Basquiat was gay
The best, worst, and weirdest parts of Warhol and Basquiat’s friendship
When the pop art icon Andy Warhol took the aspiring creator Jean-Michel Basquiat under his wing in the s, neither of them could have expected the intimate and turbulent relationship that would unfold between the two. In recent years, photographs of Warhol and Basquiat have resurfaced, but there have always been people who have criticised and questioned their friendship.
Now, a new book, Warhol and Basquiat, published by Taschen in collaboration with the Jean-Michel Basquiat Estate and the Andy Warhol Foundation, exposes the world to hundreds of never-before-published images taken by Warhol in the years that he knew Basquiat. Michael Dayton Hermann from the Andy Warhol Foundation selected these images from Warhol’s collection – accumulating over , photographs taken on his 35mm camera – and placed them alongside quotes from Warhol’s diary, giving “a voyeuristic glimpse” into the relationship between the two artists, for all it’s good, bad, and, at times, weirdness.
The novel has been released 32 years after Warhol’s death in , when Basquiat also sadly died from an overdose the following year. Spanning
The Jean-Michel Basquiat I knew…
It’s always tempting to mythologise the dead, especially those who die young and beautiful. And if the dead person is also astonishingly gifted, then the myth becomes inevitable. Jean-Michel Basquiat was just 27 when he died, in , a strikingly gorgeous young man whose stunning, genre-wrecking work had already brought him to international attention; who had in the space of just a few years morphed from an underground graffiti artist into a painter who commanded many thousands of dollars for his canvases.
So perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that everyone I talk to who knew Basquiat when he was alive, from girlfriends to collectors, musicians to painters, speaks about him as special. Still, it’s noticeable that they all do. Basquiat – even before he was known as an artist – was seen by his friends as exceptional.
“I knew when I met him that he was beyond the normal,” says player and film-maker Michael Holman, who founded the noise band Gray with Basquiat. “Jean-Michel had his faults, he was mischievous, he had certain things about him that could be called amoral, but setting that aside, he had something that I’m sure he had from the mo
Over the years I’ve been asked many times how it came to be that Jean-Michel Basquiat painted a portrait of me? Rarely have I ever spoken about this trial to anyone. It was just the two of us one night in his studio. On that night, a snowstorm had been threatening. If memory serves me correct it was on a Sunday night. A few nights previously, Jean-Michel and I had been out on the town socializing when he asked if I wanted to come by his studio? he said he wanted to sketch my portrait. When? I asked. Whenever’s good for you, I remember him saying. We were friends. This was not a big deal for either of us at the time. I held several jobs back then. Organism an artist’s model was just one of them. We set a date.
On the scheduled night, I made a stop at Linda Yablonsky’s and bought some heroin first. Linda was in good spirits when I arrived at her place on 6th Avenue near Prince. Glenn O’Brien was sitting there when I arrived at Linda’s. I casually mentioned that I was on my way to possess my portrait painted by Jean-Michel. Glenn said some disparaging remark about Jean-Michel and his unpopular developing relationship with Andy Warhol. Glenn O’Brien and Jean-Michel had once been quickly
A artistic-photolytic of Jean-Michel Basquiat by Paul Grant (follower of Basho)
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I am going through a Basquiat period right now. I am reading about him in a new book from Yale University Press :: Ambition & Love in Modern American Art by Jonathan Weinberg. Then follwed up with the only Biography I coud discover of him byPhoeb Hoban : Basquiat - A quick Killing in Art.
I have never really liked Basquiat's work. I first read about him in Andy Warhol's diaries and had the suspicion that Warhol had a sexual crush on the juvenile black man.
Basquiat was a bi-sexual. His first sexual encounters were gay, and as a teenager he ofter worked as a gay street hustler. Though later in his being he had many legendary and infamous relations with woman, including Maddona.
Andy Warhol was a closeted homosexual.
Warhol chose to partner up with Basquiat over Keith Harring among other up and comming artist. Harring who was also in the Warhol circle at the time - but was openly gay.
The two, Warhol and Basquiat did a series of painting together. Warhol started, usually with a corporate logo, and Basquiat would paint on top of Warhol's work. Apparently Basquiat would have to urge Warhol to add
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