Latest / DISGRACELAND / Jean-Michel Basquiat: New York City Squalor, Art-World Slumming, and the 27 Club

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Jean-Michel Basquiat: New York City Squalor, Art-World Slumming, and the 27 Club · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Jean Michel
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Basquiat are insane. His graffiti in Lower Manhattan was mistaken
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: for a CIA operation. He was the toast of the
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: New York art world while sleeping on floors in squalid apartments.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: He sold his first painting to Blondie's Debbie Harry for
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: two hundred dollars. In less than a year later, his
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: paintings would sell for more than twenty thousand dollars. As
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: a young, self taught artist in a world built on pedigree, training,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: and experience, he was held at arm's length by the
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: upper crust, missed as a passing fad, but he was
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: no fad. Jean Michel Basquiat made great art, art that
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: was inspired by great music, from jazz to industrial to
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: hip hop. Unlike that loop I played for you at
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: the top of the show that wasn't great music. That
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: was a preset loop for my melotron called Turtle Rock
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: MK two. I played you that loop because I can't
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: afford the rights to roll with it. By Steve Wynwood
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: and why would I play you that specific slice of
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: back in the High Life Cheese? Could I afford it?
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: August twelfth, nineteen eighty eight, And that was the day
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: that the life and career of one of the most
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: original and sought after artists in America came to a
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: sudden and tragic end. On this episode, New York City
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: squalor Cia Operations self taught artists, the gatekeepers of the
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: art world's upper crust, and Jean Michel Basquier, I'm Jake Brennan,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: and this is Disgraceland. Debbie Harry was freaking out. The
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: lead singer of Blondie paced back and forth under a
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: lamppost on New York's Lower east Side. Behind her, two
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: dude spray painting went to work on the wall with
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: a few cans of paint. A man dressed as Uncle
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Sam and another wearing a Native American headdress stood there
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: staring at Debbie, waiting. They're all waiting. She checked her
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: watch again. Where the hell was flash? Debbie Harry and
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: her Blondie bandmates weren't actually on the Lower east Side.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: There were a few miles uptown on a sound stage
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: meant to look like the Lower East Side doing something radical.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: For nineteen eighty one, they were shooting a music video,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: a video for the song Rapture, a song that continued
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the group's sonic push into a radical new direction far
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: from their early days at CBGB's. They wanted to create
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: an equally radical video to accompany it, one that would
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: give the rest of the country a taste to that
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Lower east Side blend of the art nightclub in hip
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: hop scenes currently inspiring them. That song it owed a
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: huge debt to one of the graffiti artists currently decorating
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: the set, Fab five. Freddy Freddie connected worlds. Freddie brought
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: uptown street art into downtown allies. Freddie brought downtown musicians
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: to hear a new sound emerging uptown in the Bronx.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: He brought Debbie Harry to a show at Webster Hall
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: in the Bronx, and that's where Debbie saw the future.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: A DJ armed with a pair of turntables laying waiste
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: to the packed house. It was like watching Jimmie Hendricks
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: for the first time. The DJ seamlessly stitched together snippets
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: of beats and melodies in an ever evolving loop. He
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: played the turntables behind his back, with his elbows, with
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: his teeth. He was a master, but not just any master,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Grandmaster Flash. After the show, Debbie told Flash that she
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: would write a song about him, Rapture, and that song
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: paired debbie sultry vocals with a slinky bass line and
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: a heavy hip hop inspired drum beet, and famously ends
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: with Debbie delivering a surreal three minute rap outro. It
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: might seem a little corny now, but in nineteen eighty one,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: that rap, that song blew people's minds, as did the
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: music video, which was supposed to feature the band's main
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: source of inspiration, grand Master Flash. But as the cameras
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: were about to roll on set, Flash was still missing.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Debbie looked at her watch again. They had less than
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: two hours to finish. She had no choice but to
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: replace him, but with who She looked out into the
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: crew of friends pressed into service and saw a familiar face,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: a young artist hanging next to Freddy skinny Kid, half Haitian,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: half Puerto Rican, barely nineteen awfully quiet but handsome as hell,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: a lot of charisma, and even though he was young,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: the kid was already a fixture on the scene, hair
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: shaved into a mohawk, playing in noise rock bands at
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: the Mud Club, selling his art postcards in Washington Square Park,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: where Debbie sometimes saw him sleeping on park benches. He
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: hand painted thrist store clothes and resold them to hip botiques.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: And then there was his graffiti. It seemed to appear overnight,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: and it was outside every gallery, every bar, every night
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: club in Lower Manhattan, samo as an sam for the
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: copyright symbol at the end, same o as in Same
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: old Shit, Or at least that was the original idea.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: That was the tag graffiti, so omni President and so inescapable.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: The people in New York began to think it was
