“Basquiat” is the dramatized biopic of the neo-expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, who made a meteoric rise from starving graffiti artist to art-world whiz kid in the 1980’s. The film was directed by Julian Schnabel (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”), who is himself a painter and was part of the New York art scene at the same time as Basquiat. The movie received mixed reviews when it was released in 1996. Some critics saw the film as self-aggrandizement by Schnabel, who included himself in the story through a character named Albert Milo (played by Gary Oldman), but Schnabel insists that he made the film in order to prevent some “tourist” from attempting to portray Basquiat’s troubled life. However, even those critics who found fault with the choices made by the director raved about the performance of the actor portraying Basquiat — Jeffrey Wright, who won a Tony for his work in “Angels in America”. The cast of the film also includes Michael Wincott, Benicio del Toro, Claire Foriana, Dennis Hopper, Christopher Walken, Willem Dafoe, Parker Posey, Tatum O’Neal, Courtney Love, and David Bowie (as Andy Warhol).
Basquiat is usually considered a misguided genius, one of the first painters of African (Haitian) descent to achieve international recognition, representing the underworld of the street artist as well as evidencing the prejudice against black art by the white art world. As a graffiti artist going by the tag “SAMO,” he began painting on non-traditional surfaces in 1978, at the age of 17, after dropping out of high school and moving out of his parents’ middle-class home in Brooklyn. He was “discovered” by Rene Ricard in 1981 and soon after was exhibiting in both Europe and the U.S. By the time he was 24, his art was being sold to private collectors for $10,000 to $25,000 and was exhibited in such major museums as the Whitney Museum of American Art. During the spectacular arc of his very brief life, he came into contact and was influenced by Andy Warhol, David Salle, Francesco Clement, Enzo Cucchi, David Bowes, and Barbara Kruger, among others. His downfall came from his habit of painting for 18-hour stretches, fueled by cocaine and marijuana, then taking heroin to get to sleep. Basquiat never recovered from the unexpected death of Andy Warhol in 1987 — he was dead less than a year later, at age 27, from a drug overdose, having reached the bottom of a continuing downward spiral into depression and drug use.
The film “Basquiat” will be screened Thursday, January 21, at 7:00 PM in Room 106 of the Museum of Art & Archaeology, Pickard Hall, on the MU campus. The film is being shown in conjunction with the “Faces of Warhol” exhibition now on view at the Museum.
Contributed by J. C. Crook, Museum Associate
