Episode #172 | 04.25.24
Jean-Michel Basquiat (All Access): New York City Squalor, Art-World Slumming, and the 27 Club
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In this episode
Jean-Michel Basquiat's graffiti in Lower Manhattan was mistaken for a CIA operation. He was the toast of the New York art world while sleeping on floors in squalid apartments. He sold his first painting to Blondie's Debbie Harry for $200. Less than a year later, his paintings were going for more than $20,000. And decades later, the debate over what is and what is not a real Basquiat rages on.
Sources
American Graffiti: Memories of Jean-Michel Basquiat (Vogue)
The SAMO© Graffiti (HenryFlynt.org)
Basquiat and His Contemporaries: Exhibition Timeline (MFA Boston)
Is Jean-Michel Basquiat's Last Work a Painting on a Dope Dealer’s Storefront? (NY Mag)
Williamsburg street art is Phil Frost, not Basquiat (The Art Newspaper)
Jean-Michel Basquiat (Vanity Fair)
NEW ART, NEW MONEY (NY Times)
When Madonna & Basquiat Dated (AnOther)
'It Could Have Been Me': The 1983 Death Of A NYC Graffiti Artist (NPR)
Downtown 81 (2000, dir. Edo Bertoglio)
Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat (2017, dir Sara Driver)
Spike Lee discusses death of Michael Stewart on Jimmy Fallon
Rob Zombie discussing witnessing the death of Michael Stewart as a student at Parsons on Joe Rogan
Basquiat (1996, dir. Julian Schnabel)
Credits
Hosted by Jake Brennan.
Written by Patrick Coman.
Copy edited by James Sullivan.
Scored and mixed by Matt Beaudoin.
Additional music and score elements by Ryan Spraker.
DISGRACELAND theme song, “Crenshaw Space Boogie,” written and produced by Jake Brennan. Performed by Jake Brennan, Bryce Kanzer, Jay Cannava, and Evan Kenney. Mixed and engineered by Adam Taylor.
*illustrations by Avi Spivak @avispivak