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: part of some covert CIA operation. I'm not kidding, I'm
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: dead serious. The Village Voice even ran a story on it.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: At the time. Rumor had it that the US government,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: in order to curb unwonted street art, was covering up
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: all the empty canvas space in the city and tagging
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: it same oh, perhaps a callback to the ways in
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: which modern art was once used as a weapon in
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: the Cold War, or so the story goes. Because these
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: tags weren't elegant like Fab five Freddys. They were just
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: quick scrawls with a felt tip marker or a spray can,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: but the words left an impression. SAMO as an end
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: to the Neon fantasy called life. SAMO as an alternative
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: to playing art with the radical chich on Daddy's funds.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: SAMO as an alternative to bullshit, fake hippie wack cheer.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: SAMO as an alternative to God Star Trek and Red
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Dye Number two. It didn't take long for the truth
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: to come out. This nineteen year old kid here on
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Debbie Harry's set was the same O Mastermind. Debbie knew
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: his real name. It was Jean Michel Basquiat. She knew
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: it from filming a low budget movie a few weeks prior.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Downtown eighty one was created to showcase the city's rising
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: no Way of Music scene. Jean Michelle played the lead role,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: a homeless artist bouncing through Lower Manhattan who tries to
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: sell enough artwork to get back into his apartment. The
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: role was not a stretch. When Jean Michelle Basquiat wasn't
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: sleeping on park benches in Washington Square Park, he was
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: crashing on the floor of the film's dank bunker of
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: a production office or with friends in grimy tenement apartments
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: in the rough section of the Lower East Side. He
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: was a painter too, and not just graffiti. But he
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: didn't paint on canvases like some sophomore at the Pratt Institute.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: He painted on clothing and doors and walls. It wasn't
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: until the Downtown eighty one movie that he painted on
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: one of his first real canvases, and Debbie Harry liked
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: it so much that when shooting rapped for the film,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: she bought that painting for two hundred dollars. And now
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Debbie Harry had a new opportunity for Jean Michelle Basquiat
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: stepping in for the absent Grand Master Flash on Blondie's
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: video shoot, and within months, Americans were unknowingly getting their
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: first look at Jean Michelle on MTV with the Rapture video,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: not only the first hip hop video show on the
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: brand new cable channel, but one of the videos selected
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: for the network's first rotation block. This was happening at
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: the same time that Jean Michelle was feverishly working on
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: a dozen pieces for his first solo gallery show. But
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: he wasn't listening to Blondie while he worked, and he
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: wasn't listening to the hip hop currently dominating his home
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: neighborhood in Brooklyn. He was listening to jazz, specifically to
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: the alto saxophone of Charlie Parker. Charlie Parker aka Bird,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: reminded him of childhood, a scribbling on scraps of paper
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: while lying on the floor, his father in an armchair,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: his mother smiling before her trouble started and she was institutionalized,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: and before his father remarried. Jean Michel Basquier left home
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: at sixteen, but no matter where he was sleeping or
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: how he was scraping by, he always found a way
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: to listen to Burt. Jean Michel wanted to paint the
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: way that Charlie Parker played the saxophone. Charlie Parker played
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: his way, setting fire to the rules of jazz harmony.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: He wove bits of melodies from spirituals, show tunes and
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Stravinsky into his playing, and then he shifted keys and
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: bent them into something new. He played hard, and he
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: lived hard, and he gave everything to his art. That's
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: the way Jean Michelle would paint Bird blue, sweet and
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Jean Michel had long strokes of bright yellow acrylic across
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: the canvas. Bird's horn picked up its pace, and Jean
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Michel sketched a quickyardbird on the center of the canvas.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: That Charlie Parker bird was wailing now, and Jean Michel
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: felt the energy surge from the speakers toward his canvas.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: He didn't think, He just let the feelings wash over him.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Swirls of notes filled the studio, then his canvas, then
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: the whole city, all the way home to Brooklyn, waking
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: the dead in Greenwood Cemetery. Jean Michel scrawled Paramora to
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Die across the canvas and laid down his brush. He
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: was finished. He called it Bird on Money. Like Charlie Parker,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Jean Michelle set fire to the rules. He gave everything
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: to his heart. He lived hard and worked hard. It
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: was nineteen eighty one, less than seven months since he
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: painted his first canvas, less than seven years before he
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: would paint his last. The music was so loud it
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: vibrated through his bones, and the club was hot tonight.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: The bodies were sweaty, writhing to the rhythm of disco basslines,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: lights catching a disco ball, and sending shards of color
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: splashing in every direction. It was magical, especially if you
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: were on angel dust or cocaine. Wait was it both?
