Jean-Michel Basquiat: "Downtown 81"

JEAN MICHEL BASQUIAT was 19 years old when he was cast in Downtown 81. His twentieth birthday came during the shooting of the film. Basquiat was already a notorious member of the downtown art scene, known for his witty, omnipresent "Samo" graffiti, his unique band Gray, and his general creativity and stylishness. He was a painter without a studio, making art with whatever was at hand, sweatshirts, refrigerators, doors and discarded wood. Around this time he met Glenn O’Brien, who was working on an article about graffiti. They became friends and Basquiat began collaborating on O’Brien’s wild public access cable show, TV Party, the crew of which also included Maripol, Edo Bertoglio and Fab Five Freddie. In 1980 Basquiat’s work was first exhibited in the influential "Times Square Show." When Maripol, Edo and Glenn began this film project, Glenn wrote the main part for Jean Michel. During filming, the young artist lived in the production office, where he had his first real studio space. In 1981, Basquiat was one of the art stars of the "New York New Wave Show" at P.S.1 Institute for Art, where he exhibited several paintings. It was the beginning of a meteoric rise, and within a year he was one of the hottest artists in the world. His work drew raves in Art in America and Art Forum. In 1982 he had his first one-artist exhibition at the Annina Nosei Gallery, followed by one-artist shows at Bruno Bischoffberger in Zurich and Larry Gagosian in Los Angeles.

At 21 he was the youngest of the 176 artists included in "Documenta 7" at Kassel, Germany. The next year, 1983, he was the youngest artist included in the Whitney Biennial exhibition. By this time Basquiat had formed a strong friendship with Andy Warhol, collaborating with him on paintings and renting a building owned by Warhol for a studio. Between 1984 and 1986, his work was shown in major museums and galleries around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Hirschorn Museum in Washington, the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In February 1987, Andy Warhol died, devastating Basquiat. For the remainder of his life he struggled with drug use. In the spring of 1988 he held his first New York Show in one and a half years and he traveled to Hawaii to kick drugs. He returned to New York clean, but on August 12, 1988 he died in his loft at the age of twenty seven. A memorial was held at St.Peter’s, the jazz church, on November 5, 1988. A major retrospective of his work opened at the Whitney Museum of American Art in October, 1992.

This film features music created by Jean Michel Basquiat with his band Gray (‘Drum Mode’), and in collaboration with Andy "Coati Mundi" Hernandez (‘Palabras con Ritmo’) and Rammellzee (‘Beat Bop’.)