While attending the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art's groundbreaking Basquiat retrospective in 2005, Ms. Cue was startled by a particular piece, in which Basquiat referenced derogatory slang terms for blonde, white females, including "Straw Bale." Basquiat's identity as an African-American male caused him to feel competition toward the white males who dominate the New York art scene; Basquiat could identify white females as similar victims of objectification, but not as an artistic threat.