American Masters (1985–…): Season 32, Episode 8 - Basquiat: Rage to Riches - full transcript

♪♪

- Jean-Michel was going to make
things happen

in the creative space
by any means necessary.

- He was this kid that had taken
New York by storm.

♪♪

- His work that's just screaming
revolutionary intentions.

- I had never seen a black artist

with this kind of
unbelievable talent

and unbelievable charisma.

- You should have this image
of me, you know,

- wild monkey man... whatever...
- Whatever the...



- There was a lot of resentment,
there was a lot of envy,

and it definitely had
a racist edge to it.

- Whether one regards themselves
as an artist

or a black artist it never stops
being complicated.

- $69 million.

- We are going to produce him,
we are going to market him.

- I'm selling on this side of
the room, it's Yuki's bid,

a fair warning.

- We are going to
cannibalize him.

- It's selling for $98 million.

Thank you, Yuki,
congratulations!

- As his sister,
almost 38 years later,

I continue to be saddened
by the fact that

my brother is isn't still here.



I think if you want to know

what there is to know
about John-Michel,

the place to go is to his work.

♪♪

- Of course there is, yeah,
of course there is.

- I dunno.

- You are on top of the world.

I mean, I like the way,
you know,

here we're doing... we're doing
some work together

and you paint out...
Paint me out.

- What have I painted you out?
Where?

- Everything I've done you have
painted me out.

- Where? Where?

- Just... where?

♪♪

- What's your earliest,
most vivid childhood memory?

- Probably getting hit by a car,
I guess.

- How'd that happen?
- I was playing on the street.

- How old were you?
- I was 7... 7 or 8 years old.

- We lived in Brooklyn,
we lived in Flatbush,

and Jean-Michel was playing
outside when he was 7

with a group of friends—
They were playing stick ball.

My mother asked me to go out
and get him for dinner,

which I did.

He came
running across the street,

forgot something,
and turned around to go back.

As he was running across
the street,

a car came around the corner.

♪♪

He was in the hospital
for a really, really long time.

One of the gifts that my mother
brought to him

was the book "Gray's Anatomy."

She wanted him to have the
opportunity to see his own body,

as it related to the way
it had to be reconstructed.

His spleen was removed.

♪♪

It was a book that was highly
influential for him.

- My father played music from
the moment that he came home

from work until he went to bed,

and he played
all different genres.

Jazz was a big influence,

but he also played classical
and Donna Summer...

- ♪ If I had to ♪

- Our mum took us to museums.

- For the school children
of Brooklyn,

these visits to the museum are
creating an awareness of art

and its development through
the centuries.

- ♪ Just a breath ago would all
come true ♪

- Jean-Michel
was our older brother.

- ♪ If I had you ♪

- He was incredibly mischievous.

- ♪ If I had a man like you ♪

- He was incredibly creative,
he always drew.

- ♪ Man like you, baby ♪

- You don't envision that your
brother would be famous,

but it is always something that
he felt that he would be.

- I also believe that his
creative influence just came

from inside, I think he just
came here in that way.

♪♪

- The City looked big,
and I felt big,

'cause that was part of
the landscape, I'm an artist.

When you tell people that,
they usually say,

"What's your medium?"

And I usually say,
"Extra-large."

- Jean-Michel left home because
he had something that was

burning inside of him,

he did whatever he needed to do
in order to be a painter,

in order to be an artist
and in order to express himself,

and I think it takes
a tremendous amount of balls

to do that.

♪♪

- New York City from the mid '70s
up to the early '80s

was a creative paradise.

♪♪

- New York was falling apart,
going bankrupt;

the straight people
were all leaving,

so all the crazy artists
flocked here.

- The time was electric,

anything felt possible.

- Very inexpensive rents.

I was able to live for
$80 a month.

At that time graffiti was
emerging from Bronx and Brooklyn

on the trains
and walls and all over.

- The thing about
graffiti writers,

we were trying to
spread our names,

just as broad
and as wild as, um,

some soft drink was advertising.

♪♪

- Like, almost everyone who was
living downtown

in the late 1970s,

we were intrigued by

the remarkable conceptual
graffiti of Samo.

- I thought, "This must be
a street philosopher,

somebody who's writing multiple
choice questions on the wall

asking profound questions
about values."

- Samo was everywhere,

it was on all of the buildings.

We...

I was... I was thrilled by it.

- There was a lot of conversation
downtown,

"Who is Samo?"

People claim to have seen Samo.

- I first met Jean-Michel
in the fall of '76.

Because that's when I first went
to City-As-School.

Me and Jean-Michel
and other students that were

interested in writing created
a high school newspaper,

and Jean-Michel wrote
a brilliant essay

about a, um, ideal religion

that just filled all the needs,
and he named it "Samo."

Samo was part of the slang back
then where you would hear

an elderly black guy talking to
each other and say,

"Hey, what's up?"

And that the other guy would
answer, "Samo, Samo."

As... in other words, the same
old shit, or the same old thing,

whatever, and that's really
where we borrowed that from,

that's absolutely where we
borrowed it from.

Me being the graffiti artist.
I liked that format,

and we... we started to write
Samo's using that format.

And then then it became like,
Samo, as an alternative to God,

so now it was this thing.

- The history of really
significant artists

who got through education
is pretty checkered.

Basquiat dropped out of school
so they could get busy

and do his thing
and learn on the job.

Think there was a very
self-conscious dimension

to what he did, you know...
He didn't do Samo,

his tag line graffiti,

he didn't do it just any place,
he did it real close to SoHo.

- It was a successful hype...
Hype project.

- It is a canal zone and its
happening here now.

If you've lost you can find
yourself right here, right now

in the canal zone.

I-first met Jean-Michel Basquiat
April 29, 1979.

It was the night of
the canal zone party,

thrown by myself, a British
artist named Stan Peskett

and Fatboy Freddy.

It was called Canal Zone,
it was kind of our first

SoHo/downtown party.

- We were going to have a party
that would introduce

aerosol graffiti artists
from uptown

to the downtown fine art scene.

- ♪ Lookin' down on
the poor and the needy ♪

- Jean-Michel showed up,
he was Samo at the time,

he was known as Samo.

- Jean-Michel came out of
the shadows,

I didn't know who he was,

he said, "I would like to do
something as well,"

and I said sure, and I put
the spray can in his hand,

"There's a wall... do it."

It was magic, suddenly
everybody... crowd went crazy.

- All of a sudden someone...
I hear voices,

very excited, and I walk over
and I see someone

spray painting on the wall.

- He did one of his multiple
choice Samos.

- It was like,
"Oh, my God, this is Samo!"

- Samo, come on you have seen it
on the walls, everyone,

especially on the buildings,
this gentleman right here

is Samo.

- Nobody knew who Samo was.

He was totally enigmatic;
it was like a Banksy figure.

♪♪

- And I immediately ran over

and grabbed his arm and I said,

"I have been looking for you."

And he looked at me and he liked
the most beautiful smile.

