Jean-Michel Basquiat

They look like I could recreate them myself. I don't feel the same way about Keith Haring and Andy Warhol.

When Madonna broke up with him, he covered all of his paintings dedicated to her with black paint.

Basquiat's best work is from late 1981 to early 1983. At that point he was successful enough to afford the good materials for this work, and his furious drug habit fueled some truly powerful and inventive pieces. After that, he burned out quickly and his paintings became less and less interesting and more and more repetitive.

It's known in the art world that if you're not buying a Basquiat from his fruitful period, you're buying a piece of shit.

Related article on the importance of 1982 Basquiats:

Agree with R4.

R4 Preach, sister!

r1 I'm pretty sure anybody can recreate Keith Haring's "art".

What I never understood about Basquiat is how he lived long enough to die of a heroin overdose at 27. He'd been having sex with men from the time he was a young teenager, at the epicenter of the early AIDS epidemic (late 70s/early 80s downtown NYC), AND he had an aversion to condoms. One of his known lovers was Klaus Nomi, who complained that Basquiat gave HIM gonorrhea multiple times, so they were clearly going bareback. Nomi was one of the first celebrity victims of AIDS, dying in 1983.

Either Basquiat was one of the naturally immune, or he did have it and was a slow progressor. Heroin got him first.

R8 Give it a shot.

Kind of like Jeff Koons conned/s the art world??....

R10 Ha, it looks like a colour in pattern for a child with learning disabilities

R12 seems like something you're familiar with

I don't get it either but I sure wish I had one of his painting so I could sell it!

The movie was forgettable. Jeffrey Wright gives a pretentious performance. But I couldn't resist seeing it since David Bowie, Courtney Love and Parker Posey are in it.

The aesthetic Politburo of Datalounge doesn't "get" modern art. How shocking.

Stick to heated arguments over the original cast recording of "Follies", girls.

R14 W&W - Perfect imitation of a frau's worthless, inane contribution to a DL thread. Bravo!

R16 get a load of this queen

The "my 5 year old could do that" post is due.

Wel, that three racists I've ignored on a 19 reply thread.

R4, I refuse to believe that. I simply refuse!

I feel like his paintings sell for a lot because his name is Jean-Michel Basquiat. Seriously. If his name was John Smith would he have become famous? His very name oozes "famous artist."

In the nude

[quote]I feel like his paintings sell for a lot because his name is Jean-Michel Basquiat. Seriously. If his name was John Smith would he have become famous? His very name oozes "famous artist."

Yes Blanche, that's [bold]EXACTLY[/bold] how the art market works. *rolls eyes*

R18 So glad I blocked that twat months ago, what a pretentious snot

R20 Not liking his childish 'art' makes one a racist? Good to know...

[quote]R18 So glad I blocked that twat months ago, what a pretentious snot

Oh noes! I've been blocked by Little Rock's most devoted collector of Hummel figurines! Whatever shall I do???

*snort*

So Andy Warhol was telling the truth in his diaries: JMB DID have a big schlong.

R16 still seething after paying the entirety of his inheritance on a Basquiat forgery.

I find Basquiat's art striking, but even if I could afford one of his paintings, I wouldn't buy one. They have a really heavy, negative energy that would be hard to live with.

[quote][R16] still seething after paying the entirety of his inheritance on a Basquiat forgery.

Nope and nope. No money here to buy Basquiats, original or otherwise. And watching you sad, dizzy queens attempt modern art critique is the funniest shit I've ever read.

The fake Basquiat that featured prominently in Luke Cage on Netflix was pretty cool. I agree with r29 though, it had a very negative energy.

R30 Yeah, you know so much about 'art', tell us again what show Fosse was working on when he died?

I'm sorry I didn't buy one if his collaborations with Andy. I do have one of Andy/Keith's which I love- it looks as exciting to me as it did 35 years ago.

Shit, he could have sold that cock for a few thousand!! R23.

