Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the neo-expressionism movement.
Basquiat first achieved notoriety in the late 1970s as part of the graffiti duo SAMO, alongside Al Diaz, writing enigmatic epigrams all over Manhattan, particularly in the cultural hotbed of the Lower East Side where disco, punk, and street art coalesced into early hip-hop culture. By the early 1980s, his paintings were being exhibited in galleries and museums internationally. At 21, Basquiat became the youngest artist to ever take part in Documenta in Kassel, Germany. At 22, he became one of the youngest to exhibit at the Whitney Biennial in New York. The Whitney Museum of American Art held a retrospective of his artwork 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. He used social commentary in his paintings as a tool for introspection and for identifying with his experiences in the black community, as well as attacks on power structures and systems of racism.
Basquiat died at the age of 27 in 1988 of a heroin overdose. Since then, his work has steadily increased in value. In 2017, Untitled, a 1982 painting depicting a black skull with red-and-yellow rivulets, sold for a record-breaking $110.5 million, becoming one of the most expensive paintings ever purchased.
Biography
Early life: 1960–1977
Basquiat was born on December 22, 1960, in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York City, the second of four children to Matilde Basquiat and Gérard Basquiat. He had an older brother, Max, who died shortly before Jean-Michel's birth, and two younger sisters, Lisane and Jeanine. His father was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and his mother was born in Brooklyn to Puerto Rican parents. He was raised Catholic.Matilde instilled a love for art in her young son by taking him to local art museums and enrolling him as a junior member of the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Basquiat was a precocious child who learned to read and write by the age of four. His mother encouraged her son's artistic talent and he often tried to draw his favorite cartoons. In 1967, he started attending Saint Ann's School, a private school. There he met his friend Marc Prozzo and together they created a children's book, written by Basquiat at the age of seven and illustrated by Prozzo.
In 1968, at the age of seven, Basquiat was hit by a car while playing in the street. His arm was broken and he suffered several internal injuries, which required a splenectomy. While he was hospitalized, his mother brought him a copy of Gray's Anatomy to keep him occupied. After his parents separated that year, Basquiat and his sisters were raised by their father. His mother was admitted to a psychiatric hospital when he was ten and thereafter spent her life in and out of institutions. By the age of eleven, Basquiat was fluent in French, Spanish and English, and an avid reader of all three languages.
Basquiat's family resided in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Boerum Hill and then in 1974, moved to Miramar, Puerto Rico. When they returned to Brooklyn in 1976, Basquiat attended Edward R. Murrow High School. He struggled to deal with his mother's instability and rebelled as a teenager. He ran away from home at 15 when his father caught him smoking cannabis in his room. He slept on park benches at Washington Square Park and took LSD. Eventually, his father spotted him with a shaved head and called the police to bring him home.
In the 10th grade, he enrolled at City-As-School, an alternative high school in Manhattan, home to many artistic students who found conventional schooling difficult. He would skip school with his friends, but still received encouragement from his teachers, and began to write and illustrate for the school newspaper. He developed the character SAMO to endorse a faux religion. The saying "SAMO" had started as a private joke between Basquiat and his schoolmate Al Diaz, as an abbreviation for the phrase "Same old shit." They drew a series of cartoons for their school paper before and after using SAMO©.
Street art and Gray: 1978–1980
In May 1978, Basquiat and Diaz began spray painting graffiti on buildings in Lower Manhattan. Working under the pseudonym SAMO, they inscribed poetic and satirical advertising slogans such as "SAMO© AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO GOD." In June 1978, Basquiat was expelled from City-As-School for pieing the principal. At 17, his father kicked him out of the house when he decided to drop out of school. He worked for the Unique Clothing Warehouse in NoHo while continuing to create graffiti at night. On December 11, 1978, The Village Voice published an article about the SAMO graffiti.In 1979, Basquiat appeared on the live public-access television show TV Party hosted by Glenn O'Brien. Basquiat and O'Brien formed a friendship and he made regular appearances on the show over the next few years. Eventually, he began spending time writing graffiti around the School of Visual Arts, where he befriended students John Sex, Kenny Scharf, and Keith Haring.
In April 1979, Basquiat met Michael Holman at the Canal Zone Party and they founded the noise rock band Test Pattern, which was later renamed Gray. Other members of Gray included Shannon Dawson, Nick Taylor, Wayne Clifford and Vincent Gallo. They performed at nightclubs such as Max's Kansas City, CBGB, Hurrah and the Mudd Club.
