A superbly produced retrospective on the luminous career of
Jean-Michel Basquiat
The first African-American artist to attain art superstardom,
Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) created a huge oeuvre of drawings and
paintings (Julian Schnabel recalls him once accidentally leaving a
portfolio of about 2,000 drawings on a subway car) in the space of just
eight years. Through his street roots in graffiti, Basquiat helped to
establish new possibilities for figurative and expressionistic painting,
breaking the white male stranglehold of Conceptual and Minimal art, and
foreshadowing, among other tendencies, Germany's Junge Wilde movement.
It was not only Basquiat's art but also the details of his biography
that made his name legendary--his early years as Samo (his graffiti
artist moniker), his friendships with Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and
Madonna and his tragically early death from a heroin overdose. This
superbly produced retrospective publication assesses Basquiat's luminous
career with commentary by, among others, Glenn O'Brien, and 160 color
reproductions of the work.
Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Puerto
Rican mother and a Haitian father--an ethnic mix that meant young
Jean-Michel was fluent in French, Spanish and English by the age of 11.
In 1977, at the age of 17, Basquiat took up graffiti, inscribing the
landscape of downtown Manhattan with his signature Samo. In 1980 he was
included in the landmark group exhibition The Times Square Show; the
following year, at the age of 21, Basquiat became the youngest artist
ever to be invited to Documenta. By 1982, Basquiat had befriended Andy
Warhol, later collaborating with him; Basquiat was much affected by
Warhol's death in 1987. He died of a heroin overdose on August 22, 1988,
at the age of 27.