The art market is not really about the art, in the same way that museums are not really about the art. You are, sometimes, buying wonderful art, mixed with important moments in social history, and/or, interesting personal narratives, and/or conspicuous consumption, and/or important moments in art history, and so on. Museums are based, not on art, but on the history of art, and those are separate things. If I have a beautiful landscape by "anonymous", and one of the shitty thousands of child portraits by Renoir, then I, as a museum curator, will hang the Renoir.

Regardless of what you think of Madonna, she does have good taste in art. The paintings she owns by Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Man Ray, Tamara de Lempicka, Fernand Leger are striking, and worth over 100 million.

Madonna mentions Keith Haring all the time, and has worn clothing he designed for her.

She never talks about Basquiat or promotes his work.

R9 huh. I always assumed he was straight. Gone to look at his wiki and and ex girlfriend of his basically says he is what we now call pansexual. Didn’t see gender and was attracted to ‘personality’

The more you learn......

Nice at r23

With Madonna

I actually like them - intense colors and energy. Like a jolt of energy looking at them. Complex codes/themes but also just brilliant color if you strip away any need for meaning or interpretation. I prefer it over Pollock or other abstract artists. But agree it is a lot of negative energy - so living with it might be a little much.

The estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat refused to allow his works to be used for the film so the director, Julian Schnabel, personally painted the reproductions which are used throughout the film

Herring was an illustrator, and how he got famous is a mystery to me. But I prefer him to Schnabel, who is REALLY a hack! Those ugly, ugly crockery paintings...what were people thinking?

I love the best of Basquiat’s work. It looks both primitive and modern. The bold, crude shapes and colors contain those delicate line drawings, a great effect. Its recurring motifs, nonsense words, and sloppiness does recall graffiti, that same spontaneous energy left anonymously and on the fringes. The Warhol collabs were sad, but then, most of what Andy did near the end was sad.

Damien Hurst is an illustrator as well, so what R43?

Hurst is a hack also

R23

I LOVE Basquiat's work. It never fails that when someone black achieves success, there is always some jealous, malicious white twat like R4 who starts whining "it's only because he's black and they don't want to be called racist." I've never heard them ever say "he/she only got that because they were white" and believe me THAT happens and has happened FAAAAAR more often in this country. If half the successful white people in this country weren't white they wouldn't have the positions or success they have AND YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE.

Whatever. I'm sure you own none of these artist's work, so it's a moot point.

R47 Who? Name names? Many of us find his art scrawly bollocks: it does not, in anyway make us racist.

R49= buys framed prints at IKEA.

I was at the gallery opening for the Warhol - Basquiat show, didn't really love it then, still don't really like it. I would prefer a Warhol over a Basquiat.

The market is not the art. I think many of his paintings are extraordinary. The retrospective in Paris, over 6 floors, proved undeniably that he was a remarkable talent. Because he was so prolific in such a short time there was bound to be some shit.

But looking at the price and then the painting is pointless. The market is hyper inflated by idiots with more money than sense and the galleries, and artists, choose to feed off this like thirsty vampires. Hence Koons’ Rabbit selling for $91m. Basquiat didn’t have a factory churning repetitive shit out for him to make big bucks. He painted as if his life depended on it. Warhol created the factory as a brilliant pop take on consumerism. He was an original. Koons is an example of someone with some good ideas initially who, having worked on Wall St, saw the wave and surfed it. Still does. Basquiat didn’t paint to make money, though he wasn’t so stupid as to refuse it when it came his way. His paintings are vibrant, driven, violent, passionate and beautiful. IMHO. Koons silver rabbit is a knowing, perhaps, cynical nod to Warhol’s silver pillows. I know which I would rather have.

Sadly, chances are the billionaires who bought any of them probably have about as much passion for the work as they have for the fleet of cars in their garages.

R50 = Dies alone and unmourned as art snobs bore the fuck out of everybody

Andy Warhol, Basquiat, Keith Haring

The retrospective largely confirmed what R3 said. He created some really inventive, thought-proving and positively stunning work - especially during his core period.

