Basquiat: The Life and Death of an Art Star

by Phoebe Hoban

Book Overview

Details the talented painter's turbulent childhood, explosive dealings with the elite art world, relationships with such figures as Andy Warhol and Madonna, and rise to fame, which led to his death from a drug overdose at the age of twenty-seven.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670854778
• ISBN13: 9780670854776
• Release Date: August 1998
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 385 Pages
• Weight: 1.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Skilled

This is a thoroughly researched and complete work for the general reader. Hoban has magically gotten through to elusive and sometimes marginal subjects and interviewed them. She tells the familair story engagingly. Someday Basquiat's estate will be more cooperative with authors and we'll know more. There is still keen interest in Basquiat's creations; one wonders what the expiration date is, how enduring his work will be.

Highway Chile

"Painter Jean-Michel Basquiat was the Jimi Hendrix of the art world" so says the back cover of the Quick Killing in Art. They both died at 27. There are numerous comparisons - Hendrix even wrote a kind of epitaph for Jean in "Highway Chile": "I couldn't say what went through his mind/ Anyway, he left the world behind/ But everybody knows the same old story/ In love and war you can't lose glory." And so begins the complex art story of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Avant-Guard New York 1980's painter. A brilliant extremist, who was harbored or harassed by the biggest art dealers in New York. Once he even poured a jar of fruit and nuts on a buyer as she was leaving his studio. Once he served eels for lunch for his art dealer at the time. The message was clear There was one big difference between Jean and Jimi: the critics. Rock 'n Roll critics, a new breed in the 1960's loved Jimi. Art critics, a breed that has been around for hundreds of years, loved to tear Jean to pieces, or damn him with faint praise, or concentrated on his drug problems. They say Jean started his art career living in a cardboard box, painting graffiti, but the real story was he was a perpetual runaway kid starting at 15 and started up with a friend SAMO that sprayed painted aphorisms on walls next to or near art galleries. He sold t-shirts and postcards on the streets. His career painting started when he painted up a friend's refrigerator door. PS1, an art show that featured at least 20 other artists opened up his success, and it took off from there. So the line from Highway Chile reminds me of him too: "Now you'd probably call him a tramp/But I know it goes deeper than that/ He's a highway chile". Money and success didn't change this. Jean often used signals and signs of hobos in his art. "Nothing to be found here" "He came, he saw, he painted," author Hoban says in her concluding essay on Basquiat in the last chapter. He moved from art dealer to art dealer and famously never giving up his slacker/starving artist attitude "problem". Staring down people cold instead of saying hi back, smoking spliffs in front of their faces, and his addictions, that started way before he was famous and only got worse. Andy Warhol became Jean's mentor, and Jean was known to say, I put the painting brush back in Andy's hand, I did more for him than he did for me. They collaborated in a show, where one painting was painted over by the other. The critics hated the show, calling Jean "a mascot of the art world" Jean's love for Andy faltered, and the relationship fell out, much of this chronicled in the Warhol Diaries. Then Jean's drug habits, a heroin addict, again, a bad slacker/starving artist habit he never could shake. Jean was an addict in the Burroughs describes in Junky, "Junk isn't a kick, it's a way of life". Although his art career fell out, or seemed to, a few years before his died, I believe, in the end (the author doesn't state this) that he was suicidal, and bec

Phonebe Hoban is a great Basquiat expert

Phoebe Hoban has shown that she is a great Basquiat expert. She spent 7 years to do research for this book, and that is why the book is filled with credible interviews, comments and fascinating stories. She is so honest and decent, and she is not afraid of affending bad guys or anyone for that matter. She even named all those drug dealers who sold stuff to JMB. I solute and applause to her great effort. In the end of the book, she also did not forget to write her visit to JMB's mother who is apparently suffering from her fraigile psychological condition. The writer told us the vivid scence at her home. The writer asked us not to forget this: while JMB's father got millions dollars by inhariting the entire JMB fortune, his mother who has been long divorced from his father, Basquiat senior, has been living in absolute poverty. Lawyers, this is your chance to make it. Even if you do not have much good conscience, just think about the estimated value of the JMB estate - (now valued over $500 million !) you should go and and visit JMB's mother today and start sueing JMB estate which is run by JMB's father. (by the legal arrangement, each party has 50%) This is one thing JMB himself will be pleased.

Basquiat by Phoebe Hoban

It took me three years to finally had the courage to read this book. I was afraid it was another hype about Basquiat. I was there during the 70s when he was known as Samo. When he sold his painted sweat shirts in Patricia Fields, I was selling my silkscreen anckle socks in Capezio, @ just a minute down the block. I recall his half shaven head dancing in Reggae parties back in the days and I also remember talking to him one day in 1983, not having an idea of how famous he had gotten.Reading Ms Hoban's book I finally had a realistic glance at this dude we had the impression to know. It was an eye opener. I understood not only the man, ( being a Puerto Rican artist myself) but the color artist in the midst of that up-coming yuppy world of "radical chic" ( as Samo used to write on walls) This book is a social revelation about the 80s. What we learn about Basquiat should be enough for us to draw conclusions about the Artist. A typical "minority" freak stepping out of the 70s, influenced by Bill Burrough's evil and deceptive aura and encouraged by irresponsible upper middle class people without ethics or love for human kind. The book is clear and truly authentic. Filled with good faith for future generations to know the truth.

Almost as great as his art...

This book is an amazing view into the world that Jean-Michel lived in... It shows all his glories and his pitfalls and it shows how both equally "made" and "broke" him as an artist as a person. A few places were a little dry, but for the most part, the book was amazing and i was sad to see it end. Jean-Michel lived the "good" life and Hoban portrays all that he saw and did - almost from his eyes... A great read... even if you aren't a fan of Basquit.