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The version of New York in which Jean-Michel Basquiat blossomed was

a place where “an artist could still be an artist,” as Emilio Mazzoli, founder
of the namesake art gallery located in Modena and Berlin, tells Protago-

nist. “Basquiat was a well-educated kid. His father was a Haitian diplomat.
He loved experiencing the contemporaneity of the city, a modernity made

of streets, music, and Street Art. All you had to do was feel it, all you had to
do was live it. And he did.”

Mazzoli clearly remembers the moment when he found himself in front
of his paintings. “There was an art show in an abandoned school in the

Bronx. I saw this kid’s paintings and thought to myself, ‘I like them!’ I bought
all of them and sold every single one, because works of art sell themselves.”

Mazzoli brought Basquiat to Modena in 1981. Back then, the city maybe
wasn’t ready to embrace the African American artist without prejudice.
“He had a giant boombox, he listened to music twenty-four hours a day,”

Mazzoli recalls, “he went to alternative venues and wandered around the

city with a spray can in his hand.”
His stay in Emilia-Romagna lasted two weeks and had its share of Boc-
caccio-esque incidents. As it turns out, Basquiat was not impervious to

feminine charms and Mazzoli had to place an assistant at the Gallery’s
door to curb the curiosity of Modena’s women.

“In the past,” says Mazzoli, “living life as an artist was a privilege. Paint-
ings aren’t picture cards. Basquiat had seen Schifano’s paintings, he knew

them, he took some of his energy and channeled it in his work.”
He painted Untitled (Devil) in Modena the following year on the occasion

of his second and last trip to Modena. It was sold for 57 million dollars in 2016.
His death in 1988 caused Mazzoli “incredible sadness.” Thirty-three

years later, he still regrets the premature loss of a great artist and the re-
fusal that deprived everyone (especially Modena’s people) of the chance to

enjoy his art. The Municipality denied him the authorization to paint on two
walls in Via Fleming, in the outskirts of the city. “Forget Banksy, we would

have had a building façade painted by Basquiat,” concludes Mazzoli with a
hint of bitterness.

1616 Art Protagonist