Writer-performer Roger Guenveur Smith knows Jean-Michel Basquiat. And I don’t mean “knows” in an academic or performative sense, though his solo show is the epitome of contextual research, lived experience, and performance art.
Now playing Off-Broadway at New York Theater Workshop, In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat offers a multi-sensory portal into the artist’s work, embodied by Smith’s deft command of both body and voice.
We hear of their first meeting in 1982 at an L.A. dance hall, where Smith rapped as “Hollywatts” and Basquiat set up a temporary residence in a whitewashed studio in Venice. The two remained close over the years until Basquiat’s untimely death at age 27, a stark reminder of the art world’s vicious racist undertow and the allure of mind-numbing heroin.
As Guenveur says, “You know if van Gogh was Negro he would have cut off more than an ear.”
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Basquiat beyond the auction block
Since his passing 38 years ago, the art world, publishing industry, and filmmakers have immortalized Basquiat. This past May, his 1983 painting “Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown)” sold for over $52 million.
But Smith is only peripherally interested in the bloated dollar signs insofar as they speak to the double standard that has weighed heavily on generations of Black and Brown creatives. His language—at once rhythmic and lyrical—references a canon of musicians, artists, and changemakers from Charlie Parker to Marcus Garvey.
In dialogue with Smith, who stands barefoot in a pinstriped suit in a tight spotlight, Marc Anthony Thompson’s live sound design creates immersive punctuations to the actor-writer’s undulating prose.
This is downtown theater at its best. But make no mistake: In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat is not a commodification of the artist. At one point, Smith, while on an All Souls Day bike ride at Green-Wood Cemetery, encounters a “celebrity grave tour” where the guide calls Basquiat a “protege of Andy Warhol”—yet another posthumous minimization of the artist’s impact.
“I was a friend of the deceased,” Smith interrupts. “I’ll do.” And he does.
Is ‘In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat’ worth seeing?
Every retrospective, auction record, and museum wall label has already told you what Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work is worth. Roger Guenveur Smith spends an hour telling you who he actually was in the context of the world that made and unmade him.
- New York Theatre Workshop, 79 E. 4th St., New York City
- Notable performers: Roger Guenveur Smith, Marc Anthony Thompson (live sound design)
- Running time: approx. 60 minutes, no intermission
- Performances through October 4, 2026