But too much of his work is over-exhibited/hyped. Many of the hastily dashed off “Warhol’s” lack character and depth. Like some of Koon’s crap, “that’s nice” is the most they evoke.

But the intensity of JMB’s best - WOW!

Basquiat did have a furious need to create at the beginning of his career, but later on he churned out a lot of pieces just for the money to buy drugs, gourmet food, designer suits, etc. He had no real concept of finances, though, and stuffed his Armani pockets full of cash he'd just hand out to people or blow on bullshit.

After reading Phoebe Hoban's excellent biography of Basquiat and watching a couple of documentaries, I'm fairly sure he was either severely bipolar or schizophrenic, and if I had to pick one I'd say schizophrenia. His friends talked about him taking in all the chaos of modern culture, spewing it out in his paintings, but having no way to turn off the cacophony in his head--thus, the heroin.

Agree R57 - is place bets he was schizophrenic - or at least severely mentally ill. His behavior was not normal. The heroin was a way to self-medicate. But some of the craziest people create the greatest art - their unique view of the world, color, Concepts makes for unique and extraordinary art.

It's hard for me to take him seriously because I think he looks like Tracy Morgan.

I love his work at least the big canvases. The documentary on American Masters when he was painting in Mary Boone's basement shows some of his best work. Kind of shocking Mary Boone is going to prison.

Basquiat's mother was in and out of asylums throughout his boyhood, so there was mental illness in the family. Basquiat also suffered major physical trauma when he was hit by a car as a young boy--lost his spleen. His father was physically abusive to Basquiat (but not his younger sisters), and according to the artist his first sexual experience was at age 13 while on a visit to Puerto Rico. Personally, I'd count that as sexual abuse. He regularly turned tricks in Times Square as a young teenager to score money for drugs, and ran away from home repeatedly until finally leaving for good at 17.

He was never, ever anything close to normal, but whether the mental illness was inevitable or his fucked-up childhood triggered him will never be known.

This is another excellent documentary on Basquiat.

People will buy anything.

The BBC Documentary on Basquiat, which is also quite good.

As far as the 'I could paint that myself' argument, you could say the same thing about Jackson Pollock's paint splatters, but few people say he got where he did because he was a bald white guy.

Many people say that about Pollock. It is said about a lot of abstract expressionism.

I love, love Basquiat. One of my favorites along with Chagall and Matisse.

I love that Mary Boone is going to jail. Now can we send the other evil spawn of the 1980s with her?

[quote]Many people say that about Pollock. It is said about a lot of abstract expressionism.

So the 20th century just confuses you completely? Good to know.

I love Basquiat for the same reasons I love abstract Gerhard Richter - the insane color and energy.

For someone who seems desperate to appear erudite, you completely misread my post, r69, and appear to be the one confused...

Erudite people don't use the word "erudite".

Pretentious pseudo-intellectual twats do.

Just saying.

Love Basquiat.

I like to fuck artists. Gee I would have loved to fuck Basquiat and Keith Haring as well! But, I remember fondly some less famous but equally exciting artists with whom I was glad to have had a hot time.

Contemporary and Modern Art before it are games as much as art. This goes back to Duchamp at least. Rather than dismissing it as "I could do that", one could learn some art history preceding and throughout 20th Century art. And about the art market. BBC has done a several good documentaries about the contemporary art market.

The Mannerists, such as Giulio Romano in the 16th C, were equally wild and provocative in their times.

Mapplethorpe, yum!

That shit looks like something produced by a kindergartner would come up with.

And Duchamp, R76?

Kandinsky 1910

[quote]That shit looks like something produced by a kindergartner would come up with.

Thank you doll. The "my five year old could draw that!" comment is something straight out of Archie Bunker's mouth.

[quote]R30 Yeah, you know so much about 'art', tell us again what show Fosse was working on when he died?

a. for somebody who's quite proud of blocking me you sure seem obsessed with my posts; b. let the record state that you're accusing me of not understanding post-WWII visual arts because I don't remember what fucking revival Bob Fosse was directing when he dropped dead of a heart attack.

