Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child | |
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Directed by | Tamra Davis |
Produced by |
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Starring | Jean-Michel Basquiat |
Cinematography |
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Edited by | Alexis Manya Spraic |
Music by | |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | Arthouse Films |
Release dates |
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Running time | 90 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child is a 2010 documentary film directed by Tamra Davis. It crosscuts excerpts from Davis' on-camera interview with the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and anecdotes from his friends and associates. The film was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 2010. [1]
Tamra Davis was working in a Los Angeles art gallery in 1986 when she filmed an interview with her friend, Jean-Michel Basquiat. [2] After Basquiat's death from a heroin overdose in 1988, Davis stored the footage away. In 2008, Davis was encouraged by gallerists at the Museum of Contemporary Art to do something with the footage. [3] She began interviewing friends and associates of Basquiat's and pieced together a documentary. [2] The film is titled after an article about Basquiat written by art critic Rene Ricard for Artforum in 1981. [4]
In the beginning of his 10-year career, Jean-Michel Basquiat was known for his graffiti art under the alias SAMO in Manhattan's Lower East Side in the late 1970s. He sold his first painting to Debbie Harry for $200, dated Madonna, and became a close friend and collaborator of Andy Warhol's. [1] Basquiat was launched into international stardom for his bebop-influenced neoexpressionist work. However, soon his cult status began to overshadow his art. [5] As a successful black artist, Basquiat was constantly confronted by racism and misconceptions. The Radiant Child draws from insider interviews and archival footage of Basquiat's telling his story in his own words. [1]
The film received positive reviews, however, critics noted that it doesn’t fully explore why Basquiat's work was so "innovative in the New York art scene of the 1980s." [6] SlantMagazine wrote that "you see the paintings and hear people praise them, without the space to consider them in between, " adding: "The film's a decent introduction to a man who walked the world of SoHo, CBGB, and Andy Warhol's final days, but the more you know going into the movie, the more you sense it leaving out." [7]
The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "Naturally, the doc is well illustrated with examples of Basquiat’s work, some of which are little-seen. But even those who dispute his place in art history should come away with a feeling for the man whose brief career is a textbook example of a flame burning too bright to last." [8]
The Artforum wrote: "The movie gives a sense of how driven he was, how it seemed as if he aimed, by sheer volume, to assure himself a place in the pantheon of twentieth-century painters, when in fact he achieved that position by virtue of a necessarily smaller number of masterpieces, produced in the early and late stages of his heartbreakingly short career." [9]
Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the Neo-expressionism movement.
Basquiat is a 1996 American biographical drama film directed, written and co-composed by Julian Schnabel in his feature directorial debut. The film is based on the life of American postmodernist/neo expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. It is the first film about an American painter written and directed by another artist.
Downtown 81 is a 2000 American film that was shot in 1980-1981. The film was directed by Edo Bertoglio and written and produced by Glenn O'Brien and Patrick Montgomery, with post-production in 1999-2000 by Glenn O'Brien and Maripol. It is a rare real-life snapshot of an ultra-hip subculture of post-punk era Manhattan. Starring renowned artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and featuring such East Village artists as James Chance, Amos Poe, Walter Steding, Tav Falco and Elliott Murphy, the film is a bizarre elliptical urban fairy tale. In 1999, Michael Zilkha, founder of ZE Records, became the film's executive producer.
Tamra Davis is an American film, television and music video director.
Rene Ricard was an American poet, actor, art critic, and painter.
Bruno Bischofberger is a Swiss art dealer and collector.
Edo Bertoglio is a Swiss photographer, film director and screenwriter. He is the director of Downtown 81 and Face Addict.
Glenn O'Brien was an American writer who focused largely on the subjects of art, music, and fashion. He was featured for many years as "The Style Guy" in GQ magazine and published a book with that title. He worked as a writer and editor at a number of publications, including Rolling Stone, Playboy, Interview, High Times, Spin, and Details. He also published the arts and literature magazine Bald Ego from 2003 to 2005.
SAMO is a graffiti tag originally used on the streets of New York City from 1978 to 1980. The tag, written with a copyright symbol as "SAMO©", and pronounced Same-Oh, is primarily associated with the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, but was originally developed as a collaboration between Basquiat and Al Diaz.
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Mark Sink is an American photographer best known for romantic portraiture. Some of his most recognizable images include documentation of life and work of artists such as Andy Warhol, Jean Michel Basquiat, Rene Ricard and other artists from the New York art scene of the 1980s, before returning to Denver. Mark Sink has been exhibiting his work professionally since 1978 to the present day from street art, commercial galleries, museums and other institutions.
Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is a 2016 picture book biography by Javaka Steptoe about Jean-Michel Basquiat. Using a style similar to Basquiat's, the book tells the story of his childhood and early career. It won the 2017 Caldecott Medal and Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for its illustrations.
Untitled (Gem Spa) is a 1982 painting created by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1982. It is an autobiographical work depicting a sparsely rendered figure atop a bicycle "drowned in darkness."
Basquiat: Rage to Riches is a documentary film about artist Jean-Michel Basquiat that premiered on BBC Two in October 2017. It was produced and directed by David Shulman. The film won the Huw Wheldon Award for Specialist Factual at the 2018 British Academy Television Awards.
Olympics is a painting created by American artists Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol in 1984. The artwork was a commemoration of the 1984 Summer Olympics. It sold for $10.5 million at Phillips's Contemporary Art Evening Sale in June 2012, which at the time was a record high for a Warhol-Basquiat collaboration. It is the second most expensive Warhol-Basquiat collaboration sold at auction after Zenith (1985).
Suzanne Mallouk is a Canadian-born painter, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst, based in New York City. She is best known for her role within a core of East Village creatives in the 1980s and for her relationship with artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, much of which her friend Jennifer Clement chronicled in Widow Basquiat: A Memoir. In 2015, Vogue magazine listed Basquiat and Mallouk among "The 21 Most Stylish Art World Couples of All Time."
Untitled is a painting created by American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1981. The artwork, which depicts a fisherman displaying his catch hanging at the end of a line, sold for $26.4 million at Christie's in November 2012.
Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art is a book by journalist Phoebe Hoban, chronicling the life of American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Released in 1998 by Viking, the unauthorized biography was not endorsed by Basquiat's estate, but various people who were close to Basquiat contributed their recollections of him.
Michael Halsband is an American photographer. He makes portraits of celebrities, from musicians to artists, and produces work for fashion and lifestyle publications. He has also directed short films, music videos and commercials.