At
the start of his career the Haitian-born artist Jean-Michel
Basquiat was so broke that he had no ther way to produce works than
to cover the surface of the places he lived in with paintings as he did so in
1979 in his girlfriend Alexis
Adler's
East Village home where he covered a wall, a door and a radiator with
some of his now iconic images during the year he remained there.
Basquiat
died in 1988 while Alexis, who now works as an embryologist at New
York University, managed to buy the flat they shared together without thinking
one minute about erasing his precious paintings or getting rid of the
notebooks, photos, painted clothes, drawings or belongings.
Wisely
enough, Adler has now embarked on preparing a book on her collection
and also an exhibition due hopefully to be followed by a sale.
A
script for a play written by Basquiat as well as 50 rolls of 35 mm
film showing him at work are among the items he left behind him but Adler has really no idea of their value. One thing is for sure, the door the
artist painted in her apartment is worth at least 1,5 million USD and
she might reap off over 4 million USD for the rest. Still, Adler is
not hard pressed to sell her collection and her only concern now is
simply to exhibit it.
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