Stick to collecting Hummel figurines dear. Much more in your aesthetic wheelhouse.

Turner 1844

Arcimboldo

Basquiat had impeccable knowledge of painting and art history. His work wasn't that of a child smearing tempera on a paper.

I knew these guys. Hateful monsters, deified by the club kids. From the Primal ooze.

I'm a professional artist, and I love Basquiat's art. It has unquestionable vibrancy and energy. What annoys me to no end is how many artists blatantly copy his paintings. I might occasionally incorporate some of his techniques in my painting -- like, for say, using an oil stick to roughly outline an image - but I've seen some "original" art that is much more than inspired by his art. It is more like an unimaginative copy. Why would anyone who aspires to be an artist want to be so derivative?

That said, a gallery that sells my paintings in Atlanta had me copy a Basquiat so a set designer could use it for a movie. I didn't realize that his estate won't let anyone use the originals. My painting was on the wall of Taraji B Henson's apartment in "What Men Want." You can barely see it, but it gave me a little thrill.

AND: Seriously, how the fuck can anyone think it is racist to not like his art?!? Whoever said that HAS to be joking. His art is dark and extreme, and easy to dislike if you have traditional taste. And that would make that person a racist? Please stop that nonsense. It does not help anyone, and further creates a divide.

Basquiat was heavily influenced by Cy Twombly.

The "I could paint that" remark gets said about a lot of 20th Century Artists. But what you don't hear is that Pollock or Koons or Twombly became legends purely based on their skin color. You hear that all the time about Basquiat, and it's a bullshit argument. All you have to do is look at the derivative Basquiats all over Etsy and minor art galleries and then look at real, prime-period Basquiats, and you'll see the difference. The use of color, line, SPACE, the energy and the language and the rage--they made his art more than cartoon scribbles.

Didn't he make Madonna give back several paintings he gave her after she broke up with him? Aren't those the ones he painted over black? I've read they would be worth hundreds of millions altogether.

The good news is that people who insist his work doesn’t deserve the acclaim solely based on his race are uncultured swine and hold no influence whatsoever. It’s not like they can afford to travel to major cities to see his sold out exhibits or god forbid show up at an art auction to bid. Their opinion is only for trolling on the internet. Not everyone has to like his work but not looking at other modern artists with the same level of criticism and disbelief comes of as plain bias.

Pathetic. Children's scribbles. Have at it, though. Someone will always gobble it up.

A lot of late Basquiats aren't very good, but "Riding With Death" is powerful in its simplicity.

Basquiat's last known painting, "Dry Cell." I can't make up my mind if I like it or not. It's chilling though, for the name alone.

Three interesting facts I remember from Hoban's biography: 1) Basquiat dated white girls (and I assume boys) almost exclusively; 2) He could never get a cab to stop for him even when he was rich and famous; 3) Thanks to his Haitian father and Puerto Rican mother, he spoke French and Spanish fluently.

It's possible he left a very late-period painting on the door of a drug den in pre-hipster Williamsburg, but his estate refused to authenticate it.

R90 Giddy up!

Basquiat at his final show in spring 1988, a few months before his fatal overdose. He looks haunted.

[quote]Kind of shocking Mary Boone is going to prison.

Not at all. What's shocking is how few of them do.

Some times you need to see something in person to fully appreciate it- photos don't capture the beauty and intensity. Not just Basquiat, but many artists.

R84: are you longtime DL poster Brian Nash?

Mary Boone - drug addict, alcoholic, fraudster (ask Alec Baldwin), embezzler, IRS tax criminal, and the créatrice of Julian Schnabel, among other monsters. I further R96 - it's a pity so few of these criminal cunts get what they deserve. Double pity she's not going to cell shared with Melania and Ivanka.

I agree, R97. The first time I saw Pollock's Autumn Rhythm in person at the Met, it knocked me on my ass. Photos do it no justice at all.

