Basquiat Before Basquiat: East 12th Street, 1979–1980

This exhibition includes the entire cache of works made by Jean-Michel Basquiat during the year he lived with his friend Alexis Adler in a small apartment in the East Village. This archival material provides rare insight into the artistic life of Basquiat before he was recognized as a prominent  painter in the early 1980s. 

While living in this apartment, Basquiat’s creative impulses moved fluidly from his SAMO tags on the surrounding streets and neighborhood into a more sustained practice in their shared home. 

Through paintings, sculpture, works on paper, a notebook, and other ephemera, as well as Adler’s numerous photographs from this period, the exhibition explores how the context of life in New York informed and formed Basquiat’s artistic practice.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website 

Image: Installation view, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis

Image:The apartment, c. 1979–1980. Photograph by Alexis Adler.