Los Angeles doesn't live on cinema alone.
While Hollywood prepares for the Oscars, a crowd of art lovers - punctuated by some stars of the caliber of Sacha Baron Cohen, Chris Rock, Jeffrey Wright and Jane Fonda - flocked to the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills last night for the inauguration of a retrospective dedicated to Jean-Michel Basquiat.
"Made on Market Street" is the first exhibition focused only on the works that the New York artist produced in the Californian city.
"For an artist closely linked to the New York scene of the 1980s, Basquiat was extraordinarily prolific in Los Angeles," comments Fred Hoffman, who curated the exhibition.
Between November 1982 and May 1984 the artist lived in Venice Beach, in the residence and creative space that Larry Gagosian owned on Market street.
In this diaphanous industrial space, nestled between other warehouses and hotels, right in front of the ocean, Basquiat produced around a hundred paintings, numerous works on paper and six silk-screen prints.
Made on Market Street, open until June 1, reflects on this crucial phase through around thirty works, some of which are among his most famous and celebrated paintings.
"Los Angeles has always been a great city for artists and Jean-Michel considered it a refreshing change from New York - said Larry Gagosian as he presented the exhibition -. The immensity of his talent was evident, but for my career It was a turning point to work with him, introduce him to Los Angeles, and witness the incredible impact his art and legacy have had on our culture."
After meeting Basquiat in 1981 in Manhattan, the gallery owner invited him to Los Angeles and organized a solo exhibition in the city: it was the first time that Basquiat's work, so informed by graffiti and hip-hop, touched the West Coast of United States, the first time he left New York.
It opened in April 1982, a few days after the closing of his debut exhibition at Annina Nosei's gallery in SoHo.
Gagosian's exhibition in California definitively established him as an innovative and essential voice of the era.
In November 1982 Basquiat returned to the city, living and working in the Venice residence: a three-story open space, with an internal courtyard open to the light and air of the nearby beach.
Here he met the curator, historian and art publisher Hoffman, with whom he produced six large-scale silkscreens on canvas.
"For him - recalls Gagosian - working in Venice meant being safe from the distractions and pressures of the New York art scene".
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