[quote] That shit looks like something produced by a kindergartner would come up with.

That sentence sounds like something a kindergartener would write.

[quote] [R47] Who? Name names? Many of us find his art scrawly bollocks: it does not, in anyway make us racist.

Not liking his art does not make you racist. Asserting that anyone who does claim to like it is just afraid of being called racist does. Apparently you are too stupid to know the difference.

Again, all you idiots that post any kid could do that- please enlist your frauen friends that have them. You could be rich.

R98 -- I am, indeed. I never thought of myself as a long-time poster! :)

I'd like to hear more stories from R83. What made Basquiat monstrous?

[quote]Basquiat had impeccable knowledge of painting and art history.

Is that true? I don’t know much about his life and ask sincerely. I remember his saying that cartoons were his biggest influence. Then again, you can’t always trust an artist to understand himself.

Yes Basquiat was in and out of arty school programs from a young age and was a very productive and creative kid from the get go. He was a shitty student (and his mother was insane) but apparently he studiously studied the art in all New York's great museums for years. This is not unusual. I've known lots of artists who pretty much did the same (Paris, New York, Vienna - any city crammed with art and artist tradition has these kids who suck it all up), and it was easy in those decades, just before museums became big business mob scenes. In his teens he was also part of the graffiti-art scene nexus and knew the gallery and money game from that time. He was completely sophisticated and knowing.

Jeez, I had to live through the 80s once and it was bad enough and yet here I am again.

Thanks R107

R92first point is not actually that interesting. Almost every black man that gets rich or famous moves on to white pussy (female or male). Sorry to be un-pc, but it’s a common thing 🤷‍♂️

Here's an early, representational Picasso (because sometimes people scoff at Picasso's abstract work).

I'm not saying Basquiat was capable of something similar. The point is that not every artist aims for photo-realism.

Personally, I like Basquiat's work. He died at ~ 27, so it's impossible to say how his work would have evolved.

To me, he was an idealized racial token and wouldn't have gone as far as he did if he wasn't a bm. The Jackson Pollock of his time...

I remember reading somewhere that, after Basquiat was laid up in the hospital from the car accident, his mother gave him Grey's Anatomy, which is what got him interested in painting skulls and skeletons.

And...I don't remember any stories about him being "monstrous," but I do remember he would enrage his friends because, when he started to get successful, he was not as generous as they thought he should be. He also would go shopping with them and buy very expensive suits -- far more expensive than his friends could afford -- and he would ruin them painting as soon as he got them, which made his "friends" angrier at him.

Here's a drawing by Ralph Steadman (illustrator of at least one of Hunter S. Thompson's book covers). He could probably draw something more accurate as far as proportions and color, but this is how he chooses to draw. It has its own value.

No. I actually work in "the arts," and I cannot bring myself to admire this stuff. It's ridiculous, but I keep my mouth shut.

R114 Ralph Steadman! Now there's a radically original artist.

This is a true story, I am NOT making this up. I drew something similar in kindergarten class when I was 5, and the school flew into a panic because they thought I must be retarded.

[quote]This is a true story, I am NOT making this up. I drew something similar in kindergarten class when I was 5, and the school flew into a panic because they thought I must be retarded.

How nice of you to confirm it for us, darling. Does the group home know you're on the internet this late?

I waited tables at Odeon in the 80s. Had Basquait in my section one Sunday brunch where he was so high he passed out over his eggs benedict.

R117 I believe you, and you're right.

R104: I like your work (and your comments on art-related threads a lot). Glad you're still posting here.

I never got it.

I disagree.

I think Jean-Michel Basquiat was a once in a generation talent. I saw his big show at The Brooklyn Museum years ago and was moved to tears. If I could own ONE piece of art, it would be a Basquiat.

OP, the figures in that picture look like Bert and Ernie on crack.

