‘The Collaboration’ Paints a Tenuous Friendship Between Basquiat and Warhol

The posters for the 1985 New York exhibition ‘Warhol/Basquiat Paintings’ were bold, arresting, lies. Against a bright marigold background, the titan of pop art and the enfant terrible of neo-expressionism are figured as boxers, with gloves raised as if to parry or deliver a blow. In another version, a black-turtlenecked Warhol lands a hit on Basquiat’s cheek, the younger artist’s lips seeming to warp under the force of the blow.

The event being promoted was a show of 16 artworks on which the duo had collaborated in the mid-1980s. It was to be a historic event, marking the first time Warhol put brush to canvas in 23 years. The collaboration was instigated by the Swiss art dealer Bruno Bischofberger, who represented both artists at the time. At his suggestion, the two began a three-way artistic alliance with Francesco Clemente, an Italian painter also living in New York. As a fillip to spontaneity, the agent proposed that the artists work on the artworks separately, mailing partially completed canvases to each other.

After creating more than a dozen artworks in this way, Warhol and Basquiat would go on to create 100 more paintings together in the former’s studio. Despite the posters’ playful implication, the relationship that developed between the artists was less one of agon and more one of mutual admiration, with Warhol advising and acting at times like a father figure to the younger artist.

The Collaboration, which opened recently at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre after a run last year at London’s Young Vic, is a fictionalized account of the art stars’ work together on a few canvases in the 1980s. ‘Painters are like boxers. Both smear their blood on the canvas’ says Bischofberger (Erik Jensen) at the beginning of Anthony McCarten’s vividly realized play. The art dealer is speaking to Andy Warhol (Paul Bettany), trying to gin up enthusiasm for the idea of working with Basquiat (Jeremy Pope, giving a boffo performance). He prophesies that their titular partnership will result in ‘the greatest exhibition ever in the history of art.’ (In reality, the reviews were lacerating and strained Warhol and Basquiat’s friendship.) Warhol is initially dismissive of the idea; he refers to Basquiat’s paintings as ‘art therapy things’ and says, in his trademark sulky tone: ‘They’re so ... busy. All these skulls and gravestones everywhere.’

Basquiat, for his part, is equally wary of Bischofberger’s idea. Played with a mixture of bombast, volatility and reserve by Pope, the 24-year-old artist tells Bischofberger that Warhol is ‘old hat’ and makes soulless reproductions. ‘I’m Dizzy Gillespie, blowing a riff, he’s one of those pianos that plays all by itself. The same tune. Over and over’, he snarls. With a few well-placed lies, Bischofberger contrives to make the collaboration happen after all. Anna Fleischle’s set transforms from Bischofberger’s gallery to Warhol’s studio, with the iconic Marilyn Monroe screenprints hanging on a wall upstage. The initial encounter is fraught – not least because Warhol hasn’t set paint to anything in years. Warhol, the more talkative of the pair by a comfortable margin, also makes all sorts of callous or casually racist comments: ‘All these screaming black figures you paint ... how many screaming black faces can you do?’ In another scene, he writes off the East Village, where Basquiat lives, as a ‘jungle’. And yet, something about the filter-free Warhol makes Basquiat tolerate these remarks. In one touching moment, Warhol reveals to Basquiat the surgical corset he has to wear after being shot by Valerie Solanas. And after a few more meetings, Basquiat agrees to let Warhol film him while he works, for ‘posterity’.

The first act can occasionally get bogged down in potted biographies of the artists, but the tempo picks up in the second act, building to a crescendo when one of Basquiat’s friends, the Black graffiti artist Michael Stewart, is sent into a coma after being beaten by cops on the subway. The beating happens offstage, but it’s the fuse that lights the powder keg of Basquiat’s emotions. ‘That could have been me,’ he says, half in disbelief. He’s spurred to create what will become Defacement (The Death of Michael Stewart) (1983) and we see, on screens framing the stage, Warhol’s video feed of Basquiat working on a freestanding canvas. (Basquiat actually painted the work on a wall of Keith Haring’s studio.) I personally wished for more of these moments, but the play is ultimately less concerned with the processual aspect of artmaking than a play like John Logan’s vibrant Red (2009) about Mark Rothko. The focus here is resolutely on the personal friendship of two art world legends, which serves as a vector for their artistic symbiosis. ‘I’m gonna be immortal, man,’ boasts Basquiat near the end of the play.

Tragically, he’s right: at 27, he will die of a heroin overdose. His 1982 painting Untitled will go on to fetch the highest price ever for a work by an American artist (US$110.5 million in 2017). Warhol will predecease Basquiat by one and a half years after gallbladder surgery. But all that’s in the future in the world of The Collaboration. For a play that trades so heavily in repartee, it’s poignant that in the final moments, not a word is exchanged between the artists. Instead, they squat side by side and set to work on a canvas on the floor. It has the feeling of a ritual, repeated countless times, and it is enough.

The Collaboration runs until 29 January 2023 at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in New York.

_{Main image: Anthony McCarten, The Collaboration, 2023, performance shot. Courtesy: Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre; photograph: © Jeremy Daniel, 2022}