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Didn't matter, whatever it was. Jean Michel baskyat was feeling incredible.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Everyone and everything in the room looked like a work
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: of art. He couldn't wait to get home and put
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: it all on a campus, but for now he had
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: his arm around the hottest piece of art in the building.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Even her name sounded like a painting, Madonna, and they
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: were in the middle of the dance floor at the Roxy,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: the Hippus knight spot in Chelsea. Madonna already with a
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: few club hits under her many many belts and a
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: greatly anticipated debut album about to drop, and Jehn Michelle,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: who had gone from an extra in a Blondie video
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: to one of the hottest new contemporary artists in the
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: world in the space of just one year. They were
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: the perfect pair. Everyone in the club agreed, everyone except
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: for one person. Jean Michel's girlfriend, Suzanne Maluk, watched her
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: guy and the pop singer grinding against each other on
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: the dance floor, and she could hardly believe it them
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: together in public. Here at the roxy. After everything she
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: did for Jean Michel, working double shifts waitressing so he
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: could focus on his art, cooking for him, putting up
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: with his drug use, and with the other women as well.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: But this was too much. Suzanne was seeing red, and
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: not just from the colored lights swirling above her. She
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: didn't want to think about it anymore, so she didn't think.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: She acted. Suzanne elbowed her way through the crowded dance floor,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: and she shoved skinny party girls aside and cleared a path,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: a bee line, straight toward that Madonna had her back turned.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Jean Michel was in a completely different world than they
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: never saw it coming. Suzanne went straight for Madonna's bullshit
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: want to be Debbie Harry pixie cut. She grabbed a
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: huge handful of blonde hair and pulled down hard, and
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Madonna cried out in pain, but in a crowded disco
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: with a throbbing beat, no one can hear you scream.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Madonna went down to the floor and Suzanne jumped on her,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: wailing at her with her fists, slapping her face, screaming
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: at her to stay away, stay the fuck away from
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Jean Michel. Jean Michel stood frozen. With the cocaine and
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: the angel dust in his system, everything was moving in
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: slow motion. It all seemed so far away, like he
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: was watching a fight on television. Then slowly it began
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: to down on him. This wasn't TV, this was happening
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: right in front of him. He stepped in to pull
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: the two women apart, but by then Suzanne had mostly
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: were out of steam. Jean Michel looked over at Susan
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: and his peopils dilated wide, and he left. He couldn't
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: help it. The whole thing was just too surreal. Damn,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: he said, you beat her ass like a Puerto Rican girl.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: And just to be clear, that's a Jean Michelle quote,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: not mine. Suzanne may have won the fight, but Jean
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Michelle went home with Madonna. By nineteen eighty two, home
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: wasn't a park bench in Washington Square Park or a
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty square foot tenement on the Lower
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: east Side. Now home was an enormous soho loft. The
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: fridge was stuffed with caviar and cristal. Jean Michelle hadn't
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: changed a bit. Sure, he wore Armani suits, but he
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: splattered them with paint as if he caught them at
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: the Salvation Army. He was selling paintings for ten or
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: twenty thousand dollars a pop. But he didn't even have
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: a bank account. He just stuffed the money under the
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: couch cushions or in between the pages of books. Sometimes
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: he just left cash out on the living room table
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: her friends, right next to a huge amount of Columbian
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: cocaine that was also free for the taking. Because in
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, drugs and work went hand in hand
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: for Jean Michel. Usually they worked great together until they didn't.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Madonna woke up with a start. She looked at the clock.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: It was four am. She reached over to the other
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: side of the mattress, the one that was on the
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: corner of the floor Jeam Michel's loft. He was gone.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: She quickly sat up. Sick with worry, she got up
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: and made her way around the wet canvases, paintbrushes, and
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: coffee mugs littering the floor. She frantically scanned the room,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: remembering the last time she woke up like this. She
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: found him convulsing on the floor, halfway to death, overdosing.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Somehow he pulled through, but still every time she woke