Around this time, Basquiat lived in the East Village with his girlfriend Alexis Adler, a Barnard biology graduate. He often copied diagrams of chemical compounds borrowed from Adler's science textbooks. She documented Basquiat's creative explorations as he transformed the floors, walls, doors and furniture into his artworks. He also made postcards with his friend Jennifer Stein. While selling postcards in SoHo, Basquiat spotted Andy Warhol at W.P.A. restaurant with art critic Henry Geldzahler. He sold Warhol a postcard titled Stupid Games, Bad Ideas.
In October 1979, at Arleen Schloss's open space called A's, Basquiat showed his SAMO montages using color Xerox copies of his works. Schloss allowed Basquiat to use the space to create his "MAN MADE" clothing, which were painted upcycled garments. In November 1979, costume designer Patricia Field carried his clothing line in her upscale boutique on 8th Street in Greenwich Village. Field also displayed his sculptures in the store window.
When Basquiat and Diaz had a falling out, he inscribed "SAMO IS DEAD" on the walls of SoHo buildings in 1980. In June 1980, he appeared in High Times magazine, his first national publication, as part of an article titled "Graffiti '80: The State of the Outlaw Art" by Glenn O'Brien. Later that year, he began filming O'Brien's independent film Downtown 81, originally titled New York Beat, which featured some of Gray's recordings on its soundtrack.
Rise to fame and success: 1980–1986
In June 1980, Basquiat participated in The Times Square Show, a multi-artist exhibition sponsored by Collaborative Projects Incorporated and Fashion Moda. He was noticed by various critics and curators, including Jeffrey Deitch, who mentioned him in an article titled "Report from Times Square" in the September 1980 issue of Art in America. In February 1981, Basquiat participated in the New York/New Wave exhibition, curated by Diego Cortez at New York's P.S.1. Italian artist Sandro Chia recommended Basquiat's work to Italian dealer Emilio Mazzoli, who promptly bought 10 paintings for Basquiat to have a show at his gallery in Modena, Italy in May 1981. In December 1981, art critic Rene Ricard published "The Radiant Child" in Artforum magazine, the first extensive article on Basquiat. During this period, Basquiat painted many pieces on objects he found in the streets, such as discarded doors.Basquiat sold his first painting, Cadillac Moon, to Debbie Harry, lead singer of the punk rock band Blondie, for $200 after they had filmed Downtown 81 together. He also appeared as a disc jockey in the 1981 Blondie music video "Rapture", a role originally intended for Grandmaster Flash. At the time, Basquiat was living with his girlfriend, Suzanne Mallouk, who financially supported him as a waitress.
In September 1981, art dealer Annina Nosei invited Basquiat to join her gallery at the suggestion of Sandro Chia. Soon after, he participated in her group show Public Address. She provided him with materials and a space to work in the basement of her gallery. In 1982, Nosei arranged for him to move into a loft, which also served as a studio at 101 Crosby Street in SoHo. He had his first American one-man show at the Annina Nosei Gallery in March 1982. He also painted in Modena for his second Italian exhibition in March 1982. With Basquiat saying he felt exploited, that show was canceled because he was expected to make eight paintings in one week.
By the summer of 1982, Basquiat had left the Annina Nosei Gallery, and gallerist Bruno Bischofberger became his worldwide art dealer. In June 1982, at 21, Basquiat became the youngest artist to ever take part in Documenta in Kassel, Germany. His works were exhibited alongside Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, Gerhard Richter, Cy Twombly, and Andy Warhol. Bischofberger gave Basquiat a one-man show at his Zurich gallery in September 1982, and arranged for him to meet Warhol for lunch on October 4, 1982. Warhol recalled, "I took a Polaroid and he went home and within two hours a painting was back, still wet, of him and me together." The painting, Dos Cabezas, ignited a friendship between them. Basquiat was photographed by James Van Der Zee for an interview with Henry Geldzahler published in the January 1983 issue of Warhol's Interview magazine.File:Jean-Michel Basquiat home on 57 Great Jones Street.jpg|thumb|From 1983 to 1988 Basquiat lived at 57 Great Jones Street in NoHo, where he died. A plaque commemorating his life was placed outside the building in 2016; the block was named "Jean-Michel Basquiat Way" in 2025.
In November 1982, Basquiat's solo exhibition opened at the Fun Gallery in the East Village. Among the works exhibited were A Panel of Experts and Equals Pi. In early December 1982, Basquiat began working at the Market Street studio space art dealer Larry Gagosian had built below his Venice Beach, California home. In Los Angeles, he frequented the Whisky a Go Go and Tail o' the Pup with his friend artist George Condo. There, he commenced a series of paintings for a March 1983 show, his second at the Gagosian Gallery in West Hollywood. He was accompanied by his girlfriend, then-unknown singer Madonna. Gagosian recalled: "Everything was going along fine. Jean-Michel was making paintings, I was selling them, and we were having a lot of fun. But then one day Jean-Michel said, 'My girlfriend is coming to stay with me.'... So I said, 'Well, what's she like?' And he said, 'Her name is Madonna and she's going to be huge.' I'll never forget that he said that."
