A Panel Of Experts

The painting records a fight between two women in Basquiat's life in 1982: Suzanne Mallouk, whom he called Venus in his work, and Madonna, then at the start of her career. Both names appear in the top left corner, struck through, with a copyright symbol added after Madonna's name. Crossing out words was a device Basquiat used to draw attention to them rather than erase them. Below, the struggle is played out in the language of comics. The word “KRAK” recurs across the composition, a figure in red is caught mid-punch, and “PUM” sits beside a cartoon pistol on the right-hand panel.

Text along the top right and lower edge, including “Saturday Morning Cartoon” and “Sugar Coated Corn Puffs”, draws on the television and breakfast cereal of an American childhood, setting a private dispute against the backdrop of mass-market entertainment. Two crowns, Basquiat's recurring emblem, sit at the centre. The rough, torn edges of the white panels recall the collaged paper of the original canvas, now in the collection of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. As in Riddle Me This Batman from the same portfolio, cartoon humour sits alongside a more personal and unsettled subject.