Basquiat Before Basquiat: East 12th Street, 1979–1980 at Cranbrook Art Museum

The Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, is hosting 'Basquiat Before Basquiat: East 12th Street, 1979–1980', a show organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. The exhibition focuses on Jean-Michel Basquiat's formative year living with his girlfriend Alexis Adler in a small East 12th Street apartment in New York's East Village from mid-1979 to mid-1980. During this period, Basquiat worked as a graffiti writer under the tag SAMO and created art on found objects, as he could not afford canvases. Adler's photographs document his private life and creative process. The show includes paintings, sculptures, works on paper, notebooks, and ephemera from Adler's archive, offering insight into Basquiat's early influences and the underground culture of late 1970s New York, including hip-hop and street art. Basquiat, who later gained fame with Andy Warhol's support, sold sweatshirts on the street to pay for paint and his $80 monthly rent. The exhibition runs until March 11, 2018.