Warhol and Basquiat Duke It Out in New Broadway Play “The Collaboration” – ARTnews.com

Who will win the title of “The Greatest Painter in the World Today”? This is the premise at the heart of this vibrant new Broadway play that examines how two of the 20th century’s greatest performers vie for supremacy while working together.

Opening Dec. 20 at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, Cooperational It explores how Andy Warhol, then an old man, was in the latter part of his career, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, the art world’s newest rising star, whose semi-abstract paintings injected new life into painting and sold well, to plan a joint exhibition. Billed as a match between two heavyweights, the pair donned their boxing gloves to announce the show – a clash between the old guard and the new.

Directed by Kwame Kwe Armah (victim), Paul Bettany (WandaVision(Chameleon-like like Warhol’s sardonic and Jeremy Pope)Inspection Boy’s Choir) as solid as a stormy Basquiat. Both reprise their roles from the original production, which ran earlier this year at the Young Vic Theater in London, with Kwei-Armah serving as artistic director.

The spirit of the musical shows itself upon entering the Friedman’s Theatre, with its spinning disco ball and ’80s club music. The backdrop for snapshots of the era depicts nostalgic New York City—Odeon, a young Julian Schnabel, street signs pointing to the corner of Bowery Street and Great Jones Street, where Basquiat used to keep his studio—setting the stage for a snapshot of the city’s creatively fertile time, On Anna Fleischl’s dynamic collection, full of projections, on white walls, of works done in Basquiat’s signature style.

Written by Anthony McCarten (popesAnd the bohemian rhapsody), the text deftly takes on themes such as the function of art and the mercurial nature of the market, with the specter of death looming large, and heralding the end for both men, after their brief period of collaboration.

The play opens with Warhol, chin in hand, at Basquiat’s exhibition at the gallery of Swiss art dealer Bruno Bischofberger (Eric Jensen, for life), who represented both artists at the time. Bischofberger approaches Warhol with the idea of ​​a collaboration. (There is no mention of a previous project that involved a third artist, Francesco Clemente, and McCarten taking some creative liberties with the actual timeline and facts surrounding the events depicted.)

Now in his fifties, Warhol has become a superstar whose social life is somewhat dominated by his persona, churning out silkscreen portraits of celebrities, celebs, clients, and more. Joining forces might reinvigorate his stagnant creativity, and before parting he agrees on the condition that he can portray the exciting new artist. Warhol had long been interested in film, and had recently been experimenting with television at the start of the decade. Bettany imbues Warhol with his irony, with the artist still scarred, physically and emotionally, from being shot in the chest by Valerie Solanas in 1968. (He wore a medical corset for the rest of his life.)

Shortly thereafter, a young Basquiat entered and Bischofberger exaggerated Warhol’s adulation, and soon both men joined forces to share Warhol’s famous studio, The Factory, in Union Square. The two tentatively begin work for a show to be held at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in the fall of 1985.

Warhol ended his “celibacy” by not picking up a paintbrush for 25 years by tracing the projected General Electric logo. Basquiat incorporates his iconic images; Crowns, masks, and dinosaurs cover Basquiat’s paintings, incantations for spiritual invocation. However, logos, everyday products, and consumer culture are Warhol’s themes. When reproducing company photos, Warhol says his goal is to comment in “neutral In a “don’t disturb” way of comfort [and] Solace the Troubled” as Basquiat says he chose to do. He adds that his mother inspired the famous “Campbell’s Soup Cans” series from the early 1960s, saying “Andy, you should take pictures of things that everyone can identify with.”

Basquiat’s mother also intrigued him by giving him a copy of Gray’s Anatomy As a child when he was in the hospital after a car accident. He began to paint internal organs and skeletons and, guided by his Haitian roots, practiced voodoo during a miraculously fast recovery period.

The play provides an inside look at what happened during this dialogue. The two question each other, and as a result both familiar and unknown biographical details emerge throughout their conversations, becoming an introduction to the larger-than-life characters. Examples include how Warhol lost his pigmentation and the meaning of Basquiat’s signature “Samo”. They trade jabs and jabs over each other’s ideology, but as Act Two begins, the stakes are higher, and the emotional volatile come to a head.

Maya (Krista Rodriguez, Halston) is in love with Basquiat but knows that he has other girlfriends, in addition to his drug addiction. He owes her money, and since she cannot track him down, she approaches Warhol at Basquiat’s paint-filled studio with her urgent request. A wealthy but stingy pop artist bargains her $5,000 to buy a refrigerator covered in Basquiat’s drawings. Rodriguez plays the underdeveloped role of East Village creativity to its fullest.

Warhol reports that Michael Stewart, an aspiring black artist, was seriously injured by New York City cops for spraying graffiti on the subway. (Basquiat’s real-life friend, Susan Mallock, was involved in justice for police brutality that killed her friend. The character of Maya was apparently inspired by Mallock.)

Basquiat returns to the theatre, and while awaiting news from the hospital about Stuart’s condition after being beaten unconscious while in police custody, he makes a painting, which is dubbed. sabotageHe believed that he might miraculously save Stewart “with the right colours, the right symbols, the right images, and the right magical properties”. Warhol picks up his camera, and what appears to be a live video feed is projected onto the studio walls.

Basquiat tells him to stop, but then surreptitiously continues. He told Warhol that the aim of his work was to “bring the dead back to life”. (sabotage It appears to be an alternative to Disfigure (The Death of Michael Stewart)subject of an exhibition curated by Chadrea Labouvier at the Guggenheim Museum in 2019.)

When bad news arrives of Stewart’s death, Basquiat goes into a frenzy and becomes enraged, accusing Warhol of torpedoing recovery by stealing the soul of his painting by depicting it.

In a heartbreaking finale, Basquiat, clutching a syringe, exclaims, “I’m not an addict,” and tells Warhol he’s getting rid of him. Warhol affirms his partner’s mystical beliefs: “It really brought me back to life,” he says. They look into each other’s eyes, foreshadowing the tragedy that awaits them. Shifts in tone and imagery from their 1985 Shafrazi collaborative show appear, briefly, when an offstage auctioneer opens the auction with $57 million.

The beautifully performed play resonates with grief and sadness. Warhol died unexpectedly in 1987, at the age of 58, after gallbladder surgery. Basquiat suffered a fatal heroin overdose in 1988, at the age of 27.