Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Painter Jean-Michel Basquiat was the Jimi Hendrix of the art world: in less than a decade he went from being a teenage graffiti writer to an international art star; he was dead of a drug overdose at age twenty-seven. Phoebe Hoban's Basquiat, the first biography of this charismatic figure, charts the trajectory from the artist's troubled childhood to his volatile passage through the white art world of dealers and nouveau-riche collectors, chronicling the meteoric success and overnight burnout that made him an instant art-world myth. As much the portrait of an era as the portrait of an artist, Basquiat is an incisive expose of the eighties art market that paints a vivid picture of the rise and fall of the graffiti movement, the East Village art scene, and the out-of-control auction houses. Ten years after the artist's death, Basquiat resurrects both the painter and his time.

SYNOPSIS

Painter Jean-Michel Basquiat was the Jimi Hendrix of the art world. This biography charts his trajectory from his troubled childhood to his volatile passage through the mostly white world of art dealers and nouveau riche collectors.

FROM THE CRITICS

Patricia Bosworth

The book [is] compulsively readable. There is enormous value in it, especially in Hoban's depiction of the glitzy 1980's art world, which is sharply etched and deadly accurate. She describes a place where sex, imagination and intelligence have been so brutalized by greed and celebrity the cumulative effect is numbing. -- NY Times Book Review

Margot Mifflin

Hoban probes Basquiat's fame-fixated psychology. . .and that of the crassly commercial, plainly racist art community that lionized and abandoned him. -- Entertainment Weekly

Publishers Weekly

Hoban's background as a journalist shows in the fast-paced, reportorial style with which she presents the life and times of the 1980s art world "phenom," painter Jean-Michael Basquiat. Half-Haitian, half-Puerto Rican, Basquiat grew up in Brooklyn as the son of a middle-class accountant. At constant odds with a father friends described as "strict" and "self-absorbed," he became a drug-soaked denizen of the East Village, painting the city's walls with his graffiti tag, SAMO. How he turned his skills at wordplay and fragmented imagery into a career that captivated the international art scene before dying of a heroin overdose at the age of 27 becomes the focus of this accessible, frequently entertaining book. Those who peopled that scene, from gallery owner Mary Boone to Andy Warhol and Madonna, receive ample coverage here, as do the downtown New York clubs he frequented and the upscale European suites he trashed. Throughout, Hoban makes a strong case that racism marred the life of the dreadlocked artist in paint-spattered Armani suits. What's missing is any analysis of the degree to which Basquiat's enormous drug consumption (ca. 100 bags of heroin a day at the end) contributed to his imagery, especially the gap-toothed skulls he splayed across ragged expanses of bright colors. Basquiat died intestate, which ultimately meant that his father, Gerard, became executor. Although there are eight pages of photos (not seen by PW), Hoban could not get permission to reproduce works for her unauthorized biography and the lack is sorely felt. Editor: Paul Slovak. (Aug.) FYI: August 12 will be the 10th anniversary of Basquiat's death.

Library Journal

This first, unauthorized biography of the most monetarily successful black American artist--a master painter and wordsmith--is sorely needed. Jean-Michel Basquiat, initially known by the graffiti tag "SAMO," tragically lived a mere 27 years (1960-88). Son of a Haitian father and a mother of Puerto Rican extraction, he was recognized internationally as a young genius of the Eighties contemporary art scene. Hoban, a New York Times columnist, provides vivid material derived mostly from countless interviews conducted after the artist's death. Basquiat's mesmerizing charisma and sexuality accentuated a catastrophic lifestyle. Real creative talent overshadowed the fact that the enfant terrible was constantly high, fueled by massive quantities of drugs. Yet he remained able to produce dozens of masterpieces and hundreds of works with both strengths and weaknesses. A fine tale of a talented young man, this is also recommended for its commentary on the decade when art in New York was so wide-open a victim of commerce.--Mary Hamel-Schwulst, Towson Univ., MD

Alissa Lara Quart

In Basquiat: A Quick Killing In Art, the paintings of the 1980s art star are mere set dressing for his overripe life. The book casts him as an unbearably charismatic coke-headed fl￯﾿ﾽneur. Although he was defined by celebrity in his lifetime, Basquiat was clearly more than the sum of his own glitz. He was the first black American artist to achieve international art stardom. His large body of work skillfully conjoined expressionism and graffiti art -- found poems with erased words and quotes, icons of boxers and fathers and policemen, scatty anatomies, delicate if occasionally loosey-goosey markmaking. In this biography, however, writer Phoebe Hoban seems to forget that it was Basquiat's painting and not the hole that cocaine made through his nose that drew an audience to him.

An accountant's son from Brooklyn, he got his start tagging SAMO ("Same old shit") on the Brooklyn Bridge. By age 20 his painting and his identity were embedded in a "natural genius" narrative, his handlers the likes of Henry Geldzahler, Annina Nosei, Larry Gagosian and Andy Warhol. The biography cites the condescension and subtle racism that imbued some of Basquiat's relationships with the gallerists; he simply wasn't one of them. Hoban quotes Larry Gagosian's memory of meeting Basquiat: "I was surprised to see a black artist and particularly one that was -- you know -- with the hair. I was taken aback by it, and kind of put off."

Hoban doesn't follow up on this crucial matter, however, contenting herself with ladling out La Dolce Vita anecdotes. There's Jean-Michel's sex life. As critic Rene Ricard says, "His life was sex. He was into everything. He was a whore. He had turned tricks." Basquiat had many neglected lovers and as many cases of gonorrhea. There's "big plush blonde" Tina Lhotsky, who remembers their ur-East Village courtship ritual. They were two strangers, Basquiat offering one of his bagful of hamburgers to the girl in operatic makeup and a spiky bouffant. Another lover, Madonna, was perhaps more fascinated with him than he was with her. She played the vixen despite her sentimental attachment. Even 1998's fop Vincent Gallo chimes in with his admiring memories of Basquiat's signature paint-splattered Armani suits.

Basquiat was painting in Armani while his paintings sold extraordinarily well. A chunk of these sales were spent on heroin, however. By the time he overdosed at age 27, he and his painting had become self-parodies. The book continues its gossipy, breathy tone as Basquiat decays. We read the unexpurgated story of his nightmarish $300-a-day habit, including the junk mirages and the scabs on his face. By this time, some readers might find that this biography's talking heads -- gabby big-ticket art dealers, Jim Jarmusch actors and self-lacerating ex-girlfriends -- have become annoying.