He said, "You have?!"
And I said, "Yes!"

And he said,
"Well, why are you here?"

And I said, "I live here."

When we went into my room

I had books and music
that he knew and loved,

and it was,
it's like an automatic pass.

I used to take baseball cards

and paint them with Wite-Out,

paint the faces out... he really
liked what I was doing.

Plus I had a room.

We were teenagers, we clicked,

and that was amazing.

And he said, "I want to make
postcards with you."

We went to photo booths
and got our picture taken,

and, like, I would do something
and then he would come

and do it, and we get to a point
where we both agreed,

"Okay, that's really good,
let's use that."

We were going out on the street,
we did it every day,

and we would make, you know,
sometimes we'd make, like, $15,

and that was a bonanza.

- ♪ I used to hurry, hurry ♪

- He would shave his head on
the street with a razor,

people would be like,
"Oh, my God, what is that?"

- ♪ No, I don't believe in luck ♪

- We would come out of
Jamie Canvass,

after making another bunch of
color Xerox's,

and we're walking down
the street, talking,

and Jean-Michel looks in
the window

of this brand-new restaurant
called WPA

and sees Andy Warhol
and Henry Geldzahler

sitting at a table.

- ♪ Fancy meeting you here ♪

- Jean-Michel grabs my arm
and says,

"Oh, my God, its Andy."

And I was like, "Oh, my God."

He said, "You stay here,
they're fags."

He goes in,

comes back out after 10 minutes,

I'm waiting out on the sidewalk,

and I said, "What took so long?"

He said, "Well, they only had
a five

and they needed to get change
of the five."

And I said,
"How many did they buy?"

"Two."
So they brought one that said

"Stupid Games Bad Ideas,"

and another one that was color
Xerox of a pair of sunglasses

that we had splattered
Wite-Out on and re-Xeroxed.

He loved Andy,

and to meet him in person was,
I think,

a really important moment
for him.

- It was like, "Oh, my God,
you not only met him,

but he actually bought something
for you, he purchased?

This is amazing."

Andy was like our hero figure,

he redefined what the role of
an artist could be.

- Say, "Cheese."

- ♪ I, yes, I can tell ♪

- He had told me that he sold
a postcard to Andy Warhol,

and he was really excited,

I began to understand that
he wanted fame,

he really wanted fame.

Probably, you know,
in the same week,

he goes on the Glenn O'Brien
show and as Samo,

and he, so now he's become Samo.

I mean, it was us,

and now he had become
the face for Samo.

- Tonight we are lucky enough to
have with us

probably the most
language-oriented of all

graffiti artists in New York,
Samo.

And his associate—
- Samo, it's Mr. Samo.

- Samo.
- It's my personal secretary.

- Sorry, Mr. Samo,
well, you know,

you see it written on the walls
and you don't know

how to pronounce it.

And do you write something
different every time,

or do you write the, you know...

- I have written the same thing
before and just it all depends,

you know, like,
how inspired I feel.

- At a certain point, you saw
graffiti, "Samo is Dead."

- So Jean, you know,

here he is killing Samo,

'cause he is the only one that
ever wrote Samo was dead.

I never wrote Samo is dead.

And as a result it,
it damaged our relationship.

That was the point where
Jean-Michel began to

assert himself as the artist
Jean-Michel Basquiat.

- I never went to an art school,

I failed at art courses
that I did take at school.

Um...

I just looked... I just looked
at a lot of things,

and that's what...

And that's where I think I
learned about art,

by looking at it.

♪♪

- When we met in the late '70s,

one of the things that made us
become really good friends

is we... we both spent a lot of
time going to museums

as young kids.

♪♪

And somehow or other,
the idea popped up, like,

let's start a museum club.

And Wednesday was the day when
we would hop in a cab

and head up to
the Metropolitan Museum.

♪♪

♪♪

Jean-Michel and I would often
act like we were art students

when we would come here...

We would have our little
sketch pads.

Acting like we were sketching.

These are all school of
Caravaggio by the way.

Young black man in the painting
up there, nice.

Caravaggio's just so great...

Me and Jean-Michel talked about
this— we, like, we dug him,

and, uh, we did some reading
about him,

and the fact that he, liked,
carried a sword

was pretty bad boy
for that time period, you know,

like, you see it in movies
people would carry a sword,

you would just think
it was a regular thing.

But if you carried a sword
you were gangster,

you... you had the...
You carried it

'cause you knew
you were going to use it,

or you were not afraid to
use it.

So, some real bad boy business
going on.

- ♪ Wax the tracks,
a terminator ♪

- This guy invented
creative lighting;

it's just amazing, you know?

The artist growing, light to
dark baby, simple,

simple stuff, basic stuff.

♪♪

This is Autumn Rhythm, so this
is a really famous Pollock,

and I remember Jean and I
looking at it,

appreciating it, and also
talking about the fact that

at this time in the early '50s

when these paintings
were being made,

Jackson Pollock's studio was in
the, um, in the Village,

and he was going to jazz clubs,

and this is something that is
not often talked about,

the fact that the abstract
expressionists

were developing at the same time

as Bebop music and the
improvisational nature

that was going on in there.

Because of the racism at that
time a lot of critics

and art historians wouldn't
really elaborate on the fact

that, I mean, you can see
the improvisational going on,

and, like, I remember
Jean-Michel and I

talking about that right here
in this building.

I remember talking to Jean about
how the insides of

the subway cars at that time
were just glitzed with tag

over tag over tag,
there was an unmistakable

connection between Pollock
and, interestingly,

this Franz Kline over
my shoulder, like,

that broad brush stroke,
that calligraphic energy,

it was just crazy, undeniable,
you know>

Ah, man.

♪♪

This is cool... like, I
remember, um,

me and Jean would come here,
the museum club, you know,

we had to talk about Pablo,
but what was really interesting

particularly with this piece,
you could see the cubist period

had unleashed, and that whole
period was a breakout moment,

when Picasso got hip to what
Africans were doing

and how they were
depicting the imagery.

♪♪

It just broke the whole mold of
European artists trying to

recreate exactly how the image
looked, perspective,

all that kind of stuff,
just smashed the game,

broke it wide open, once again,

that African influence,
you know,

you need to recognize,
baby, from the motherland.

♪♪

Dora Maar, you know,

she was a hot one.

Can't you tell

♪♪

- Back on the street again,

the Lower East Side,

it looked like a war zone,

like we dropped the bomb
on ourselves.

And it was okay.

- The star of "Downtown 81"
is Jean-Michel Basquiat.

♪♪

And it's not a documentary
like a lot of people think,

it's a fairytale of what our
life was back then.

- Come on, let me see
your painting.

- It's a story of a struggling
artist who goes around the city

to sell his artwork
to pay the rent.

- This is really nice.
- Thanks.

- You have to realize that he
really didn't have money

and no job, and we, um,

bought him a lot of canvass

and we needed that painting
for the story.

And so the first paintings
he did were really for

the purpose of the film.

- Hey, man,
that's private property.