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: up to find him gone. It terrified her tonight, though
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: she didn't have any reason to be scared. Jean Michel
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: was standing on the other side of the room with
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: a paint brush in his hand. His face was inches
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: from a large canvas. He was working fast, moving, almost
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: like he was in a dream, adding tiny splashes of
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: bright color to a pitch black background, replaying that scene
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: from the roxy earlier in the night, over and over
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: again in his head. He sped it up, and he
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: slowed it down. He chopped it to pieces, working like
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: grand Master Flash at the turntable until he found the
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: perfect beat. The percussive boom of the fight. You beat
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: her ass like a Puerto Rican girl, the sparkling highs
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: of the cocaine sugar coates warning product contains desk and desk,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: the dark nightclub and the flashes of colored lights, and
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: himself watching. He painted himself as a bird flying free
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: above the fray, a three pointed crown above his head,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: while the battle raged between the two goddesses in front
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: of him. In nineteen eighty two, every experience was inspiration
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: for Jean Michele Basquiat. He completed dozens of pieces in
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: the lead up to one of his biggest shows yet,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: a solo exhibition at fun Gallery the Punky Upstart space
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: in the East Village. Before that, he became the youngest
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: artist ever to appear at the major contemporary art show
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Documenta in Germany, and he made a new friend, not
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: just any friend, but one of his idols, Andy Warhol.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: In the early nineteen eighties, Andy Warhol was at the
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: lowest point of his career, but like many younger artists,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Jean Michele still revered him, not just because of his work,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: because Andy inspired him personally. Jean Michele still remember the
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: day as a teenager when he sold one of his
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: little art postcards to Andy. Before then, Jean michel always
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: thought that his stuff was good, but after that he
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: knew it was true. So when they hit it off
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: over Launch in October of nineteen eighty two, Jean Michele
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: couldn't believe it. Andy had someone stamp of polaroid of
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: them together. Jean Michele grabbed the picture and disappeared. Two
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: hours later, Andy heard a knock on his front door.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: Jean Michele's assistant was standing there holding up a canvas
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: still wet Jean Michele's own interpretation of that polaroid. Then
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: the gesture kicked off of friendship. But it was also
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: clear that just as Andy needed Jean Michelle, Jean Michelle
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: needed Andy. Because despite all of his success, the upper
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: crust of the art world still held Jean Michel Basquier
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: at arm's lank. As a young black, self taught artist
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: in a world built on pedigree, training, and experience. Critics
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: dismissed him as a fad pop phenomenon, not a real artist.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Jean Michele hoped the connection with Andy Warhol would give
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: him art world credibility, and Andy Warhol hoped Jean Michele
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: would inject some youthful energy and excitement to his work.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: For better or for worse, it was a connection that
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: would last the rest of their lives. The connection with Madonna,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, did not last. The material girl's
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: career was heating up and Jean Michel's drug use was
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: getting worse. She dreaded the day that she would wake
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: up again at four am, this time to find him
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: dead on the floor. They went their separate ways just
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: as Madonna's debut album began to make it slow and
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: steady climb up the charts. In nineteen eighty three, Jean
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Michel moved on fast. He demanded that Madonna return all
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: the paintings he made for her, then he covered them
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: all in black paint. He moved on to other women.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: He moved on with other musicians, producing the classic hip
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: hop single Beatbot and jamming with David Byrne of Talking
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Heads for a project they were going to call famous
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: black athletes, and like his hero Charlie Parker, he moved
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: on to heroin. His old girlfriend Suzanne moved on too.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: She didn't cover the paintings Jean Michelle made for her
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: in black paint, though she burned them. Then she found
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: someone new, a man with striking good looks, just like
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Jean Michelle, also an artist like Sean Michelle, skinny with
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: his hair and long braids, again like Jean Michelle, and
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: just like Jean Michelle, he too would die young because
