Basquiat’s New York was my New York. In the midst of a huge heroin epidemic which before AIDS and Reganomics, New York gave birth to Hip Hop Culture Uptown & refined Punk Downtown. This is the world that saw the meteoric rise and tragic fall of one of the most prolific and talented artists of the 20th Century. The last years of old New York – before the city was cleaned up, the graffiti scrubbed off and the grittiness polished away. A creative celebration of everyday life in spite of seriously hard times. It was all Parties, Pride & Panhandlers.
But Basquiat sampled it all and with empathic relish gave it back on canvas to a depth few of his contemporaries could plum. His proto-fame as his ironic tag SAMO (same old shit) making it up as he went with a vigor and confidence born of a hustler with nothing to lose to commodify his blackness & invade the insular lily-white art world. Sara Driver’s documentary, Boom for Real, chronicles his rapid rise and fall. He was an artist who knew what he wanted—fame—and knew how to get it. His was a raw talent matched with an intellect and drive that his fame and access to excess would eventually doom him.
He had famous & infamous friends and lovers who were all hustling to some degree toward fame & fortune and the photos, short films, personal narratives and interesting interviews some never before seen, give us a view how Basquiat stole the crown of the Downtown Art Scene. In the film, his High School friend Al Diaz (the other half of SAMO) recalls how their confrontational, racially charged messages were received as people on the Lower East Side started recognizing SAMO everywhere. “It was disjointed street poetry,” Art critic Jeffrey Deitch recalls, “Back in the late seventies, you couldn’t go anywhere interesting in Lower Manhattan without noticing that someone named SAMO had been there first.”
He never took an art lesson. He admired Picasso & Jean Dubuffet. His art is fully formed, almost, from the start – the caricatural drawings, the names and epigrammatic phrases in block capitals, the darting cars, scudding planes, lists of heroes and historic faces, all sampled against glowing high-chrome backdrops with a DJ’s nonchalant energy. Basquiat was the living example of the adage “It’s better to be confident than correct” he’d studied great artists he admired, sampled them then broke the rules as he pleased. His deep knowledge of Jazz and his Haitian / Puerto Rican roots imbued his art as the short feature film deftly shows us a peek of Basquiat before he became Basquiat. He was a charismatic, young brother that knew how to game the system that denied those who looked like him and parlayed every opportunity into his Icarian mission to get rich or die trying.
The later life and times, blown-up photos and footage of Basquiat dancing, musing, clubbing and hanging out with Warhol aren’t the focus here. The focus is how this driven self made young man achieved what he wished and sadly paid the price so many of that era addicted to heroin did. This is an intriguing film not to be missed for those interested in the bygone New York era, modern art or the art of Basquiat in particular. Opens in selected markets May 11th
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All art Magnolia Pictures