- Hey-hey, my man,
I'm a tax payer,

I can paint
anywhere I want to paint.

- They chose to focus on
Jean-Michel as the kind of

star of this movie,

and we all had little scenes
and cameo scenes

in this little snapshot
of the world we lived in.

- He's serious, man.
You wanna check him out.

- The pre-gentrified, gritty,
grimy, extra-fun New York City.

- ♪ Fab Five is in the house ♪

♪ And Jean-Michel
is in the house ♪

- I met Jean-Michel Basquiat
in 1981,

he was working on
"Downtown 81," the film,

so he told me he was living in
the production offices

for the film, which was
a storefront somewhere.

He very quickly moved into
my apartment.

It just happened.

I don't feel
entirely responsible.

He, um...

just moved in.

- ♪ The two of us together ♪

- We both were bi-ethnic,
bi-cultural...

I'm half Palestinian
and half English,

he was half Puerto Rican
and half Haitian.

We both had very authoritarian,
proud fathers

that were tough.

- ♪ Well, don't you feel it ♪

- He stuttered a little.

His mom had been
institutionalized,

and that was a very sad point
for him,

and it made him terribly sad
to tell me.

And he would stutter even more
when he talked about her.

♪♪

- I had come from Canada
at the age of 20,

to the East Village,
to be an artist.

♪♪

- Hey, man.
- Hey, man.

All right.

- Every artist, whatever you
were,

you were also in a band,

you had to be... if you weren't
in a band you were, like, lame.

♪♪

Jean-Michel Basquiat
made this decision

that we were going to start
a band.

And we were just jumping around
with names,

and we really weren't sure
what it was.

And then one day,
Jean stops and says,

"I know the name now.

Gray."

I believe the reason that it was
spelled with an "A" was,

named after "Gray's Anatomy,"
which was a book that was

very inspiring for
Jean-Michel Basquiat,

because as a young child he was
hit by a car.

- And the music he made
with Gray,

the collage aesthetic,
is there whether he was doing

music or he's doing poetry,
or whether he is doing painting.

♪♪

- Jean-Michel was painting or
drawing constantly.

♪♪

There was a drive there that
I've never really seen before.

At that time there were a lot of
burned-out buildings

in the East Village.

He couldn't afford art supplies,

so he would bring things
from the street.

He would bring doors,
wooden doors,

from these burned-out buildings,

and he would paint on that.

♪♪

We would get in arguments,

I was the one working
and supporting both of us,

and he wasn't contributing.

He would always
answer my concerns

with the reassurance that he
would be famous very soon,

and wealthy, and that he would
look after me,

and that would end the argument.

I mean, what could I say?

- ♪ Rapture ♪

- The first painting that he sold
was to Debbie Harry

from Blondie for $200.

- ♪ Fab Five Freddie told me
everybody's fly ♪

♪ DJ's spinnin',
I said my, my ♪

- And that was a lot of money to
us at that point,

so we went out to dinner in
a Chinese restaurant

on Second Avenue and...
Just an ordinary restaurant,

but this was a real treat for us
because we were so poor.

It was very special and he was
so happy and so proud.

- ♪ And then you're in
the man from Mars ♪

- And Jean-Michel is in
the video, yeah.

I had wanted Grand Master Flash
to come and be in the video

for the part when she starts
rapping, she mentions me,

"Fab Five Freddy told me
everybody's fly,"

and she says,
"DJ's spinning, Flash is fast,"

Flash didn't believe I really
knew them at the time,

so he never showed up,
so Jean-Michel was there,

I was like, yo, put Jean-Michel
at the turntables.

- ♪ Fab Five Freddy told me
everybody's fly ♪

♪ DJ's spinnin',
I said, my-my ♪

♪♪

- I saw the first works that
Basquiat showed.

♪♪

It was a show called
"New York/New Wave,"

where Diego Cortez
was the driving force

and the main curator...
That was 1981.

Basquiat was given
the main wall.

- How do you envision the future
here for these artists?

Do you think that a lot of them
are professionals, or, uh...

- I don't really worry about
the word,

I haven't worried about the word
"professionals."

I mean the important thing to me
is building a sociology

of elements that depict
the scene.

♪♪

- I went to P.S.1 because I
wanted to see

artists of New York.

♪♪

The work of Jean-Michel,
paintings,

they were particularly
sophisticated.

♪♪

What interested me
in his work immediately,

they were a new visual language.

♪♪

- I was Andy Warhol's dealer
in exclusivity

after 1965.

♪♪

This painting was in the show of
New York/New Wave,

and one of the biggest painting
I think was this,

showing, uh, a cityscape
of New York,

of the two World Trade towers,

and on the top I think its
an inventive type of writing,

it reminds me a little bit,
I said, of works by Twombly.

♪♪

♪♪

- ♪ No, I don't believe
in luck ♪

♪♪

- I didn't ask him to be in
my gallery,

he asked me to be in my gallery.

And I said, "But my next group
show doesn't have

anything to do with your work,
why, because it’s called

Public Address," and he said,
"No, on the contrary,

I fit in it."

He defended his point in a way
that was extremely sophisticated

for his age.

He was so strong,
the works that represented,

so I decided that
the second part of the gallery

was completely for him.

- I walked over to Annina's
gallery, a couple of blocks from

my loft, and I walked in to
the last room

in Annina's gallery...

♪♪

Literally my hair stood up
on my neck,

it was... it just had
an electrifying impact on me.

The one that is called The Skull
is almost anatomical,

but also fierce eyes,
the perspective,

the color, the intensity,
just incredibly powerful.

♪♪

And I saw, I think,
four or five paintings,

♪♪

Annina at that point came out
to greet me,

and I said, "Wow, how much are
these paintings?

If you'll allow me to I'll buy
three of them."

With the discount probably cost
me about $9,000

for the three of them.

She said, "Would you like to
meet the artist?"

I just bought three paintings,
I said, "Absolutely."

I thought I was going to meet
some old French guy

when I heard the name.

And then I see this black guy
sitting in her office,

with hair like, you know, if you
have seen the photographs,

and literally
paint stained jeans,

and smoking a big fat joint.

Right off the bat there was
a rapport between us.

♪♪

- Coming out of minimalism
in its grids,

this next generation...
Jean-Michel, great example of,

blew that all up.

- And he didn't have any place to
make a lot of paintings,

so he started to paint them in
my basement downstairs.

♪♪

- He was very productive,

and it was like he had
a 9 to 5 job

that was very interesting...

He would wake up
early in the morning

and go there and then come home
around 5 or 6.

- I had a job at a gallery called
Sperone Westwater Fischer.

On my lunch hour,
Jean would say,

"I'm painting in this basement,
come visit."

- Jean would talk about
Franz Kline or,

or even Robert Motherwell,

people that I was kind of amazed
that he even knew about

since he hadn't been
to art school.

Jean was in awe of Cy Twombly
and would talk about Cy Twombly.

I said, "Jean, you know
Cy Twombly is staying in

the apartment at the gallery
where I work."

