Ryan Gander: Basquiat

There are two components to Ryan Gander’s work Basquiat (2008). The first is a film that re-stages a scene from Julian-Schnabel’s 1996 movie Basquiat. The scene occurs roughly two-thirds of the way through the movie, where Basquiat cycles through a park to see Andy Warhol. In the previous scene a journalist questions Basquiat politely but with obvious hostility, about Basquiat’s and his admirers exploitation of his supposed status of outsider. By way of contrast, the friendship with Warhol is the ultimate piece of insiderism. It might then be possible to read the cycle scene as the journey through the outsider-insider pole that structures the film. Basquiat’s attire, with a cardigan thrown over pyjamas, suggests that he doesn’t care – things just happen. But of course, driven by ambition and fuelled by drugs, he does care, intensely.

-Ryan Gander, Basquiat or I cant dance to it, one day - but not now, one day I will but that will be it, but you wont know and that will be, 2008

Ryan Gander
Basquiat