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: despite their efforts to move on, a tragedy was about
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: to link Suzanne and Jean Michelle forever. We'll be right
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: back after this word. We're We're September fifteenth, nineteen eighty three,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: two am. He stepped out of the East Village drag club,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: lit a joint and took a hit. He headed for
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: this subway station. He was young, skinny, one hundred and
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: forty pounds, soaking wet, long braids sticking out in every direction.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: As he made his way down the steps and into
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the subway station, he looked around. It was deserted. He
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: grabbed a felt tip marker from his pocket and found
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: a blank space on the wall, the perfect canvas. Because
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Michael Stewart wanted to be an artist, he studied it
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: at Pratt But he knew that real art was made
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: in the street. He knew that's how Jeah Michel Basquiat
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: got to start. Michael knew this because he was friends
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: with Jean Michel, and once more he was now dating
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: Jeah Michell's ex Suzanne. What he didn't know was that
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: the city's war on graffiti had ramped up a lot
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: since the days of Same Oh, But he was about
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: to find out. He flicked open the cap of the
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: black marker and raised it to the wall, and he
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: began to draw. A voice rang out, hold it right there.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Michael froze, the tip of the marker resting against the wall.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: He looked over his shoulder to see a pair of
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: transit cops walking towards him. He raised up his hands
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: and he knew he was caught. All right, man, you
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: got me. And then he put his hands behind his
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: back and the cops didn't cuff him. They searched his
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: pockets and found an unlit joint shit. One of the
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: cops radioed for a transit man and began to walk
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Michael up the stairs. He was going to jail. At
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: first he was calm, but then he began to think
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: about his parents. They would be furious when they found
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: out he was arrested, and not just for graffiti. Dope.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: He had to get the hell out of here. Halfway
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: up the stairs, he bolted. The cops followed in hot pursuit.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: That Michael had a step on him, and he turned
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: the corner to head back into the street, back to freedom,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: back to the safety of the East village. He made
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: it all the way to the top step before one
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: of the cops clipped his back foot that Michael staggered
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: forward and then down. His face smashed into the pavement.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Just then the transit van pulled out and two more
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: cops nightsticks. He felt once slam into his ribs, knocking
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: the breath out of him again and again, and Michael
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: screamed out, laying there on the ground as the beating continued.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Screamed so loud that students from the nearby Parsons School
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: of Design later testified that they could hear it, the pain,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: the fear, the weed. Michael was overwhelmed, panicking, fighting for
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: his life, when suddenly a cop set a baton under
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: his neck. His screams were cut silent as his windpipe
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: pinched shut and the officer pulled tighter, and Michael Stewart
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: stopped moving and stopped screaming, and then he slipped into
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: a coma. Suzanne visited him in the hospital. She took
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: pictures of his beaten and bruised body and gave them
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: to the press. She organized vigils and fundraisers. Madonna performed
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: a benefit concert at Dance Atteryria, and Jean Michele donated
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: artwork to a cause. Thirteen days later, Michael Stewart died.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: His death haunted Jehn Michelle. It could have been him.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: He was once Michael Stewart holding a felt tip pen himself,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: not to a canvas, but on the street, just like
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Michael in the East Village. Most in the East Village
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: saw Jean Michel as an artist, but institutions like the
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: NYPD would always see him as a criminal. The injustice
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: of it rubbed him raw, raw, like the industrial music
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: that he used to make back at the mud Club.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: A few nights after Michael's death, at the studio of
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: his friend Keith Herring, Jean Michelle grabbed paint and a
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: felt tip black marker. He dropped the tape for British
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Industrial Pioneer's Test Department into a boombox and turned the
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: volume up full blast, and then he began to draw
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: right there on the studio wall. The buzzing, aggressive sound
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: filled his years, his mind. Why two stick figures batons
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: raised the howl of pain. Somebody helped me and that
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: obsessive thought he could have been me over and over again.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: He could have been me, that void in his soul,