"I want to meet him,
I want to meet him now...

Can you take me there?"

I said, "Yeah, sure I can,

I have the keys to the apartment
let's go meet him."

So we walked over to the gallery
and, you know,

knocked on the apartment door,
this was during gallery hours.

Cy Twombly opens his door.

I said, "Cy, this is
Jean-Michel Basquiat,

he really wants to meet you,
he's a big fan of yours."

And Jean was beginning to enter
the apartment

when one of the partners
came up and said,

"How did he get here?
Get him out now.

Why is he here?"

And I said,
"Well, he wants to meet Cy."

And, "No, no, no, no, that's not
going to happen.

Now, I want... Brett, I want you
to get him out immediately.

Did he take anything?"

♪♪

- The word got out in the art
world very quickly

that there was a genius working
in Annina's basement.

- But, Jean-Michel, just hold on,

I think I have to ask you,

is this collage?

- Slave auction.
Slave auction.

In America,
with the tobacco trade.

- And this is a complete irony,
you put a halo on top.

- He's the martyr, he's like dead
you know?

♪♪

This is like the boat, you know,
this is a boat,

the boat that brings the...
you know?

And he's like, "Well, how much
do I get for the slave here,

how much is...
How much do I get for...

$50 for the slave," you know?

- And these are all those...
- These are people that are

bidding on the slaves,
that's another slave.

♪♪

- People hear
it was a kind of dungeon.

♪♪

- There were all these pictures

and rumors that she would keep
him locked in the basement

to make paintings.

- You know, for being in prison,
with a skylight two windows,

that is kind of nice.

♪♪

- The story that you're always
being locked in the basement

and ordered to paint?

Uh...

That's just, uh...

It has a nasty edge to it,
you know?

I was never locked anywhere.

I mean..
Oh, Christ...

Oh, no, it's just, if I was
white they would just say,

"Artist in residence," rather
that say all the other stuff.

- I didn't see any chains in
Annina's basement

when he worked there,

that he seemed to be thriving,
although he was interrupted

a lot of times when, you know,
they would bring Mick Jagger

down to look and buy paintings
from him.

- I told him, look, like, I know
what's going on,

this is a good spot to work,

he didn't have an adequate
studio space at that time,

but, um, I definitely told him,

I think you should raise up
out of here.

- I said, "I will help you to
rent an apartment,"

which I did in Crosby Street,

and I will pay the rent,

which I will take out of the
sales, which is what I did.

I gave him 50% of whatever
I sold.

You know if I sold a painting
for $10,000 I gave him $5,000.

♪♪

- In the period of 1981 to
1982...

♪♪

Jean-Michel
was incredibly productive.

♪♪

Perhaps 250 paintings...

At least 500 drawings.

♪♪

He almost always had music on
when he was working,

it was just very intuitive.

♪♪

He would work on several
paintings at one time.

It was like a dance.

It was almost like he was
channeling something.

♪♪

- He did many paintings,

one after another, beautiful.

♪♪

- In the structure of these
paintings there was

a direct connection to
New Wave music.

Seeming chaos that you hear
in the best New Wave music

Jean-Michel is able to
articulate in the structure

of his paintings.

♪♪

They reflect a deep
understanding of

avant-garde writing and poetry,

the cut-up technique of
William Burrows,

to slice up and reconstitute
writing into this new structure.

♪♪

- The zeitgeist was out there
on the street.

- ♪ The finesse of the West,
the masterpiece of the East ♪

- The hip-hop community was
bringing artist flash of

the spirit, you know, with all
this color and movement

and kind of breaking the form.

Jean-Michel was also trying to
channel that energy

of his generation
into his canvasses

and into these gallery spaces.

- ♪ We're the earl of the world,
and the air of flair ♪

- I believe the image of
the crown brings

a certain amount of royalty
and regalness to Jean-Michel.

- ♪ Get back 'cause your wax... ♪

- It's a pretty good crown he has
got in there, huh?

You know, the crown was
a significant part of

early graffiti... you would put
a crown over your name

if you felt you were worthy.

Jean would get a good kick out
of that guy's crown.

- ♪ Get back 'cause your wax are
tracks a terminator ♪

- Jean-Michel's work lays out

so many of these
essential innovations

in the structure of art, music
and writing

at the end of the '70s,
beginning of the '80s.

- I never know how to, really,
describe it,

so maybe I don't know; I don't
know how to describe my work.

It's like asking somebody,
you know...

Asking Miles,
"How does your horn sound?"

You know? I don't think he could
really tell you, you know?

Why... why he played, you know...

Why he plays this at this point
in the music, or, you know,

just... it's sort of on
automatic, you know,

most of the time.

- What this work had was
an astonishing directness,

but part of the discourse
around the work

was this unfortunate
primitivist interpretation.

♪♪

- He was a sophisticated
New York City kid,

and it was part of the myth of
the noble savage

of the, you know,
the raw talent...

What it allowed certain people
to do was then to

throw up their hands in wonder
and say,

here is this miracle artist,
we never expected anybody

coming from where he comes from
to be this good.

The term primitive
is purely racist.

♪♪

- Annina proceeded to offer
Jean-Michel

his first solo New York
gallery show

in February 1982.

♪♪

- Everyone was just over the moon

when they saw the work
in that show at Annina's.

Everything sold out immediately.

It just kind of all took off
all at once.

It was just everything that
he had dreamed off.

- I'm just happy that I was able
to stick it out and then,

you know, and then get things
I wanted, you know,

after...

I felt like I was right,
you know what I mean?

- All of a sudden we went from
total poverty

to having so much money that we
didn't know what to do with it.

There was money
all over the house, hidden,

thousands of dollars because
he didn't have a bank account.

We would have lavish parties,

with caviar, with Cristal
champagne, with cocaine.

- When everyone in the art world
starts looking at you,

with expectations,

you have to produce.

Drugs helped him, I think to
work harder and longer hours,

and simultaneously,
it made his mind free.

It might have helped him to have
more endurance during the work.

- Collectors were coming to
the loft to look at the work

before it was even finished,

and it was very frustrating
because often they would want

the painting to match
their couch.

- There were these collectors who
came in and brought him

a bucket of
Kentucky Fried Chicken.

And he was so insulted
that he told them basically,

"Get out, get out now, I'm not
selling anything to you,"

and as they left— he was on
the second floor,

he took this bucket of chicken
and went over

and dumped it on the heads of
these people leaving his studio.

♪♪

- And then he would start writing
not for sale on the paintings.

He was very happy
that he was selling his work,

but he was also very put off

about the work
being a commodity.

He struggled with that dichotomy
throughout his whole life.

- I said, "Annina, if it is
at all possible,

I would love to do a show of
Basquiat's paintings

in my gallery in L.A.,"
which I'd recently opened

in West Hollywood.

So, I bought
first class tickets...

I can afford first class,

so I'm not going to sit in
first class and have the artist

sit in the back of the bus.

He had friends that were going
to fly out with him.

