The following assessments can be used for this lesson using the downloadable assessment rubric.
- Aesthetics 1
- Communication 3
- Creative process 3
- Critical thinking 1
- Historical context 3
Please reserve your timed tickets.
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Collaboration, 1984-1985. The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.; © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat
1998.1.485
Andy Warhol collaborated with artist Jean-Michel Basquiat over several years during the 1980s. Their first collaborative project was with an Italian painter named Francesco Clemente. It was primarily a collaboration-by-mail in which the artists were mailing partially finished canvases to each other rather than painting together in the same room. Eventually Warhol and Basquiat became close friends, and they worked together on over 100 paintings without Clemente. Typically, Warhol would start by tracing a Pop Art symbol or a news headline onto a canvas using his overhead projector; then Basquiat would add a symbol, picture, or words to the painting in his Neo-Expressionist style. The artists would take turns adding layers to each artwork without much preliminary discussion. Both artists appropriated imagery from a variety of source material: books, magazines, newspapers, television, advertisements, and even medical diagrams. Their collaborations show the stark contrast between their artistic styles and creative perspectives. Although Warhol had collaborated with friends and assistants on art projects since the 1950s, the paintings he made with Basquiat are unique in that he allowed another artist to authentically represent their own style on the same canvas as his Pop Art.
Jean-Michel got me into painting differently, so that’s a good thing.
“Andy paid Victor [Hugo] to be the ‘collaborator’ …He would come to the Factory to urinate on canvases that had already been primed with copper-based paint by Andy.” [The uric acid would oxidize the metal in the copper ground, causing it to discolor, allowing for patterns to be created according to the ‘movement’ of the ‘painter’.]
Bob Colacello, After Andy Warhol, 2002
“To get the most spontaneous work into the collaborations I suggested to Basquiat that every artist should, without conferring with the others about iconography, style, size, technique, etc., independently start the paintings, of course in the knowledge that two further artists would be working on the same canvas, and that enough mental and physical space should be left to accommodate them. I further suggested to him that each artist send one half of the started collaborations to each of the other artists and the works then be passed on to the remaining artist whose work was still missing. Basquiat liked my proposal and agreed.”
Art dealer Bruno Bischofberger, Dangerous Minds, 2012
“It was like some crazy-art world marriage and they were the odd couple. The relationship was symbiotic. Jean-Michel thought he needed Andy’s fame, and Andy thought he needed Jean-Michel’s new blood. Jean-Michel gave Andy a rebellious image again.”
Warhol’s assistant Ronnie Cutrone, Warhol: The Biography, 1989
“Jean-Michel and Andy achieved a healthy balance. Jean respected Andy’s philosophy and was in awe of his accomplishments and mastery of color and images. Andy was amazed by the ease with which Jean composed and constructed his paintings and was constantly surprised by the never-ending flow of new ideas. Each one inspired the other to outdo the next. The collaborations were seemingly effortless. It was a physical conversation happening in paint instead of words…”
Keith Haring, Painting the Third Man, 1988
When students have decided that the artwork is complete, encourage them to reflect on the process and how it felt to collaborate with another person using the below prompts. Then have students share their reflections and artwork with the class.
The following assessments can be used for this lesson using the downloadable assessment rubric.