Project 5 Basquiat

Basquiat Film Review

In Jean Michael Basquat’s life he managed to prove that art comes in many different ways and forms.  In his case it came in the form of graffiti in New York during the 1980’s.  Basquiat was born in 1968 to his mother, Matilde, who was born in Brooklyn to Puerto Rican parents. His father, Gerard, was  born in Haiti.  Basquiat’s mother supported his art passion when he was young and even took him to art museums to help influence him.  Though very passionate about helping her son Matilde had mental problems and was sent to a mental institute when Jean was only 11 years old.

 While Basquiat was in high school he and his friends came up with a comic name SAMO, which was a marking that basquiat put with his graffiti as a signature to leave his name anonymous, eventually becoming a huge hit in New York.  Basquiat had a very different way of living not knowing how he was going to get money and where he was going to end up.  He even stated in the film that he would live of chips and cheeto’s depending on what he found.

During this time in New York man young artistic people lived there.  Basquiat being one of these people even decided to start a band with some of his friends even though they couldn’t play instruments very well.  However, Basquiat being very artistically influenced managed to make songs with his band even with a lack of musical talent, and they came to call their band “ Gray”.   But it wasn’t until in the 1980’s when Basquiat received money and fame for his artwork.  In 1982 Basquiat had his first US solo exhibition, which received rave reviews and began a need for more of Basquiat’s art for consumers.  The works he displayed were very different from what art collectors where use too because it was graffiti on canvas and paper.  By using obscure and very odd images basquiat created a whole new style of painting in the art community.

Basquiat kept on working and creating new works of art in his loft that he obtained through Andy Warhol throughout the mid 1980’s.  He even appeared on the front of the New York Times news article in 1985.  Everything was going for Jean, but in 1988 his beloved friend Andy Warhol died during a simple operation crushing Basquiat worst than anyone else.  After this event he started taking a lot more drugs until he developed a drug problem.  After this tragedy Basquiat began using a lot of different drugs and would go into his art studio alone for countless hours.  This continued and didn’t get better until one day he decided to go to Hawaii to try and kick his drug problem. When he came back he seemed to be doing better, but one night was found dead from mixing different drugs together.

            This was truly a tragedy at the prime of a brilliant artist.  Though he was emotionally a wreck his paintings were still very popular and only became more valuable after his death.  In 2007 one of his earlier paintings “Fallen Angel” went up for auction and received a miraculous 11.2 million dollars plus commission.  His artwork is still going around in circulation and keeps on making record breaking profit.