Standing out in the group
was Rammellzee,

who had on a white leather
trench coat

that was tagged
all over the place,

and he had ski goggles on,

and that is how he walked into
first class.

We went up the spiral staircase
to this lounge,

and first thing Basquiat does
is pulls out a big fat joint

and just lights it up.

The gal that was, you know,
there to take our drink order,

she was, like, flabbergasted,
she...

She says, "You can't"...
She kind of stammered out,

you know, I mean...

And he looked up...
This was typical Jean-Michel...

He looked up at her calmly
and he says,

"Oh, I'm sorry,
I thought this was first class."

♪♪

You know, it was a long time
ago, but I'll never forget it.

And, anyway, we got there,
we didn't get arrested,

got to L.A. in one piece.

♪♪

- Jean-Michel arrived,

and he walks in a room
like a rock star.

You know, with his hair
and his outfits.

- It was just packed.
The opening was just packed.

It was a great turnout.

The word was out that this was
a gifted artist,

and also a charismatic artist.

- I'm filming him in the opening,
that's his first show in L.A.

♪♪

I was going to L.A. City
College,

which is like the local
city college for film.

And so, I was doing that
and then working in the gallery.

Because I always had a camera in
my hand, he's like,

"You should make a movie
about me."

And I was like, you know,
whatever, like,

"Yeah, you are going to be a
famous artist one day, why not?"

- One canvass, he called it
the L.A. painting...

It was his anticipation of what
L.A. was like.

It almost had like Chicano
graffiti on it,

and, uh, blue sky...
Extraordinary painting.

♪♪

He was a part of the jet set
at that point,

after going to Los Angeles
with Gagosian

and then going all over Europe

and starting to get shows
in France, in Germany in Tokyo.

At that point he started to say
to me,

"Brett, you've got to earn
some more money

so we can hang together."

- He was 21 and he was

very well on his way to becoming
a millionaire

from his art.

He would take limousines because
taxis wouldn't stop for him.

♪♪

- I'd never seen a black artist

with this kind of
unbelievable talent,

and unbelievable charisma.

There was a lot of resentment,
there was a lot of envy,

and it definitely had
a racist edge to it.

I remember there was an artist
who I was friendly with,

and he had gone for
a dinner party

at a collector's house,
and I said,

"Well, what's
their collection like?"

He says, "They have a really
great collection, Larry."

He said,
"The thing that fucks it up

is they've got a Basquiat."

♪♪

- ♪ Downtown ♪

- I understood that he wanted to
show in the Fun Gallery

because it was Lower East Side,

he feel maybe guilty

that some people of his age,
some younger people,

were not about to make all
the money that he could make,

or the fame.

- Where did the words come from?

- Real life books, television.

- Yeah? And you just skim 'em
and start including...

- No, man. When I'm working, I
hear them, you know,

and I just throw them down.

- It looked like he didn't want
to be as famous

as he was going to be.

- I want to do
some anatomy stuff.

- Uh, and...

- And I bought some books that
are about anatomy.

- And then you started imitating?

- Well, not really imitating,
because, you know,

I use them as a source material.

- So, why do you want to do
anatomy stuff?

- Because I felt like it.

♪♪

- Those images seen from
"Gray's Anatomy"

crop up all throughout his work.

It's kind of his Rosetta Stone,
in a way, of imagery.

♪♪

And "Gray's Anatomy"
was his texture.

♪♪

- In May of '82, my assistant in
New York called me up

and told me Basquiat left
Annina Nosei's gallery.

- Bischofberger's solo show,
P.S.1, was begging me to do

a show with him, and I was being
sort of, you know, like,

I was playing it cool,
you know, like, saying,

you know, I dunno, I didn't want
to do it,

and so on and so forth,
you know.

- I ask him, "Why did you leave
Annina Nosei?"

And he told me, "I warned her
several times

that she should not sell
my paintings,

which I leave down there,
before I signed them."

- The idea that I sold them
before they were finished,

it doesn't make any sense...
If he had finished them,

he wouldn't have given them
to sell.

Whatever I sold had a slide

and the number of the inventory...

In order to have that,
that meant that,

with Jean-Michel,
we called the photographer

and we had the photograph,

because it meant
it was finished.

- He burned bridges repeatedly
behind him,

but it didn't seem to stop
his... his forward movement.

You know, so many collectors
were coming,

and Gagosian was there
all the time,

and they were taking paintings
right out of the studio,

and he was selling directly
to them, without a gallery.

- He got paid in cash...

He got paid in drugs, as well

I never did that.
Uh, never did that.

This was a different time
in the art world.

You know, every time an artist
did a drawing,

you didn't get a triplicate
contract from a lawyer.

- He always had piles of...
Of cash in his studio

on Crosby Street,
as well as cocaine and...

And all sorts of drugs,
so that when you went there,

you never knew
who you encountered.

- I became his exclusive
worldwide dealer at the time,

with a promise to find a partner
in New York

that he could show also in his
home town every now and then.

I did pay him
quite a lot in cash,

because he liked cash a lot,

and it was not against the law
to do that then.

And quite often,
me or my assistant

gave... brought him 5 or 10
or sometimes even

20 thousand dollars, don't know
exactly how much it was.

- ♪ Heroes fall into the ground ♪

- When Warhol founded
Interview Magazine,

I was a co-owner of it, 25%.

Whenever I think an artist
is really very promising

and very good, very great,

he's glad,
he takes my word for it,

he is glad to make a project
of him.

I can invite them for lunch
over there.

♪♪

- I saw Jean-Michel Basquiat.

He was brought by
Bruno Bischofberger,

who was Andy's art dealer
in Zurich,

and very close to Andy
and the factory.

And so Andy took some Polaroids
of Jean-Michel,

which is the way Andy
started his portraits.

- Basquiat asked me,
"Could you do a few pictures

as well,
of Warhol and me together?"

So, Warhol gave me his camera,

was this long camera,

and I made a few pictures of
Basquiat and Warhol

standing together.

- ♪ You got a smile so bright ♪

♪ You know you coulda been
a camera ♪

- And then instead of having
lunch, Basquiat said he would

like to go home to do something,
he can't stay for lunch.

- ♪ The way you
swept me off my feet ♪

- And we, we were hardly getting
up from lunch,

and the assistant of Basquiat
came running up

with a five-foot-square
painting, which he painted

after this Polaroid
of the two of them.

- We all gathered around to see,
you know,

this portrait of Andy, and there
was not only a portrait of Andy,

but a self-portrait of
Jean-Michel,

and they were absolutely
stunning works.

- We put it on the floor because
it was still wet,

you know, so it wouldn't
run around,

and we would all stand around,
and everybody liked it so much.

- ♪ You know you could have
been... ♪

- And Andy was like,
"Oh, God, you're so fast,

and these are so great, and I
didn't even send the Polaroids

out to the lab yet."

- And Andy was looking at me,

halfway smiling, halfway serous,

but still he says,
"Oh, I'm so jealous,

he's faster than me."

- "Oh, God, Bruno,
he's so great!"

