Lot Essay
Executed in 1984, the monumentally scaled 2 1/2 Hours of Chinese Food emphatically illustrates Basquiat's obsession with the rawness and excitement of the city, of its fast food and racially combined culture, of its never-ending activity and shocking, undiluted colours.
Centring on the isolated head of the Chinese man the unusually specific title pulls together the myriad visual images in the work to suggest, perhaps, the artist's impressions after a long meal consumed in the heart of Chinatown. "The urban stereotypes proposed by Jean-Michel Basquiat, once caught in the trap of being labelled as graffiti, now find themselves caught in the trap of being labelled as painting. They are not its prisoners: they scream, loud and clear, what we are: spectral forms drawn by a 'Child King' who invents an enchanting, bewitching and frightening night, given the task of awaking us and giving us this shock of barbarous reunions in a painting that is almost too beautiful...The colours are not those of easel painting, obtained while learning a craft and constantly worked on. They are lively, swift colours of the street, both vibrant and faded, affixed and opposing, distant but not foreign" (Jean-Louis Prat, 'The Child King of the Eighties', see E. Navarra, op. cit, p. 9).
As is the case with the present work, beginning in late 1982 and continuing throughout his career, Basquiat's works became more ambitious and encompassing, often featuring multipanel paintings or single canvases with exposed stretcher bars, the surfaces dense with writing, collage and seemingly unrelated imagery. These works reveal the artist's growing interest in his own Black and Hispanic identity as well as the numerous racial communities flourishing in America.
"Jean-Michel Basquiat is not only the son of the America where he was born and lived, or of the Africa of his distant ancestors. He is from all continents, from all those who have discovered and adopted him. He is from all cultures, his works are heavily influenced by them. He is not simply a witness of Black History because he refers to other peoples and other struggles, such as the Chinese, who were used to lay the American railway tracks. Jean-Michel has no one colour, he is all the colours that he has used in his paintings" (E. Navarra, ibid., p. 10).
The strong dichotomy between the compellingly isolated head and letter 'K' in the upper region of 2 1/2 Hours of Chinese Food and the spontaneity of the pasted scraps of xeroxed sketches in the lower region imbue the work with a powerful yet frenetic character. Basquiat's origins as a graffiti artist are clearly referred to in the raw, unschooled drawing and phrases splashed on the canvas which demand intimacy even within such an ambitiously sized work.
2 1/2 Hours of Chinese Food was amongst the first works by Basquiat to be handled by Mary Boone. When the artist returned to New York in March 1984, having spent two months in Maui, Hawaii, he affiliated himself with Boone's gallery, making her and Bruno Bischofberger his primary dealers. 1984 was to prove a decisive year in establishing Basquiat's wider reputation. His work received international attention, from his first one-man exhibition mounted at Boone's gallery, to his inclusion in the Museum of Modern Art's An International Survey of Recent Paintings and Sculpture, to the sale of his Untitled (Skull) of 1982 for $19,000 at Christie's New York (Lot 77, 8 May 1984).
As Tony Shafrazi recalls "I met Jean-Michel in 1979-80. Within a year he was all over New York City, with cryptic messages written in bold letters on walls, doorways and in various parts of lower Manhatten. He was the personificiation of 'cool'. From the beginning one could see that both his electrifying line and the character of drawing, his hand writing slow and deliberate, as well as the strange and poetic messages, were completely individualistic...Here was a charismatic young man addressing the world with bravery and force" (see E. Navarra, ibid., p. 166).
Centring on the isolated head of the Chinese man the unusually specific title pulls together the myriad visual images in the work to suggest, perhaps, the artist's impressions after a long meal consumed in the heart of Chinatown. "The urban stereotypes proposed by Jean-Michel Basquiat, once caught in the trap of being labelled as graffiti, now find themselves caught in the trap of being labelled as painting. They are not its prisoners: they scream, loud and clear, what we are: spectral forms drawn by a 'Child King' who invents an enchanting, bewitching and frightening night, given the task of awaking us and giving us this shock of barbarous reunions in a painting that is almost too beautiful...The colours are not those of easel painting, obtained while learning a craft and constantly worked on. They are lively, swift colours of the street, both vibrant and faded, affixed and opposing, distant but not foreign" (Jean-Louis Prat, 'The Child King of the Eighties', see E. Navarra, op. cit, p. 9).
As is the case with the present work, beginning in late 1982 and continuing throughout his career, Basquiat's works became more ambitious and encompassing, often featuring multipanel paintings or single canvases with exposed stretcher bars, the surfaces dense with writing, collage and seemingly unrelated imagery. These works reveal the artist's growing interest in his own Black and Hispanic identity as well as the numerous racial communities flourishing in America.
"Jean-Michel Basquiat is not only the son of the America where he was born and lived, or of the Africa of his distant ancestors. He is from all continents, from all those who have discovered and adopted him. He is from all cultures, his works are heavily influenced by them. He is not simply a witness of Black History because he refers to other peoples and other struggles, such as the Chinese, who were used to lay the American railway tracks. Jean-Michel has no one colour, he is all the colours that he has used in his paintings" (E. Navarra, ibid., p. 10).
The strong dichotomy between the compellingly isolated head and letter 'K' in the upper region of 2 1/2 Hours of Chinese Food and the spontaneity of the pasted scraps of xeroxed sketches in the lower region imbue the work with a powerful yet frenetic character. Basquiat's origins as a graffiti artist are clearly referred to in the raw, unschooled drawing and phrases splashed on the canvas which demand intimacy even within such an ambitiously sized work.
2 1/2 Hours of Chinese Food was amongst the first works by Basquiat to be handled by Mary Boone. When the artist returned to New York in March 1984, having spent two months in Maui, Hawaii, he affiliated himself with Boone's gallery, making her and Bruno Bischofberger his primary dealers. 1984 was to prove a decisive year in establishing Basquiat's wider reputation. His work received international attention, from his first one-man exhibition mounted at Boone's gallery, to his inclusion in the Museum of Modern Art's An International Survey of Recent Paintings and Sculpture, to the sale of his Untitled (Skull) of 1982 for $19,000 at Christie's New York (Lot 77, 8 May 1984).
As Tony Shafrazi recalls "I met Jean-Michel in 1979-80. Within a year he was all over New York City, with cryptic messages written in bold letters on walls, doorways and in various parts of lower Manhatten. He was the personificiation of 'cool'. From the beginning one could see that both his electrifying line and the character of drawing, his hand writing slow and deliberate, as well as the strange and poetic messages, were completely individualistic...Here was a charismatic young man addressing the world with bravery and force" (see E. Navarra, ibid., p. 166).