Basquiat (after the Brooklyn Museum and the MOCA in L.A.), and Basquiat is the most recent in a long line of great solo shows to hit Houston in the past few years. Really, we just can't say enough nice things about it. The idea of doing great shows that everyone likes seems to be working out well for the MFAH. Maybe too well. The idea is so sane it couldn’t have possibly come from artists. Houstonist is keeping its eye out.

Basquiat: through Feb. 12, 2006, at the MFAH. For more information about the show, visit www.mfah.org and, you know, see it for yourself. For more information on the artist, visit www.basquiat.net.