Join the soloists of the Ensemble intercontemporain, and their music director, maestro and composer Matthias Pintscher for a celebration of the life and work of one of 20th-century art’s towering figures: Jean-Michel Basquiat. The neo-expressionist painter and Andy Warhol collaborator Jean-Michel Basquiat is one of the most famous artists of the last century, yet few people are aware of his extensive musical explorations. In the late 1970s, he co-founded Gray—an ensemble he called a “noise band”, named after the 19th-century medical textbook Gray’s Anatomy—and “played with a file on a guitar and a synthesizer. At the time I was inspired by John Cage – music that isn’t really music. We were trying to be incomplete, abrasive, oddly beautiful.”
In step with the expressivity, energy, and power of Basquiat’s paintings, currently on exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, this “oddly beautiful” concert program presents works by John Cage, George Crumb, Yann Robin, and Bryce Dessner, as well as the world premiere of Matthias Pintscher’s new œuvre for three trumpets, a special commission of the Fondation Louis Vuitton. Founded by the great Pierre Boulez in 1976, this concert will mark Ensemble Intercontemporain's first performance at the Fondation Louis Vuitton.
Photo: Untitled (Jean-Michel Portrait), 1984
Lambda Print on Ilford FB Baryta Paper
© Images of Jean-Michel Basquiat by Lee
Jaffe. Copyright LW Archives, LLC. Courtesy of LW
Archives, New York by permission. All rights reserved.