- ♪ The way you do
the things you do ♪

- We have a painting here,
actually,

it's called Dos Cabezas.
It's, um...

It's here in the gallery.

♪♪

- These are his unbelievable
instincts as a painter...

He's showing Andy in a way...
His chops, his tie...

And he lets Andy be the dominant
presence in the portrait.

A really good portrait,
good likeness of both of them,

particularly Andy, I must say.

- And that was
the beginning of everything

between Andy and Jean-Michel.

♪♪

- This is a haunt of Andy
Warhol's Interview Magazine

and that whole gang.

I started working at
Interview Magazine,

we would come here frequently
and there was always a party

in here, and everybody knew
everybody else.

Jean-Michel had been showing at
Annina Nosei earlier in 1982,

but he had left,
so he was without a gallery.

And I'm not an art dealer,

but I'm an art enthusiast,

and Jean-Michel's painting
was really storytelling

and a really fresh way that
I had never seen.

♪♪

I was planning to do a show
at the Uptown place

where I was living,
in April of 1983,

and he said yes right away,
he wanted to do this show.

♪♪

I never put any pressure on him

because I didn't have, you know,

the overhead of running
a gallery

and that responsibility.

♪♪

- I asked Basquiat, "Which
gallery would you like best?"

He said, he said,
"Probably Mary Boone," he said,

"yes, yes, it's Mary."

- I don't think I have ever been
swayed by what a dealer thinks

about an artist.

He was this kid that had taken
New York by storm.

He came into the gallery...
It was 1982,

and he wanted to share with me
not because I was hot,

but because he felt I showed
a serious group of painters

that he wanted to be part of.

♪♪

I always listened to artists.

And then in the Spring of '84,

I was swayed to take Jean-Michel
into my gallery

because of Brice Marden
and Julian Schnabel's

respect for Jean-Michel's work.

I think that Jean-Michel
was an original,

and those were the kind of
artists I wanted to show.

♪♪

It was somewhere
around that time

when Julian Schnabel
left the gallery to go to Pace.

I was sitting at my desk
and I was crying

because I was sad that
Julian had left,

and Jean-Michel
came into my little office,

which was smaller even
than this room,

and put his arm around me
and said,

"Oh, Mary, don't worry,

I'm going to be
a much better artist

than Julian will ever be."

♪♪

It was an amazing first show.

So many people came.

A whole new group of collectors.

♪♪

Most of the work went for
$25,000 or less.

That's kind of normal

for a young artist
in their first show.

- I was aware that Jean-Michel
was doing really well

as an artist.

It was very important
to Jean-Michel

that he be regarded
as great artist

versus a black artist,

while he was also incredibly
connected to

the black experience
and to his blackness,

because he was a black man.

- I think there is a lot of
people that are neglected

in art, I don't know if it's
because who made the paintings

or what, but, um...

I know it... I know that
black people are never really

portrayed realistically in...

Not even... or, not even
portrayed really...

I mean, not even portrayed in
modern art enough.

♪♪

- That Basquiat did not want to
be seen as a black artist

is completely understandable...

Louise Bourgeois did not want to
be seen as a feminine artist,

and there are many artists who
are homosexual

who do not want to be seen as
gay artists, right?

Any artists who gets identified
with a social group

finds themselves on the spot in
ways that limits their freedom

and limits the understanding
and interest in their work.

He was looking at his career
and saying,

"I don't want to be pushed into
this particular ghetto."

He was playing a very subtle
game of, on the one hand, again,

showing people things about
a world they were

largely ignorant of,
and mostly afraid of;

and at the same time doing it in
an idiom which was informed by

the grand tradition.

♪♪

- This work that's just screaming
revolutionary intentions,

you know, in terms of who it
celebrates,

who it valorized,

who it trophies, whose
experience and culture

and history it, um,

completely embraces
as heroic and regal,

and gut bucket at the same time.

♪♪

- There are really complicated
matters that make us say,

"I don't want to be regarded
as a black artist,"

or, "I want to be regarded as
an American artist."

But in fact, it is because of
a certain kind of tragedy...

Jim Crow laws and lynching
and the Civil Rights...

That Basquiat's work has
the potency that it does,

and that tragedy is no less
black and Haitian

and Puerto Rican, and Brooklyn.

- He filled his work full of
energies and references

to the very thing that scared
the shit out of

a lot of the art world.

They wanted it
because it was exciting,

but they didn't want it if it
came in a package

and with a messenger who would
make them feel

more uncomfortable than
they already did.

- Tonight, the furor continues
over the death of

Michael Stewart, the young
Brooklyn man who died 13 days

after he was arrested by
Transit Police officers.

Artists from the Lower East Side
picketed the chief medical...

- I knew Michael Stewart,

he was part of, you know,
the Downtown scene.

We all knew him.

Michael Stewart emulated Jean,

Michael Stewart cut his hair
like Jean.

- Michael and I
were romantic friends.

I was not still with Jean-Michel
when that happened,

when the Michael Stewart case
happened.

- I started dating Jean-Michel,

and then one night
we went to The Roxy,

and a friend of his came up

and told him about
Michael Stewart

being beaten to death.

- Michael Stewart was brought to
Bellevue Hospital unconscious

on the morning of
September 15th.

He had been arrested by
Transit Police

for painting graffiti
in a subway station.

The family charges the police
beat up the young man;

the D.A. police deny it.

- Not only would he go to
the club and hang out

for a while and dance,

but he wanted to leave
right away;

we went back to my apartment,

he was just drawing skulls
all night,

he was so incensed about it.

He just said, you know,

"You're white,
you would never understand,

you can't imagine what...
You can't even...

You can't even talk about this,
and it's just so deep."

- He was terrified that it could
have been him.

I was very close to Michael
and I know in my heart

that Michael was murdered
by the police.

- I hate violence, and I don't
know why they kill him.

But they are not going to get
away with this, that's for sure.

- We are talking a lot more than
a close friend of everybody's,

you know, he was killed
senselessly.

- Madonna, Keith Haring
and then several galleries

gave money for Michael Stewart's
legal defense fund.

And I went to Jean-Michel
and asked for money,

and he was terrified,

um, that if he gave any money

that he would somehow
be implicated,

or that the police
would come after him.

He kept saying, "It could've
been me, it could've been me."

♪♪

- No one man against
white supremacy is gonna...

End up being the winner.

People like James Brown
and Nina Simone...

- ♪ Say it louder ♪

- who also had apprehensions
about being identified as

anti-authoritarian,
radical black artists.

You know, there is an anxiety
because, you know,

at that point, how much of your
success is dependent on

a white audience?

- In response to
Michael's Stewart's death,

Jean-Michel made a painting
called Defacement.

♪♪

- With a painter who was that
diaristic, I mean he saw himself

there, you know, he saw
the potential for his own

annihilation
at the hands of authority.

♪♪

- Just as it was Michael Stewart,

it could have been
Jean-Michel Basquiat

who, um, was affected... and...

it was scary.

