Nassau museum show: Miró, Dubuffet, Basquiat

You may not think of a conversation as visual. But that's how Constance Schwartz, who curated the new show at the Nassau County Museum of Art, sees it. Opening Saturday, "Miró / Dubuffet / Basquiat" is "a conversation among three major artists," Schwartz says of Joan Miró, Jean Dubuffet and Jean-Michel Basquiat, exhibited together for the first time.

While they didn't share nationality or generation, the artists did speak the same language in developing their individually distinctive styles. Their raw and primal approach, which traditionalists dismissed as graffiti before that street form was recognized as art, embodies timeless and universal symbols.

The show offers a sampling of about 20 works - mostly private collection paintings, along with a few sculptures. It opens simultaneously with a Fernando Botero exhibit.

MIRÓ (1893-1983) - While the Barcelona-born artist is usually associated with Surrealists André Breton and Max Ernst, he was deeply influenced by Picasso and the master's early discovery, with Matisse, of primitive art. Miró's "Personage" ink and collage (1934) presents a stick figure walking across an actual map of Mallorca, the Mediterranean island Miró eventually made his home. "Personage" is part of his "Tableaux Sauvages" (Wild Pictures) series of biomorphic forms rendered, as Schwartz says, "as if it were on a wall on a street somewhere."

DUBUFFET (1901-1985) - A rebel against conventional notions of beauty, the French artist supported himself for a time as a wine merchant. When he re-emerged as a full-time artist he championed art brut - work inspired by untrained artists working with found materials, often junk. Associated with people who have mental or emotional issues, art brut later became known as outsider art. Dubuffet's "Présence légère" (1951) in the Nassau exhibit is a crude representation of the human brain placed against what Schwartz describes as an "enigmatic background with mythic forms derived from a universal psychology. He was drawn to the deep creativity of people who were mad - heretics of one sort or another."

BASQUIAT (1960-1988) - Brooklyn born of Caribbean descent, Basquiat went from street artist to international sensation virtually overnight. "It's astonishing how rapidly he rose to the top," Schwartz says. His fame took a severe toll. He died at 27 of a drug overdose. "Third Street," a 1984 painting in the show, makes direct reference to his graffiti roots. Linear figures are juxtaposed against messages placed on what seems to be an exterior wall. His figures are derivative of cave art. Like other street artists, Basquiat incorporated words - colloquial, sometimes vulgar - into his paintings.

WHAT "Miró / Dubuffet / Basquiat" exhibit opens along with "Fernando Botero," paintings, drawings and monumental sculptures, and "Metamophosis: Rona Pondick," contemporary sculpture

WHEN | WHERE Opening Saturday at the Nassau County Museum of Art, 1 Museum Dr., Roslyn Harbor, through May 24, 11 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays, docent tours 2 p.m. daily

INFO $10, $8 seniors, $4 students, $2 parking fee on weekends; nassaumuseum.org, 516-484-9337

MORE ART

WHAT The 29th Expo International winners exhibition. Works by 20 artists - from England to Garden City - selected by Art Times publisher Cornelia Seckel. In keeping with the expo's tradition, there's more art than artists, with four to six selections from each winner.

WHEN | WHERE 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. weekends and Tuesdays through Thursdays through March 31 at b.j. spoke gallery, 299 Main St., Huntington

INFO Free; bjspokegallery.com, 631-549-5106

- steve parks