car at the curb and I opened a door, in jest.
It wasn’t my car, and a guy came running
out yelling, a mafia type. Jean came out of
the club and came to my aid.
[The pair stayed with another friend,
Adler says, but after a falling-out with that
friend, Adler and Basquiat moved to 12th
Street, which was a squat.]
JN: How did Christie’s come to see
Jean’s work in the apartment, a wall
mural and a door he painted?
AA: I did some basic research; people
came to me with different proposals. I
went with Christie’s, which offered to do a
sale for me. My deal with them allowed me
to have the mural removed. It was expen-
sive; I needed their help. Conservators cut
out a section of my wall.
There was always an interest [in
Basquiat], but in the last few years, there’s

TOP: Painted television and refrigerator in the apartment, c. 1979-1980. Photographs by Alexis
Adler. CENTER: Basquiat told Adler that he shaved his hair to the middle of his scalp because he
wanted to look as if he were “coming and going at the same time.” Photograph by Alexis Adler.
BOTTOM: Untitled (Anti-Product, Relvis is God), c. 1979-1980. Color Xerographic collage and spray
enamel on paper. INSET: Alexis Adler (right) wearing the coat Basquiat painted while they lived
together in 1979. With her is Nora Burnett Abrams, curator of the exhibit.

been an avid interest about Jean and his
life and his art. The art market has gotten
very hot on him. I know he was recog-
nized during his life; now it seems to be
different.
JN: How much did you get for the
mural and the door?
AA: I took an early retirement. My son
Max just graduated from college. My
daughter Zoe will graduate in a month, so
college tuition was out of the way.
JN: Was Jean your boyfriend?
AA: We were intimate, but I never
considered him my boyfriend. He was
younger than me. We had relationships
with other people. It was a different time,
a time before AIDS. [He later dated a then-
unknown Madonna.]
JN: What did you have in common?
AA: We were part of the same scene.
We loved each other as friends, as lovers.
We were definitely different, but we liked
the same music, the same art, politics —
everything.
JN: Did you think at the time that he’d
become a famous artist?
AA: He said he would. I was definitely
the first one to believe him. Everyone else
was like, ‘Sure Jean.’
JN: Why did you believe him?
AA: He was brilliant. I could tell. His
spirit — everything about him. He was
an amazing person, a very deep-thinking
individual.

He burned bright. What you saw [in
the exhibit] was in between the street and
the canvas, a cross-section of what is left
of his art during that time. It gives you a
glimpse of his thought processes when
he was totally free. He was using my sci-
ence books and art history books, playing
music all the time. It was a special time.
JN: The collection was first shown in
Denver. How did that happen?
AA: By chance, this friend of mine,
Sara Driver, was making a film [about
Basquiat] that just debuted in the New
York Film Festival called Boom for Real.
She was excited about the collection and
she recorded the wall coming down, the
auction. Her sound person went back
to Denver for Christmas break. A family
member was on the board of the Museum
of Contemporary Art, and through that
connection, the Denver people came out
and looked at the collection.
[Boom for Real was acquired by
Magnolia Pictures and will get a theatri-
cal release in 2018, according to Deadline
Hollywood (deadline.com).]
JN: Do you belong to a synagogue?
AA: I have, but not right now. I go to
services at different places. My kids were
bar and bat mitzvah — the whole thing. I
married a Jewish New Yorker.
JN: Did you go to Hebrew school?
AA: Yes, my dad was a refugee from
Germany and my mom was from a farm
in Manitoba. Her parents were Russian
and Romanian. My grandfather wanted
to be a farmer. He met my grandmother
in Vancouver; they got married. I was
born and raised in Seattle.
JN: Did you have a bat mitzvah?
AA: Yes. Jean appreciated my
Jewishness.
JN: How so?
AA: We were sort of setting up house
together, and we were sharing what little
we had, putting together a meager family.
I remember doing Chanukah together.
JN: What do your kids think of your
time with Basquiat?
AA: It’s exposed parts of my life that
people generally don’t know about their
parents.
Drugs were a part of the scene. I
explained to my kids, the art scene of the
Lower East Side was very small. There
was a group of 500 people. Drugs were a
part of life then. Jean had access to more
money than any of us. He was able to pro-
cure a lot, and that’s not good.
JN: Did you hang out with other art-
ists who made a name for themselves?
AA: Yes, I knew Keith [Haring] and
others. I was part of the downtown
scene. [Basquiat sold his first painting to
Debbie Harry, the frontwoman of Blondie,
for $200 in 1981.]
JN: How did Jean handle fame?
AA: It was harsh. He was the goose that
laid the golden egg. The BBC film had a lot
of interviews with his art dealers. Those
people were bloodsuckers. They don’t
appear to be, but they were. He was this
young kid.
Jean was a loving person, beautiful, an
amazing artist. I was one to recognize that
early on and provide a house for him to
coalesce his work and move on to the big
time. •

jn

December 21 • 2017

45