Basquiat took considerable interest in the work that artist Robert Rauschenberg was producing at Gemini G.E.L. in West Hollywood. He visited him on several occasions and found inspiration in his accomplishments. While in Los Angeles, Basquiat painted Hollywood Africans, which portrays him with graffiti artists Toxic and Rammellzee. He often painted portraits of other graffiti artists—and sometimes collaborators—in works such as Portrait of A-One A.K.A. King, Toxic, and ERO. In 1983, he produced the hip-hop record "Beat Bop" featuring Rammellzee and rapper K-Rob. It was pressed in limited quantities on his Tartown Inc. imprint. He created the cover art for the single, making it highly desirable among both record and art collectors.File:Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Bruno Bischofberger and Fransesco Clemente, New York, 1984.tif|left|thumb|Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Bruno Bischofberger, and Francesco Clemente in 1984
In March 1983, at 22 years old, Basquiat became one of the youngest artists to participate in the Whitney Biennial exhibition of contemporary art. Paige Powell, an associate publisher for Interview magazine, organized a show of his work at her friend's New York apartment in April 1983. Shortly after, he began a relationship with Powell, who was instrumental in fostering his friendship with Warhol. In August 1983, Basquiat moved into a loft owned by Warhol at 57 Great Jones Street in NoHo, which also served as a studio.
In the summer of 1983, Basquiat invited Lee Jaffe, a former musician in Bob Marley's band, to join him on a trip throughout Asia and Europe. On his return to New York, he was deeply affected by the death of Michael Stewart, an aspiring black artist in the downtown club scene who was killed by transit police in September 1983. He painted Defacement in response to the incident. He also participated in a Christmas benefit with various New York artists for the family of Michael Stewart in 1983.
Having joined the Mary Boone's SoHo gallery in 1983, Basquiat had his first show there in May 1984. A large number of photographs depict a collaboration between Warhol and Basquiat in 1984 and 1985. When they collaborated, Warhol would start with something very concrete or a recognizable image and then Basquiat defaced it in his animated style. They made an homage to the 1984 Summer Olympics with Olympics. Other collaborations include Taxi, 45th/Broadway and Zenith. Their joint exhibition, Paintings, at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery, caused a rift in their friendship after it was panned by critics, and Basquiat was called Warhol's "mascot".
Basquiat often painted in expensive Armani suits and would appear in public in the same paint-splattered clothes. He was a regular at the Area nightclub, where he sometimes worked the turntables as a DJ for fun. He also painted murals for the Palladium nightclub in New York City. His swift rise to fame was covered in the media. He appeared on the cover of the February 10, 1985, issue of The New York Times Magazine in a feature titled "New Art, New Money: The Marketing of an American Artist". His work appeared in GQ and Esquire, and he was interviewed for MTV's "Art Break" segment. In 1985, he walked the runway for the Comme des Garçons Spring fashion show in New York.
In the mid-1980s, Basquiat was earning $1.4 million a year and he was receiving lump sums of $40,000 from art dealers. Despite his success, his emotional instability continued to haunt him. "The more money Basquiat made, the more paranoid and deeply involved with drugs he became", wrote journalist Michael Shnayerson. Basquiat's cocaine use became so excessive that he blew a hole in his nasal septum. A friend claimed that Basquiat confessed he was on heroin in late 1980. Many of his peers speculated that his drug use was a means of coping with the demands of his newfound fame, the exploitative nature of the art industry, and the pressures of being a black man in the white-dominated art world.
For what would be his last exhibition on the West Coast, Basquiat returned to Los Angeles for his show at the Gagosian Gallery in January 1986. In February 1986, Basquiat traveled to Atlanta, Georgia for an exhibition of his drawings at Fay Gold Gallery. That month, he participated in Limelight's Art Against Apartheid benefit. In the summer, he had a solo exhibition at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac in Salzburg. He was also invited to walk the runway for Rei Kawakubo again, this time at the Comme des Garçons Homme Plus fashion show in Paris. In October 1986, Basquiat flew to Ivory Coast for an exhibition of his work organized by Bruno Bischofberger at the French Cultural Institute in Abidjan. He was accompanied by his girlfriend Jennifer Goode, who worked at his frequent hangout, Area nightclub. In November 1986, at 25 years old, Basquiat became the youngest artist given an exhibition at Kestner-Gesellschaft in Hanover, Germany.