Jean-Michel Basquiat December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist of Haitian and Puerto Rican descent. Basquiat first achieved fame as part of SAMO, an informal graffiti duo who wrote enigmatic epigrams in the cultural hotbed of the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the late 1970s, where rap, punk, and street art coalesced into early hip-hop music culture. By the 1980s, his neo-expressionistpaintings were being exhibited in galleries and museums internationally. The Whitney Museum of American Art held a retrospective of his art in 1992.

Basquiat’s art focused on dichotomies such as wealth versus poverty, integration versus segregation, and inner versus outer experience. He appropriated poetry, drawing, and painting, and married text and image, abstraction, figuration, and historical information mixed with contemporary critique.

Artworks

Legacy

Basquiat’s legacy has had influences upon literature, film, music and fashion. Fashion outlets featuring Basquiat’s work have included clothing companies such as SPRZ NY of Uniqlo, Urban Outfitters, and Redbubble.

Film

Basquiat starred in Downtown 81, a vérité movie written by Glenn O’Brien and shot by Edo Bertoglio in 1981, but not released until 1998. In 1996, eight years after the artist’s death, a biographical film titled Basquiat was released, directed by Julian Schnabel, with actor Jeffrey Wright playing Basquiat. David Bowie played the part of Andy Warhol. Schnabel was interviewed during the film’s script development as a personal acquaintance of Basquiat. Schnabel then purchased the rights to the project, believing that he could make a better film.

In 2006 the Equality Forum featured Jean-Michel Basquiat during LGBT history month. A 2009 documentary film, Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child, directed by Tamra Davis, was first screened as part of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and was shown on the PBS series Independent Lens in 2011.^[55] Tamra Davis discussed her friendship with Basquiat in a Sotheby’s video, “Basquiat: Through the Eyes of a Friend”. The American Public Broadcast Service broadcast a 90-minute documentary about Basquiat in the American Masters series, entitled Basquiat: Rage to Riches, on 14 September 2018.

Literature

In 1991, poet Kevin Young produced a book, To Repel Ghosts, a compendium of 117 poems relating to Basquiat’s life, individual paintings, and social themes found in the artist’s work. He published a “remix” of the book in 2005. In 1995, writer Jennifer Clement wrote the biography Widow Basquiat, based on the narratives’ reconstructions told to her by Suzanne Mallouk. In 2005, poet M. K. Aante published the poem “SAMO”, dedicated to Basquiat, in his book Beautiful. And Ugly Too. In 2017, the biography Radiant Child told Basquiat’s life from the perspective of a young prodigy and it won the Caldecott Medal. In 2019, illustrator Paolo Parisi wrote the graphic novel Basquiat: A Graphic Novel, following Basquiat’s journey from street-art legend SAMO to international art-scene darling, up until his sudden death.

Music

Shortly after Basquiat’s death, guitarist Vernon Reid of New York City funk metal band Living Colour wrote a song called “Desperate People”, released on their album Vivid. The song primarily addresses the drug scene of New York at that time. Vernon states that Basquiat’s death inspired him to write the song after receiving a phone call from Greg Tate informing Vernon of Basquiat’s death.