Lot Essay
For the young Basquiat, Warhol was one of the deities of the art world, a hero and an example and so, when he was properly introduced to him in 1982, it marked the beginning of a new phase in his life. He was so struck by the meeting that he ran off and painted a dual portrait showing himself with Warhol, and returned with the still dripping canvas only two hours later, a speed of execution that impressed even the veteran of Pop art. They became friends, and two years later would begin to share space on canvas in another way. Executed in 1984, Dog is an early example of the 'Collaborations' that the two artists made in 1984 and 1985. In this work, a close examination reveals the technique that the two artists preferred. First, Warhol would project an image onto a canvas and paint, almost tracing, its form. And after that, Basquiat would be let loose on the result. There is a clear and pointed contrast between the cool application of Warhol's Pop base, and the frenzied, gestural application of paint that marks Basquiat's contribution. It is this combination, this juxtaposition, of the styles of two very different artists, both masters of the iconic, that lends Dog its intense visual potency. In this picture, we are the witnesses to a painterly struggle between the Apollonian and the Dionysian, between reason and madness. The sense of insanity is only increased by the pseudo-scientific scrawl of letters, words and numbers that Basquiat has applied, features that imitate the visual language of reason yet emanate from the world of the irrational.
In Dog, it is not so much an image from popular culture that has been used as a base, but instead the picture of a dog. Although it seems a contented animal, the raw, graffiti-like images and words that Basquiat has superimposed lend it a Cave Canem atmosphere. This becomes a mongrel, a contemporary hound of the Baskervilles, rabid and mystical. It appears spectral, an emanation fading from existence into the ochre cloud of paint with which Basquiat has obscured so much of the canvas. The hound, and the horde of incongruous characters-- including a scuba-diver-- hold us in their gaze, as though we are being examined and judged, lending the work an even more intense immediacy.
In Dog, it is not so much an image from popular culture that has been used as a base, but instead the picture of a dog. Although it seems a contented animal, the raw, graffiti-like images and words that Basquiat has superimposed lend it a Cave Canem atmosphere. This becomes a mongrel, a contemporary hound of the Baskervilles, rabid and mystical. It appears spectral, an emanation fading from existence into the ochre cloud of paint with which Basquiat has obscured so much of the canvas. The hound, and the horde of incongruous characters-- including a scuba-diver-- hold us in their gaze, as though we are being examined and judged, lending the work an even more intense immediacy.