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: the hatred of the world outside. Outrage roared out of
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: the speakers and onto the studio wall. A moment of
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: frustration frozen in time, and the painting that would have
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: been lost time had Keith Herring not cut, but Jean
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Michel had drawn out of the wall and mounted it
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: on a frame. And a good thing that he did,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: because that painting, The Faceman the Death of Michael Stewart,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: stands as one of Jean Michel Basquiat's most powerful works
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: of art. Jehann Michel himself was becoming more powerful, now
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: making almost two million dollars a year. His work featured
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: in GQ and on MTV. But despite all this fame
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: and success, it seemed that everything else was still to reach.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: How restaurants couldn't find his reservations unless he showed up
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: with a white friend. How he could sell a painting
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: for fifty thousand dollars in a gallery but couldn't hail
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: a cab once he walked out of it. How critics,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: whether they loved his work or hated it, tended to
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: assume that he was naive, uneducated, some sort of idiot savant. Meanwhile,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: his art dealers continued to demand more paintings, more gallery shows,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: more media tours, and the pressure was overwhelming. He was
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: turning to heroin more and more, a habit that was
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: now costing him five hundred dollars a day. It was
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: during this period then he moved into a loft owned
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: by Andy Warhol on Great Jones Street. He really left
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: the place. Andy had to remind him to exercise, how
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: to remind him to shower, how to remind him to eat,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: to gently suggest he'd get help for his addictions. Jean
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Michel brushed aside that last suggestion. He knew he was
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: in bad shape, but he could still summon the spirit
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: to create art with Andy, and together they worked on
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: a series of collaborations that they hoped would reintroduce Andy
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Warhol to a new generation and confirmed to uppercrust art
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: critics that Jean Michelle was more than just a flash
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: in the pan that meant less splashes of text and
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: color in the background, a more classical style. Together, they
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: were sure the show would be a hit, a real spectacle,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: as a series of iconic promo shots of both men
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: in boxing gloves and trunks promised. But the show was
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: a disaster. Critics said Jean Michelle was Andy's mascot, and
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: the insults stung and the relationship fractured. And then on
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: February twenty second, nineteen eighty seven, Andy Warhol died suddenly.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Jean Michelle was devastated. He disappeared for days when he
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: heard the news, only to re emerge at an East
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Village nightclub, sobbing alone on the dance floor. Andy was dead,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Michael was dead. Bird was dead, and now you could
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: hear Charlie's horn calling him back home to Brooklyn. The
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Greenwood Cemetery, August nineteen eighty eight. The dealer heard a
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: light rapping on the door of the bodega. He looked
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: through the peep hole and unlocked the door. It was
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: one of his regulars. Hard to tell. The guy's age,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: maybe twenty seven, maybe fifty seven, looked like he'd been
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: living on the street, opened swords on his face and
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: her arms. He was nice enough, though, soft spoken, real
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: soft spoken. First time he showed up, he said his
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: name was Michelle, Michelle like the Beaals song. The dealer
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: told him he could get his ass kicked with a
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: name like that, and the dealer was gonna call him Mike,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: and so it was settled. Mike came in like clockwork
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: every few days, twenty bags, no more, no less, three
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: hundred dollars in cash. Most days he split right away. Sometimes, though,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: he hung around and rolled joints with the workers in
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: the little backyard behind the store. The dealer always passed.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Not a good idea to swap spit with someone who
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: looks so far gone. Mike came by for weeks straight
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: like that, until one day he just disappeared. Nothing too
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: unusual about a junkie falling off the face of the earth,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: so the dealer didn't pay it too much mind until today,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: on this hot summer day, Mike walked in for the
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: first time in months. His order was different too, He
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: asked for ten backs instead of twenty, and he didn't
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: stick around to roll a joint. He was ready to split,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: but on his way out he saw a few cans
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: of spray paint, and he asked the dealer if he