A Black feminist’s take on Basquiat:

In a bracing essay from A.i.A.’s June 1993 issue, the influential thinker bell hooks analyzes the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat as a form of sacrifice: his ritual offerings were the parts of himself that had to be repressed and erased to win success in a white-dominated art world. In the course of her argument, hooks deconstructs the dismissals of Basquiat’s paintings by white critics who found them derivative or “primitive.” “Looking at the work from a Eurocentric perspective, one sees and values only those aspects that mimic familiar white Western artistic traditions,” hooks writes. “Looking at the work from a more inclusive standpoint, we are all better able to see the dynamism springing from the convergence, contact and conflict of varied traditions.”

[quote]“Looking at the work from a more inclusive standpoint, we are all better able to see the dynamism springing from the convergence, contact and conflict of varied traditions.”

Paintings that would sing along at musicals.

More NY stories please R119! Did Warhol ever done there?

the influential thinker bell hooks

People buy any crap if you tell them it's art.

It’s amazing how bitchy some get if you disagree on art.

It's amazing how proud people are to be completely ignorant armchair critics on everything.

R131, are you new here, dear? People disagree on pasta straining.

More details, R83.

R110, that may be true, but Basquiat dated white girls and boys even before he became famous. His father was the same way, rarely dating women of color, though Basquiat's mother obviously was one.

Some of Basquiat's girlfriends were also shockingly young--14 or 15 years old when they first got with the artist. But it was the 70s, and Basquiat himself had been having sex since he was that age, so I suppose he didn't see a problem with it.

[quote]It's amazing how proud people are to be completely ignorant armchair critics on everything.

Art is subjective. You don’t have to be “ignorant” or not an art critic to know if something appeals to you or not. No need to be a cunt if someone doesn’t share your taste in art.

[quote]It’s amazing how bitchy some get if you disagree on art.

"Disagree"?? Oh honey.

I could care less if someone doesn't like Basquiat's work. His work was dark; personal tastes are precisely that, personal. But the [bold]MY FIVE-YEAR-OLD COULD DRAW THAT!!!!1!"[/bold] horseshit was tired 100 years ago. It's proud admission of gross ignorance, and for that reason quite worthy of ridicule.

R136 I was referring to people who say a child could produce it and its crap.

I busted my ass from 10 to 30 to educate myself in art history and the art market and agree with R137, it's fine to call out ignorant deplorable trolls on any topic. They are proud of their lazy ignorance.

At best, it's the kind of semi-deconstructionist crap that's still popular.

I have a former college classmate who is today a billionaire living in NYC today. (He was not the child of billionaires himself, but he did have wealthy parents, so I cannot call him a self-made man.) We have a mutual friend from college who is in the art world, and he said he doesn't hang out with the billionaire any more but has seen him at art world events.

The billionaire has some Basquiats among other contemporary artists. I told my friend I was stunned the billionaire cared about art now because I didn't remember him being interested in anything like that in college, and my friend said he isn't: he buys things solely as investments on the advice of hired art world mavens (he bought his Basquiats years and years ago, and they have hugely appreciated since he bought them). Apparently there are consultants who are hired solely because they are so good at predicting what artists will hugely appreciate, and they are so powerful in their predictions that they themselves alone practically determine the reputation of contemporary artists. This guy I know from college has paintings by Basquiat, but they might as well be framed prints from IKEA for all he cares about their aesthetic value: he treats them solely as investment trophies.

[quote] I busted my ass from 10 to 30 to educate myself in art history and the art market

You poor dear! How you must have suffered!!!

Art is also used to launder money and escape taxes. The biggest vaults are the tax free, border free Port Francs by Geneva Switzerland, where there are billions of dollars in masterpieces, some of it very famous, some of it unknown or forgotten to still exist, some of it stolen but not identified, some of it identified stolen goods held up in repatriation court cases.

Having 500 million worth of art in one's home would be an insurance nightmare and many just keep such valuable investments in vaults.

Art is a good investment if you know what you are doing. Especially, because you can see and enjoy it- unlike most other things.

I call my house the place that Warhol built.

How do these people know who will be big in the art world?

