Leeches
Medium: Screen-print in colors on 300gm Somerset Satin paper
Year: 1982/2017
Sheet: 22×30 inches (56 x 76.4 cm)
Edition: 50
Artist’s Proofs: 20
Other: 15 Hors Commerce (HC), 5 Printer’s Proofs (PP), and 1 BAT
Publisher: Flatiron Editions, New-York
Printer: Brand X Editions, New-York
Each screen-print bears the signatures in pencil of Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux, administrators of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat on verso, as well as the stamps of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Flatiron Editions
In Leeches, pests of various kinds, including ‘parasites’, ‘fleas’ and ‘roaches’ materialize across the image in the form of both text and image, competing against swathes of black and semi-human skulls appearing to bear nuts and bolts. The repeated references to insects and parasites clash against text reading ‘Boric acid’, a widely used insecticide. There is the suggestion of an irrepressible animalistic force emerging from obscurity which is confronted by forces of sterilization and decontamination. Alongside this is the sense of a destabilizing of accepted hierarchies, as suggested by ‘Power and money (value) without nobility’. In the visual universe constructed by Basquiat, martyrdom and nobility is inherited by the people of the street, not those born into family dynasties; Basquiat himself remarked that his art is about “kings, heroes, and the street”, acknowledging his reimagining of what it means to be noble.
Auction Results
LA Modern: 7 September 2023
Estimated: USD 24,000 – 28,000
USD 25,200
AFTER JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT
Leeches, 2017
Screenprint in colors on Somerset
Numbered to lower right ‘5/50’
Signed and dated to verso by Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux
Administrators of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat ’10/7/17’ with estate stamp
Artnet Auctions: 22 November 2022
Estimated: USD 20,000 – 30,000
USD 30,000
AFTER JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT
Leeches, 1982/2017
Screen-print in colors on Somerset Satin paper
Numbered 28/50 in pencil
Signed and dated in pencil by Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Herivaux
The administrators of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat
With the Estate stamp on the reverse
Sotheby’s New-York: 21 April 2022
Estimated: USD 20,000 – 30,000
USD 37,800
AFTER JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1966 – 1988)
Leeches, 2017
Screen-print in colors on Somerset Satin paper
Signed in pencil on the verso by Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux
Administrators of the artist’s estate, and dated ’12/7/17′
Numbered 18/50 on the recto