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: could paint something on the way out. Man, I don't
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: give a fuck what you do. Just make sure you
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: lock the door when you leave. Mike grabbed the Kansas
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: spray paint and he locked the door behind him. And
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: as he stared at the door, he saw an empty canvas.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: He felt the rhythm of the street, the energy pulsing
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: from the load of dope in his front pocket. He
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: heard music more like a chant, the devil on his
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: shoulder growing louder and louder, screaming at him. Devouring him,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: gamed the can at the door and sketched out a
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: man with devil horns, yell an eye for an eye.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: He sprayed below it, and then he was gone. Mike
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: never returned to the bodega. Jean Michel Basquiat died of
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: a heroin overdose just a few days later. With these
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: two men one and the same was this spray painted
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: devil the final work Jean Michel Basquiat depends on who
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: you ask. The dealer swears it was Jean Michel Basquiat's stayed,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, says the painting is inauthentic. After
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: an article in New York Magazine brought this story to
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: light over two decades later, in twenty eleven, a graffiti
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: artist named Phil Frost came forward to say the work
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: was actually his, and a decade after that, FBI agents
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: came in through the front door of an art museum
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: in Orlando and began to remove twenty five Basquiacht paintings
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: from the walls, all of them never before seen by
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: the public. Why because each one was painted on cardboard
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: that was manufactured in nineteen ninety four, six years after
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Jean Michel Basquiat's death. These are just a couple of
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: the complicated cases that have emerged since Jean Michel Basciat's
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: heroin overdose in August of nineteen eighty eight, and the
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: reason is clear. Basquiot's paintings have grown astronomically in value.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: A former graffiti artist whose first painting sold to Debbie
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Harry for two hundred dollars, his piece is now regularly
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: top fifty million dollars at auction. One even went for
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: more than double that. Prices like these invite a certain
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: reaction to most people. They look at modern art and laugh,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: My kid could do that, They say, like the fucking
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: idiots that they are, they've got it backwards. Jean Michel
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: Basquiat created art that was so powerful that even a
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: child can understand it, but it's packed with enough layers
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: to keep art critics talking about it decades after his death.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Jean Michel Basquiat was a paradox, A young, self taught
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: artist with a unique style. He drew influences from an
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: immense knowledge of art history. His best work crosses the
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: line between painting and poetry, between color and sound, white
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: and black, Uptown and downtown High art, low art, rap, jazz, sex, violence, freedom, addiction.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: He gave everything to his art and then he left us,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: but his work never will. It's on a swatch, It's
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: on a Strokes album cover. It's on rebox sneakers and
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: members only jackets. It's in a Tiffany's ad campaign next
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: to Beyonce and jay Z t shirts, socks, backpacks, phone cases, skateboards,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: coffee books. If you're looking at basqueyatsa art through consumer culture,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: or if you're lucky enough to stand in front of
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: a canvas in person, you can feel his energy surging
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: at you like a blast of punk rock from the
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: Mud Club, like a subwel for rattling a hip hop beat,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: like a fiery alto Sacks. Because, just like his idol,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: Charlie Parker, Jean Michel Basquiatt, the artist still echoes out
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: across New York, across America and across the world. But
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: as for the man himself, Jean Michelle Basquiat's body is
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: buried at Greenwood Cemetery. He died at just twenty seven
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: years old. And that is a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: and this is disgraceland. All right. Thank you for hanging
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: with me here in this episode of Disgraceland. Apple podcast listeners,
• 35:53
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• 35:56
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• 35:58
  Speaker 1: week is which musician had the best second career? Was
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: it Bosciad as a visual artist? Was it Johnny Depp
• 36:06
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• 36:09
  Speaker 1: Let me know six one seven nine oh six six
• 36:10
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• 36:13
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• 36:16
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• 36:18
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• 36:22
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• 36:25
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• 36:29
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• 36:32
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• 36:35
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• 36:39
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