It was scary to see that
that could happen,

it continues to be scary to see

that these kind
of things happen,

and that young black men
continue to be killed

and treated the way that
they are.

And I know that it also
deeply affected

and impacted Jean-Michel.

- He had this real fear that he
wasn't really allowed in

because it was a mostly
white, affluent world.

♪♪

- New York Times Sunday Magazine
wanted an article about

the art market
and how it was exploding,

and my assignment was to follow
Jean-Michel Basquiat

as an exemplar of what was
happening to the art market

in the early 1980s.

- Cathleen McGuigan came to
the gallery and approached me

about doing a story
on Jean-Michel,

and I think they loved him,

I think they loved
the whole story...

That he was so young,

and that he was full of
all this energy,

and yet he also kind of tied
into history.

- He was only 24 years old at
the time I interviewed him.

♪♪

Andy Warhol told him it would be
a good idea to do it.

He did also give me access...

You know, he let me watch him
paint in a studio.

♪♪

- There was only a little glitch
that they kept sending

the photographer to the studio
to take a picture,

and Jean-Michel didn't want to
put on his shoes.

The editor of the magazine
didn't see the irony in that,

so he just kept yelling
and sending the photograph back,

"Get him to get his shoes on,"

so finally he calls me up
and yells at me,

that I've got to get the artist
to put his shoes on.

I said, "He's a grown up, if he
doesn't want to put his shoes on

he's not going to
put his shoes on."

♪♪

- That was a very peak moment
for Jean-Michel Basquiat.

And then, of course, they got
this really, really great image,

and I think people remember the
image almost more than anything.

- It was a breakthrough for
Jean-Michel and he knew it,

he knew that he had made it,

he was so proud of it he went
out and bought stacks and stacks

of New York Times.

And Andy was actually reading it
right up next to his face.

And he was really blown away
by it, I think.

You know, he would like to have
been on the cover.

- Jean-Michel's father decided to
have a dinner at his townhouse

in Brooklyn, and Jean-Michel
invited Andy and myself.

- I think Andy Warhol coming over
to the house for dinner

is pretty cool, uh, really cool.

♪♪

- I was probably
about 14 years old

and I barely knew who
Andy Warhol was.

So, you know, for me, it was
just kind of this

eccentric friend that he was
bringing over to the house.

- ♪ We are family ♪

- It was a little dinner with
Jean-Michel and Gerard and Nora

and Andy and myself—
A really sweet dinner,

and it was really fun.

- And the item for dinner
was stuffed filet of sole.

- ♪...family ♪

♪ I got all my sisters
with me ♪

- I thought it would be so great
if Basquiat and Warhol

would do works together.

Every artist would have dreamt
of doing collaborations

with the most famous artist
on Earth.

So, I asked Basquiat, "Would you
like to do such a thing?"

He said, "Of course,
immediately, what do you think?"

- I mean, this is
your big chance.

- For what?
- For... nothing.

I mean, nobody sees this thing.

- ♪ I hero worship ♪

♪ He deserves it,
I deserve it ♪

- There has never been
anything like this,

this kind of collaboration of
the two artists of giants

of different generations.

- I think that Andy Warhol

was a great influence
on Jean-Michel...

He didn't do drugs,

he kind of took Jean-Michel
around in

the international art world

and showed him
some of the ropes.

♪♪

- Maybe in Andy's attempts to get
Basquiat off drugs,

he was trying to redeem himself

in the eyes of all those,
including some of us,

who actually felt he had pushed
people to the edge.

♪♪

- Andy was paternal,

but there's jealousy and rivalry
going on all the time.

- I mean, I like the way,
you know, we're here,

we're doing we are doing some
work together,

and you paint, and paint me out.

- Where did I paint you out?
Where?

- In everything I've done
you painted me out.

- Where? Where?
- Well, just— where?

♪♪

- You didn't give us enough
to paint out.

- Oh, okay.

♪♪

- Here is the painting
called Clear,

by a collaboration done between
Warhol and Basquiat.

So, Warhol did the logos of all
kind of different products,

like the General Electric logo
here, the Ford automobile logo.

Basquiat convinced Warhol to
start hand-painting again.

For 23 years
he had only used silkscreen.

And Basquiat,
in silkscreen technique,

see in these two bananas.

So, he reversed the techniques:
Basquiat used silkscreen,

and Warhol painted by hand.

♪♪

♪♪

- So, this is where
the famous exhibition

of the collaboration painting is

with Andy Warhol
and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

First took place
at my gallery in 1985.

♪♪

I haven't been here
in 30-odd years.

♪♪

Wow.

The poster for the exhibition of
Warhol and Basquiat

it was one-million-percent
my idea.

- I got a call from Paige Powell

asking me if I wanted to
come to a dinner

that Andy was giving at
Texarkana,

and I showed up a little late,

and one empty seat was right
next to Jean-Michel.

And I said, the second I sat
down he said,

"Oh, I've been a fan of your
work for five years,

that portrait you made of
Klaus Nomi,

I loved your work from then,

you know from the portrait
you made of Klaus Nomi."

And I realized, wow,
that's five years ago,

that's incredible... he really...

He's, like, he really is
for real.

So this is the camera I used
for the sitting.

And I've had it
since my 21st birthday.

He explained that they had this
idea to make this poster

and then he said, um, you know,

"Would you be interested in...
In making the picture for it?"

And I said, um, "Sure."

And in my mind I thought, "Well
this is never going to happen."

I placed them right about here.

Jean turned to Andy,

who was sitting at the head of
the table,

and he yelled across to Andy,
and said,

"Michael is going to make that
picture for the poster."

And Andy said, "Oh, wow, well,
we already asked

Robert Mapplethorpe to do that."

And Jean said, "No, Michael is
going to do it."

And he said, "Well, great,
I love Michael's work,

I love Michael's portraits."

Andy just seemed to be
almost like a mannequin.

I noticed that
Jean was very comfortable

moving Andy around physically
and telling him what to do,

and this was interesting for me
to see that he was comfortable

with Andy in a way that I hadn't
witnessed anybody be with him,

which was kind of nice.

♪♪

- There was a dividing wall here,

and you could go around...

One painting hanging here
as you entered,

and the famous photograph
of the two of them together

was standing—
Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel

next to each other,
back to back, right here,

and then you would come into
the larger room

where the larger paintings were,

and this is the huge painting
with big piece of steak

that Warhol had painted,

and Jean-Michel turned
the steaks into mountains

with skiers sloping down
the mountains

with a crocodile or two
at the bottom.

And this is where the two of
them sat down,

and the television,
the documentary,

was made from England.

Then the other big painting
being here

was the famous painting of
the large dentures and the head.

Boy, it was a great, great show,

it was one of the greatest
shows, I think,

of the last 100 years.

Andy Warhol was the great master
of the '60s, '70s and '80s,

and befriended Jean-Michel,

and now the world was coming to
see this collaboration painting.

The paintings were far too
radical then,

they are still radical now,

the world wasn't ready
for it then,

and the response
was not that great.

