TORRICK ‘TOXIC’ ABLACK on Basquiat, Rammellzee and 1983 | ‘ALWAYS EVER SINCE 83’

Filmed in TOXIC’s studio in Brittany, France, this thirty-minute conversation traces the arc of a practice that began on the trains and walls of the Bronx and continues, four decades on, in a quiet corner of north-west France.

The conversation centres on 1983 — the year TOXIC decided he was an artist. That decision was triggered by a single exchange with Jean-Michel Basquiat, who looked at what TOXIC was doing across the surfaces of New York and said: “That’s cool. But how are you going to eat with trains?” It was not a dismissal. It was a recognition.

What followed is one of the most historically significant yet under recognised stories in contemporary art. Founding member of Tag Master Killers under the mentorship of Rammellzee. Present in Los Angeles when Basquiat painted Hollywood Africans, in which TOXIC is named as a subject. Exhibited at the Sidney Janis Gallery in 1983 alongside Basquiat, Haring, Futura, Rammellzee and Lee Quiñones, amongst others. The most depicted individual in Basquiat’s entire body of work after Charlie Parker.

Across thirty minutes, TOXIC speaks about Basquiat, Rammellzee, A-One, the Ikonoklast Panzerism that shaped his thinking, the losses and tough times, and the year that has defined everything since.