basquiat

the painters and dockers used to have a song about basia bonkowski, who compered rock around the world on 0/28 (as it was then)

i mention this only because i started singing basquiat to the same tune in my head

i watched a cool documentary on sbs 2 (as it is now) about basquiat's artistic life.
his work was described as carnal.
i find it more visceral than carnal.

it featured interviews with basquiat's contemporaries including his girlfriend/muse from his early years, jennifer clement.
she's written a book, widow basquiat: a love story
she seemed cool. recounting stories of how they met in a sleazy bar,
a dive and that she was a bit scared at first because he was wearing a "big coat" and looked like he was homeless

the doco has lots of black & white footage of jean-michel basquiat strolling the new york streets in his big coat, jazz in the background.
he was in a band called gray for a while

it shows some of his initial graffiti work, as samo (same old shit)
which feels more like pop-up philosophy or poetry

there's footage of an interviewer asking what the was the last thing he wrote, a cheeky looking basquiat says, which of the following is omnipresent? a) television b) the church c) mcdonalds d) samo
and he grins
some discussion of basquiat/samo, banksy, graffiti, artists cross that fine line

the doco mentioned that he grew up in brooklyn and that his mother, matilde, would take him "across the bridge" to manhattan where they would visit MOMA, the guggenheim, the metropolitan museum of art
an ideal art education
i think this comes through in his wonderful confident lines
his bravurra
basquiat's last works before his death
there was quite a bit of discussion of premonition of death
and dying before 30 (he died at the rock-god age of 27)

an excerpt from basquiat - a quick killing in art, by phoebe hoban, via nytimes