If you are asking about contemporary art, refer back to R140. Dealers and consultants make it happen for contemporary artists. They manage the values of contemporary artists who made it, confirmed big, 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago. The list of real value artists is narrowed down then mantainined. There are no surprises. The modestly growing prices are known. The most likely to rise into the stratosphere. Etc. The bottom will not fall out on Warhol, Basquiat. Other art collectors will purchase solid Modern or older artists where the values will hold and increase.

Its hard to predict the value of the most recent contemporary artists to the market. But the prices are not high for big time art collectors. The real investment starts after the prices have risen substantially because the artist is a star. So will your 300K piece turn into a 3 million piece. If you're buying a 3 million dollar piece, will it be 30 million eventually, or just double?

Will the bottom ever fall out on Koons?

The sad thing about Basquiat's work is that its prices have been so inflated by investors that museums can't afford to buy them. That's why he has so little representation in places like MoMA and the Met.

This entire thread reads like a parody flowing from both directions

Thanks for you valuable input.

His “work” is a load of crap.

R118 R117 hete. Fun you should mention group homes. My early childhood experiences as a misdiagnosed retarded child based on the picture I drew ( the full story is of course more complex than I’m relating here) has given me insights and understanding of those with real mental disabilities, with the result that I have become without realizing it, a mental health advocate and activist. As such I deal with group homes on a daily bases. It’s part of my law practice. (Retarded my ass. Btw, I know “retarded” isn’t a politically correct word these days, but way back in the day, that’s the word they used and that’s what I was called.)

R151 and don’t start on the misspellings. I hate autophil.

"autophil."

Is that a man named Phil who is into auto-asphyxiation?

A lot of modern art is overpriced crap: Look at Jeff Koons.

I do not understand Koons' appeal. I thought there would start to be a backlash against him: He donated that huge sculpture to Paris as a memorial to the massacre at Batalcan, but it turns out that he just donated the IDEA. The French government had to pay hundreds of thousands to transport and install it. There was a little bit of rumbling about it, and I was hoping that the French government would not accept the "gift," but they did, although it is being installed very far away from the theater, making it less a memorial to the victims than a memorial to Koons himself. Also, there was a lawsuit last year from a collector who gave Koons millions of dollars as a down payment on a sculpture, but it was never produced. Koons kept saying it was delayed. The collector became irate, and sued to get his money back, claiming that Koons was dishonest and unreliable, and that his assistants did all the work. That suit seemed to have disappeared, or maybe Koons settled before it went any further. His sculptures are technically accomplished, but they seem more like craft than art.

His paintings wouldn't be worth as much if he were still alive.

[quote]One of his known lovers was Klaus Nomi, who complained that Basquiat gave HIM gonorrhea multiple times

Multiple times?

Fool me once, shame on you...

Koons subject matter never appeals to me. I feel sorry for whoever it was stuck with that hideous Michael Jackson and chimp piece, unless it's in a museum.

Interesting, R158. I wonder if the value of that sculpture has devalued, considering how public opinion of Jackson has declined to some degree. Then again, the price of the piece might hold up because of its kitsch value? I've always thought it was hideous.

R157 was Basquiat HIV+? With all the sex and needles and the timing.

I've always assumed he must have been, R160, unless he was one of those people who is naturally immune. He was having loads of unprotected sex with people of both genders, as well as doing hard drugs, at the epicenter of the early AIDS epidemic.

Madonna was lucky to avoid.

There is an aside in Phoebe Hoban's biography discussing Madonna trying to find condoms in an out-of-the-way place at an odd time (can't remember details as it's years since I read it) when she was dating Basquiat. I bet she's thanked her lucky stars she was careful to practice safe sex with him.

Basquiat also allegedly impregnated several women, but they all had abortions. They knew he wouldn't make any kind of father, I guess.

I like his work.

As to Andy Warhol I read his biography. He mass produced his art and often his employees were the ones doing it not even him. He was schlocky in my opinon.

