50 Cent Piece

 

The present work is based off of a painting by the artist created from 1982-1983 and was released by Pace Prints in conjunction with the artist’s estate in 2019. 50 Cent Piece features a portrait of Black nationalist leader and political activist Marcus Garvey at its center. The title of this work connects the fact that Garvey was famously included on the Jamaican fifty-cent coin. The scrawling text and images within the work string together abstract concepts surrounding slavery, oppression, and the cry for social justice and equality in America. The result is a common narrative and sheds light on how the artist absorbed American history.

Jean Michel Basquiat’s 50 Cent Piece is an image dense with symbolism, historical references, and some of the artist’s most iconic visual elements. Originally created between 1982 and 1983 as a multimedia drawing, 50 Cent Piece was reproduced as a limited edition screenprint by Basquiat’s estate in 2019. The composition addresses several issues recurrent in his body of work, including racism, colonial violence, and exploitation. In this case, he explores these ideas primarily through the lens of currency and the economic history of the Caribbean. Basquiat conceived this work at a time when his career was blossoming – during the same years, he landed his first solo show in New York City, exhibited globally, and became one of the youngest participants in both the Whitney Biennial and Documenta – all before turning twenty-three. Bold and overtly political, 50 Cent Piece exemplifies the type of art Basquiat felt compelled to make as his fame mounted.

Through text and portraiture, Basquiat alludes to several leading political icons of early Caribbean independence movements, including François Duvalier and Toussaint Louverture from Haiti, Luis Muñoz Rivera from Puerto Rico, and Marcus Garvey from Jamaica.

Marcus Garvey, 1887-1940, 1924. Image: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

Garvey features most prominently, depicted both in anatomically labeled profile, and in three-quarter view, highlighted by a vibrant golden-yellow. Born in 1887, Garvey was a pan-Africanist leader, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and a key figure in the Back-to-Africa movement, which encouraged descendants of slaves in the United States to emigrate “back” to their ancestral homeland. In 1919, he founded the Black Star Line, a shipping company dedicated to fostering economic growth and travel between Black individuals in Africa and the American diaspora.

Black Star Line brochure for the SS Phyllis Wheatley, 1921. Image: Marcus Garvey and UNIA Papers Project, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA.

The title 50 Cent Piece likely refers to the Jamaican fifty cent coin issued in 1975 with a portrait of Garvey, commemorating him as a national hero for his contributions to Jamaican sovereignty. This interpretation is supported by the words above one of the portraits of Garvey in the print, which mirrors the words printed above his portrait on the coin: “The RT. [right] EXCELLENT,” an honorary form of address in Jamaica. For a post-colonial nation aspiring to economic independence, minting currency was a means of asserting authority and autonomy. Basquiat complicates the significance of currency in 50 Cent Piece, however, by alluding to the limited power of Jamaica against the United States, as well as the persistence of class inequality even with the Bank of Jamaica controlling the production of coins and banknotes.

While Garvey is the focal point of the image, the other historic references made by Basquiat are far-reaching. He lists the commodities on which the survival of Caribbean countries depends, including salt, sugar, rum, wine, and bauxite – the world’s main source of aluminum, from which the Marcus Garvey coin was minted. He also mentions Operation Bootstrap, an U.S. led economic modernization plan for Puerto Rico that encouraged high migration to American cities as cheap labor in the 1940s. Following these threads of economic dispossession and exploitation in 50 Cent Piece, Basquiat explores the complicated history of Caribbean sovereignty that continued long after independence was officially declared.

 

 

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Auction Results

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SBI Art Auction: 25 May 2024
Estimated: JPY 3,500,000 – 5,500,000
JPY 6,095,000 / USD 38,825

AFTER JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT
50 Cent Piece, 2019
Screenprint
Numbered on the lower left
Signed by Lisane Basquiat & Jeanine Heriveaux and dated on the reverse
From the edition of 60

 

Artnet Auctions: 31 August 2023
Estimated: USD 35,000 – 45,000
USD 43,750

AFTER JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT
50 Cent Piece, 1982-2019
Screenprint in colors on wove paper
Signed and dated in pencil by Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Herivaux
The artist’s sisters and administrators of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat
With the Estate stamp on the reverse
Numbered 4/60 in pencil

Rago Auction: 1 June 2023
Estimated: USD 30,000 – 50,000
USD 35,280

AFTER JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT
50 Cent Piece, 1982-83/2019
Screen-print in colors
Numbered to lower left ’21/60′
Signed and dated to verso by Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Heriveaux
Administrators of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat
‘4/30/19’ with Estate stamp

Artnet Auctions: 9 February 2022
Estimated: USD 35,000 – 45,000
USD 51,250

AFTER JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT
50 Cent Piece, 1982–2019
Screen-print in colors on wove paper
Numbered and annotated AP 18/20 in pencil
Signed and dated in pencil by Lisane Basquiat and Jeanine Herivaux
The artist’s sisters and administrators of the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat
With the Estate stamp on the reverse