jean-michel basquiat

Richard and Eric look into a quote about art and music that has been making the rounds of social media recently.  Formally attributed to postmodernist/neo expressionist artist  Jean-Michel Basquiat, it reads: “Art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time.”  Why does the statement illicit a strong response from those in the fine arts?  What could it actually mean, or does it perhaps mean something that people are misinterpreting, en masse?

In this episode of Profiles with Maggie LePique, we discuss a new Art Exhibit  that is happening now through July 2023 : Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure
Opening in Downtown LA Friday March 31st at the Grand LA. 
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s contributions to the history of art and his explorations of multifaceted cultural phenomena––including music, the Black experience, pop culture, Black American sports figures, literature, and other sources––will be showcased through immersive environments providing unique insight into the late artist’s creative life and his singular voice that propelled a social and cultural narrative that continues to this day. 

Organized and curated by the family of Jean-Michel Basquiat, this exhibition of over 200 never-before-seen and rarely shown paintings, drawings, multimedia presentations, ephemera, and artifacts tell the story of Jean-Michel from an intimate perspective, intertwining his artistic endeavors with his personal life, influences, and the times in which he lived. 

My guest is Ileen Sheppard Gallagher has been helping organizations tell their stories for thirty years. She began as a young curator at the De Young Museum in San Francisco before going on to assume top curatorial posts at the Queens Museum of Art in New York, the Library of Congress in Washington DC, and the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota. For five years before establishing her own company, she served as Director of Exhibitions for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland. There she guided all aspects of the inaugural galleries leading up to and following the public opening. Ileen taught exhibition planning and design for over 20 years at New York University in the graduate Museum Studies Program. Today, she heads ISG Productions.

Source: http://sheppardgallagher.com
Source: https://kingpleasure.basquiat.com
Source: https://www.thegrandla.com


Host Maggie LePique, a radio veteran since the 1980's at NPR in Kansas City Mo. She began her radio career in Los Angeles in the early 1990's and has worked for Pacifica station KPFK Radio in Los Angeles since 1994.