He's expensive because he's dead.

Trust funds diversifying investment portfolios.

Did he ever have any relationships with men (other than sexual) or was he one of those "men are for fucking and women for dating" bisexuals?

Art is dead.

Willem de Kooning.

He was self absorbed in that NYC timeframe and didn't escape.

Art is profitized.

CRAYON

R167, he did seem to get emotionally involved with women far more than men. He had a several serious girlfriends, but Hoban's biography doesn't describe any serious boyfriends.

He treated most of the girlfriends like shit, though. He'd become fixated on certain women and love bomb them until they gave in, and then he'd go cold and cheat on them. They'd break up, and then he'd pursue them relentlessly until they came back to him, and then freeze them out again. The only one he didn't do this to is Madonna. who fucked him and dumped him for when the drama got too much. I sort of admire her for that.

I think Deborah Harry purchased his work, possibly one of the very first items he sold.

Since he died in 1988, it was probably a mind-fuck for him to see Madonna become a mega-rich superstar. They must have run into each other at some point after they broke up.

His work is valuable because collectors agree it is a valuable investment.

It is not Fine Art.

It's snake oil.

Does anyone remember the 60 Minutes piece from years ago where they took a bunch of children's paintings and hung them in a well respected art gallery? It was hysterical watching the art critics walking around praising them and looking for the deeper meaning of what the artist was trying to convey.

Art is subjective. If you look at a painting, a sculpture or a photograph and you like how it looks and how it makes you feel, then it's good art.

Yes, you could claim that a lot of fine art is snake oil. Not all of it, though. There are certain pieces anyone with a brain would look at and call a masterpiece, like Michelangelo's David.

[quote] At that point he was successful enough to afford the good materials for this work, and his furious drug habit fueled some truly powerful and inventive pieces.

In my opinion addicted artists and musicians do their best work when they are addicts. When they clean up their act their art/music is never as good

Madonna has always spoken very warmly of Basquiat, calling him one of the few people in the world she truly envied, because he was such a talented artist. She collects his work, I believe.

I wonder if Basquiat ever hung out with Gia Carangi? They were both regulars at places like the Mudd Club at around the same time period, though she burned out earlier than he did.

Interesting point, R180. I wonder if the drugs truly fueled the art, or if the effort it takes to stay sober saps them of the energy to create.

Though in Basquiat's case, he was never really sober, and never really tried to be. His drug habit grew so ferocious that it did kill his art, with him making the same repetitive shit over and over again to make enough money to keep himself in heroin and Armani suits. Only at the very end of his life did he make some pieces that rivaled his early work--an extinction burst of energy.

R181 hello to the Gia Carangi Stan, so nice of you to drop in!

Debbie Harry was the first person ever to pay for a Basquiat painting.

I'm not the Gia Carangi Stan, R184. Didn't even realize such a person exists.

Madonna was part of so many different artistic orbits.

Madonna sucked cock of so many different flavas.

The downtown NYC scene in late 70s/early 80s NYC has always fascinated me. Such a wild, creative period in the middle of a decaying city--like Paris in the 1920s, but with heroin and HIV. I wonder how many of the 'Downtown 500' are still alive? I know Madonna and Debi Mazar are still around, but drugs and AIDS must have picked off quite a few.

Still wouldn't buy one if I could

But ya can't Blanche, ya can't!

....

post more pix of his work that you love or hate, gurls. some of you posted great ones above.

R1: You know about the six degrees of separation right? I'm one degree from Keith Haring. I find that fascinating.

Ghoulish, glamorous deaths always add to market appeal.

I've always liked this one, though it's energy is so chaotic I wouldn't want to hang it in my house.

Flexible, 1984. The slats it's painted on really make the work.

R196 that is the darkest painting that I would never want in my house.

I agree it's very dark, R198, though I personally find Riding With Death and Drycell, both from the last year of his life (Drycell is actually his last authenticated painting) to have an even darker quality.

Drycell, in particular, creeps me right out. I can't quite explain why.