♪♪

- Jean had called me to come
and and have brunch with him;

it was the weekend after
the opening

of the exhibition at
Tony Shafrazi's.

That day he had
The New York Times

and he was excited to read
the review,

and then after he finished
reading the review,

he kind of... his mood collapsed,

he just became really upset,

it had definitely painted this
picture of him

being portrayed as Andy's mascot

and being really used by Andy.

- Jean-Michel felt violated that
he was called Andy's mascot.

And, um, because he was already
established, and I think

he felt he would be
going backwards.

- He really, really
took it very hard,

and he expressed that he would
never talk to Andy again,

that was it,
he was done with Andy.

♪♪

- I think Jean became very
paranoid and suspicious

of even Andy and, and felt that,

you know, Andy had this
reputation of

being a vampire and feeding off
of younger artists,

and needing new blood to infuse
his own career.

- About a month later I was
photographing Andy for

Georgio Armani, and then
the conversation shifted into,

um, Andy asking me about
Jean-Michel,

and he was really concerned
about him

and wanting to know
if he was okay.

He was very concerned that he
was possibly going to be

self-destructive with the way
he felt about this review.

He said, "I've been trying to
reach him and I can't reach him,

is there a way—
Could you tell him

that I'd like to talk to
him about it."

And I said, okay, I'll try.

- Andy kept saying, um...

Like, we'd go out to dinner
and he would say,

"Oh, do you think we should call
Jean-Michel,"

and I said, "Well, Andy,
you know, you've tried before

and he does not want to go,
I mean, um,"

and I just said to him,

"Andy, he deserted you.
He deserted you."

- Jean started to doubt himself,

and started to feel like there
was a turn in the critical

response to his work.

- You know, I sort of...
I'd like to try to be...

To remain a literal reclu—
A little reclusive,

and not be just...
And be out there,

you know, just to... to be
brought up in the...

Be brought down, you know,
like they do to most of them.

I can't think of
one big celebrity

or a person that they haven't
done that to.

- He was somebody who who
understood the value

of his own work
and always knew it,

and never, never really,
kind of, doubted that,

um, until he was, I think,
weakened by

some of the drugs that he took
in the later part of his life.

♪♪

- The night that Andy died,
he came into Indochine.

I was a waitress at that point,

and he stands in the middle of
the dining room sobbing.

He was inconsolable.

He said, "I'll never fucking
get over this."

Crying hysterically, he was
like,

"You've got to come with me."

And I was like,
"I can't, I'm working,

I'm going to get fired if
I leave

in the middle of the shift."

- The buzzer went, and it was
about 2:00 am.

And it was frantic,
it was absolutely frantic.

My new boyfriend said,
"Who is it?!"

And Jean-Michel in a—
In a frantic voice said,

"It's Jean-Michel,
it's Jean-Michel!

Is Suzanne there?!
Is Suzanne there?!"

And I said, "Let him in!
He's probably in trouble!

He was probably mugged
or something."

We let him in,

and we buzzed him in,

and he never came up.

He felt guilty because
he dropped Andy.

And then he really
got into drugs.

In the case of Jean, like,
the only person he listened to

about drugs was Andy.

♪♪

You know, I used to think,
well, you know,

separation of church and state,
you know,

you just...
You owe the artist the money,

you give it to them, and it’s not
your business how they spend it.

And now, I feel more like,

if someone's hurting themselves,

if I could have done anything
to prevent that from happening,

I would have and should have.

♪♪

- I rented a house in Hawaii.

You know, everybody...
Everybody kind of understood

why we were doing this,

because it would be a healthier
environment for Jean-Michel.

He liked Hawaii.

And I think sometimes Paige
would stay with him.

- He really loved
spending time there,

it was a great way for him
to escape the city.

It just had everything there...
They had horses, a horse stable,

had different houses on it,

and beautiful
tropical fruit trees,

but also, he didn't do
hard drugs over there.

It was really great to see him
in that world too,

he was so happy,
he would never...

I never saw him upset
when he was in Hawaii.

It was like a sanctuary for him.

♪♪

- It wasn't so much he wanted to
go back to New York,

or go back to L.A. to, you know,
get some harder drugs,

I think it was
that he couldn't work there.

♪♪

- Basquiat's art is full of many
death's heads and many skulls.

There are many faces
that seem to have,

uh, you know, skeletal
structures behind them.

Some of that may simply come
from having looked at

"Gray's Anatomy,"
and lots of skeletons,

but some of it is there as
intimations of mortality,

if not an actual death wish.

♪♪

- Like a lot of the great
artists, they're very aware of

their mortality,

and contrast the life force

with the inevitability of death.

And that's central
to Jean-Michel.

♪♪

- The many paintings that you see
give you a skull,

or the skull and bones,

and give you anatomy, um,

they are very much about,
kind of, the symbolic gutting

of black males
in American society.

♪♪

- Jean-Michel invited all his
old friends at the show he had

at Baghoomian in 1988,

♪♪

He was very affectionate.

The whole show was like
a prophecy of his death.

And there is a big painting of
the death on a horse.

♪♪

- Well the painting,
"Riding With Death,"

is undoubtedly an existential
cry of some kind.

- It's a hard painting
to look at.

What I saw was
an incredible amount of pain.

It just was a very clear
and very profound view...

♪♪

Into some of what Jean-Michel
was thinking about at that time.

♪♪

- There is also another big
painting that says,

Man Dies, Man Dies,

and that embrace not just
goodbye for the summer vacation,

it was like a goodbye...
Already I felt it.

♪♪

- I got a call from
Jean's housekeeper...

I was out in Long Island
at the beach and he...

She called and said Jean-Michel
is very sick,

um, he is sweating, he—
The room is very hot,

there is no air conditioning,

and he, um...

and he has foam
coming out of his mouth.

And, uh, I said,
"Well, what do you...

You know, call 911."

♪♪

- Someone called and told me
Jean-Michel died,

and I said, "When?",
and they told me,

and I was like,
"Oh, my God."

- I wished it had have
been me there,

um, when he overdosed, because...

I wish I had of been me now,
as a doctor,

'cause I would have revived him,

um...

So, in my mind, I play with time
sometimes and I—I wish...

♪♪

♪♪

- Whether we're talking about
Charlie Parker or Jimmy Hendrix

there is a romantic aspect
of drugs,

in terms of Jean-Michel being
linked to the inspiration

of his heroes.

♪♪

His career goes beyond just
a normal career,

it becomes mythic.

- I mean he died at twenty...
He was 27 in 1998.

- People are buying into that
whole myth

in addition buying his work.

- Thank you, Yuki!
Congratulations!

- What's interesting about
an auction breaking $100 million

is that I feel like
the rest of the world

only understands greatness
by these consolidated values

that happen through the market,

but it confirms something that
many of us already knew...

How important he was to
the legacy of American art.

♪♪

- I wish my brother
were here today.

This may have been
what needed to happen

in order for, um,

his voice to be as powerful
as it is today.

♪♪

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