The relationship between Annina Nosei and the early career of Jean-Michel Basquiat has been widely examined over the years. From the pivotal moment Nosei first encountered Basquiat's work in the "New York/New Wave" group exhibition at MoMA PS1 and chose to support him as his first gallerist, to the point when their professional relationship came to an end--amid increasing tensions that included Basquiat's escalating drug use--those formative years have been endlessly revisited, debated, and analyzed.
A broad consensus endures: the works Basquiat produced in the basement of the Nosei Gallery rank among the most prolific and compelling of his career. Yet Nosei remained troubled by the persistence of inaccurate or embellished accounts of that period. In response, she assembled a concise collection of interviews conducted over the years, in which she reflects in depth on her relationship with Basquiat and her interactions with key figures in the art world, including Larry Gagosian, Robert Rauschenberg, Mario Schifano, and Piero Manzoni. She also discusses the artists whose careers she helped launch, among them Julian Schnabel, Barbara Kruger, and Shirin Neshat.
