It was almost 22 years ago when Brooklyn-born painter Jean-Michel Basquiat overdosed on heroine and died in his New York City studio.
Basquiat, who had a close relationship with Andy Warhol, was known for his urban, wildly sketched paintings. A character in his own right, he dated Madonna in 1982 and wore thousand-dollar Armani suits to paint. The mystique of his great talent and reputation still permeates in the art world today. His close friend and filmmaker Tamra Davis made the film “Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child” two years before he passed but never released it, until now.
According to The New York Times:
The film’s romantic depiction of Basquiat is an old story. An artistically driven, voraciously ambitious, devastatingly charming wild child, he was devoured by the fame he craved and died of a drug overdose in 1988 at 27. The movie does not go into the gory details of his dissipation and addiction. Although sophisticated in its blasé acceptance of art-world wheeling and dealing and the temptations that accompany sudden fame and wealth, it is also tenderly protective of its subject.
Commentators include the artist’s friend Julian Schnabel, who directed the 1996 biographical film “Basquiat” (starring Jeffrey Wright as Basquiat, and David Bowie as Warhol), and the rapper, hip-hop historian and graffitist Fab 5 Freddy.
Some of the interview’s most fascinating moments are Basquiat’s memories of his hand-to-mouth existence after running away from home as a teenager. Born to parents who were of Haitian (his father) and Puerto Rican (his mother) descent, he rebelled against a middle-class background for reasons that remain unclear. A seemingly embattled relationship with his father, an accountant, is referred to but not explored. The film takes the heady view that his flight from home was the necessary odyssey of an unstoppable Rimbaud-like visionary.
Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child opens today in Manhattan and will be in select theaters throughout the country.
