Salomon Emquies is a multidisciplinary artist working in painting, photography and video. He earned a degree in Film from UCLA where he created award winning experimental films staring musicians of the seminal LA punk bands The Screamers and The Deadbeats.

In 1983, he collaborated with Jean-Michel Basquiat on an experimental  video he directed of artists Rammellzee and Toxic shot at the iconic Hollywood Hip Hop club The Rhythm Lounge that Emquies launched in 1982. It was also there that he incited Flea and Anthony Kiedis to start the Red Hot Chilly Peppers after they performed an impromptu rap one night. He also promoted and/or was a DJ in LA’s 80s underground clubs Bazdo, Dirt Box, Lunch, Power Tools..etc. 

In 1989, he became the art director for Delicious Vinyl where he photographed and designed album covers and directed videos for the likes of Young MC, Tone Loc and the Brand New Heavies.

Through the 90s, he was also staff photographer at Venice Magazine where he shot many covers including Paloma Picasso, Gillian Anderson, Minni Driver, Sophia Coppola, Tim Robins, Chris Isaak, Virginia Madsen, Isabelle Huppert, Emma Thompson… He was also published in Interview, Vanity Fair, the LA Weekly, LA style, Detour… and was named one of the 1993 best new photographers in Hollywood in American Photo magazine.

His series of large prints of Landscapes and Still Lifes were represented by the Michael Kohn Gallery and also exhibited in a few group shows through the years and in a solo show at the Glü gallery in Los Angeles in 2007.

 "Rammellzee, Toxic, Rhythm Lounge" aka “Rodeo”, the video he directed with Basquiat, was part of the exhibition “Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now’s the Time” at The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2015. It was also part of the Red Bull Arts exhibition "RAMMΣLLZΣΣ: Racing for Thunder" in 2018 and other museum exhibitions since then***

Since 2015, Emquies has returned to painting as his main discipline. A solo exhibition of his new work will be shown at the Kohn Gallery this summer (2023)


***


Exhibitions and other works:

Photography Exhibitions
Emerson Troop,
West Hollywood, 1996-1998
Blackman Cruz,
Los Angeles, 2002-2003
JF Chen,
Hollywood, 2003-2006
Frank Pictures Gallery,
Santa Monica, Sept.10-30 2006 (Fine Lines on water group show)
Farmany Gallery,
Los Angeles Sept. 7-29 2006 (Trees Group show)
East/West Gallery,
Santa Barbara, CA 2007 (Ebb/Flow group show)
Glü gallery,
Los Angeles, March 3 to March 31 2007 (Linked, solo exhibition)


Video and Film work:
Rammellzee, Toxic C-1, the Rhythm Lounge (aka Rodeo), 1983
Digital transfer from U- Matic 3/4" video (colour, sound) 8:03 minutes

During his visit to Los Angeles in 1982 and 1983, Jean Michel Basquiat asked artist Salomon Emquies to make a film with artists Rammellzee and Toxic at the Rhythm Lounge, a weekly party Emquies run. Rammellzee rapped over Toxic's DJ beats and Emquies recorded the performance on U-Matic 3/4" video. The process entailed Basquiat creating drawings that Emquies incorporated in editing. It was part of the following exhibitions:

Art Gallery of Ontario, Canada • Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now's the Time
February 2 - May 10, 2015
Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain • Jean - Michel Basquiat: Now's the Time
July 3rd - November 1st , 2015
RedBull Arts New York • RAMMΣLLZΣΣ: Racing for Thunder
May 04, 2018 - Aug 26, 2018
Mori Arts Center Gallery Tokyo, Japan • Basquiat: Made in Japan
September 20 - November 17, 2019
National Gallery of Victoria, Australia • Keith Haring | Jean-Michel Basquiat Crossing Lines
Dec 1st 2019 – Mar 15 2020
Museum of Fine Arts Boston • Writing the Future Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation
October 18, 2020 - July 25, 2021
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Canada • Seeing Loud: Basquiat and Music
October 15th 2022 – February 19th 2023
Musée de la Musique / Philharmonie de Paris • Basquiat Soundtracks
April 6th – July 30th 2023

Experimental video works
(part of the Getty Special Collections)

Emotional decay  [1981]

Very  [1981]

External torture  [1979]

Oops it's an accident [1982]



Short Films
Un Malaise Prémédité, 1977, 9 min.
featuring Tommy Gear, Maryjane Cunningham.
Best Experimental Film, Ann Arbor Film Festival 1978. and Silver Award, Chicago Film Festival 1978
An Esoteric Tranquility, 1978, 15 min.
featuring Sue Kiel, Scott Guerin and Denise Crosby
Gold Plaque, 15th Chicago International Film Festival and  award winner, The 13th Houston Film Festival

Bibliography
An Oral/Visual History of the Red Hot Chili Peppers (Brendan Mullen) 2010
Acid for the Children (Flea) 2022
Seeing Loud, Basquiat and Music (Mary-Dailey Desmarais, Dieter Buchhart and Vincent Bessieres) 2022
Basquiat by Himself (Dieter Buchhart, Anna Karina Hofbauer, et al.) 2019
Writing the future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation (Liz Munsell and Greg Tate) 2020
Jean Michel Basquiat - Made in Japan  (Dieter Buchhart) 2019


Education:
BFA in Film University of California Los Angeles, 1979


Bibliography

An Oral/Visual History of the Red Hot Chili Peppers (Brendan Mullen) 2010

Acid for the Children (Flea) 2022

Seeing Loud, Basquiat and Music (Mary-Dailey Desmarais, Dieter Buchhart) and Vincent Bessieres) 2022

Basquiat by Himself (Dieter Buchhart, Anna Karina Hofbauer, et al.) 2019

Writing the future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation (Liz Munsell and Greg Tate) 2020

Jean Michel Basquiat - Made in Japan  (Dieter Buchhart) 2019


 

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