Basquiat & Warhol, Olympic Rings, 1985 Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas, 81 ⅛ × 183 ½ inches (206 × 466 cm) The Collaboration Paintings were a physical conversation happening in paint instead of words between Basquiat and Warhol between 1984 and 1985. Warhol’s contribution to the collaborations can be seen in his distinctive technique of hand-painting ready-made iconography, an early practice that he revived with Basquiat. In the case of Olympic Rings, he made several variations of the Olympic five-ring symbol, rendered in the original primary colors. Basquiat responded to the abstract, stylized logos with his oppositional graffiti style. Between clusters of Warhol’s Olympic rings, he imposed a bold, dark, mask-like head, like a medallion in a link chain, undoubtedly an allusion to African-American star athletes of past Olympic Games, such as Jesse Owens, Carl Lewis, Tommie Smith, and John Carlos.
Warhol’s paintings always confronted the formats of advertising and cinemal screens. Basquiat started out at the scale of the city, writing his texts on its walls.