ART SCRIBE No. 51 — Basquiat, Kathy Acker, Lynne Cooke, Artscribe Ltd, London, 1985

Art magazine. Softcover. Artscribe Ltd, London. Editor: Matthew Collings. March–April 1985.

Cover: Bruce McLean. Featuring Jean-Michel Basquiat (ICA London, December 1984).

A mid-1980s London art magazine capturing Basquiat at a precise moment of reception in the UK. He appears twice — first through Kathy Acker's review of his ICA exhibition, written with her characteristic urgency; and again within Lynne Cooke's essay on Neo-Primitivism, where his work is folded into a broader critical debate around authorship, instinct, and cultural projection.

The issue sits at an intersection: literary critique, institutional framing, and the British art context encountering Basquiat in real time. The Bruce McLean cover further grounds it within the language of British conceptual and post-performance practice of the period.

Contents include: Jean-Michel Basquiat — review by Kathy Acker (p.52); Neo-Primitivism — essay by Lynne Cooke (p.16); Bruce McLean interview by Mel Gooding; reviews of Jonathan Borofsky, Richard Wilson, Ger van Elk, Ian McKeever, Chagall; report on the 2nd International Contemporary Art Fair.

For Basquiat-focused collectors, this functions less as a magazine and more as a document of early critical positioning — before the narrative settled.