2015 Dom Pérignon: Vintage Jean-Michel Basquiat Special Edition Tribute to Jean-Michel Basquiat Collection 3 Pack Moet & Chandon

Jean-Michel Basquiat ([ basˈkja ] * December 22, 1960 in New York City ; † August 12 , 1988 ibid) was an American artist, painter and draftsman. He was the first African-American artist to make a breakthrough in the predominantly white art world. Basquiat contradicted the common classification as a graffiti artist : "I am not part of graffiti art." ^{[ 1 ]} To this day, he polarizes in the determination of his place in art history. ^{[ 2 ]}

Jean-Michel Basquiat was born one year after the death of his brother Max (1959) as the second son of Matilda Basquiat, whose family came from Puerto Rico , and Gérard Basquiat, who had left Haiti in the 1950s. ^{[ 3 ] [ 4 ]} At the age of four he learned to read and write. His mother, who was interested in art and painted and drew herself, visited the Brooklyn Museum with him, for which he received an annual pass. His family belonged to the emerging middle class and could afford to send their son to a Catholic private school. ^{[ 5 ]} In 1968 Matilda Basquiat separated from her husband and children. Jean-Michel had no friends; he mostly played with children who also had no friends. ^{[ 6 ]} At the age of eleven he spoke fluent French and Spanish in addition to American English. ^{[ 7 ]} When his mentally ill mother visited her children, she sat with them on the steps in front of the house.

From 1974 to 1976 he lived with his sisters and his father in Puerto Rico. Back in Brooklyn, he ran away from home for a few days after having problems with his father. He was sent to the City As School for talented young people with problems. The students there receive special support. In 1977 Basquiat ran away from home again.

From April 1979, he played clarinet and synthesizer in the noise band Gray, which performed at clubs such as Max's Kansas City , CBGB , Hurrah at the Mudd Club , and Arleen Schloss's . ^{[ 8 ]} The band had also previously been called Test Pattern , Bad Fools , and Channel 9. Basquiat gave the band the name Gray after receiving the book Gray's Anatomy from his mother. From 1979, Basquiat, along with Walter Steding , Debbie Harry , Chris Stein , and Klaus Nomi, was a regular guest on "TV Party", a weekly underground punk rock show featuring Glenn O'Brien , the music critic for Andy Warhol 's Interview magazine. Through Glenn O'Brien, he met Warhol.

Until 1981 he lived in Soho with friends, before he was able to afford his first own apartment in 1982, after making money from selling paintings. He lived there with his partner Susanne Mallouk. He painted every day in the basement of the gallery of s Nossei, his gallery owner. There he produced paintings at a breathtaking pace, some of which were sold before they were even finished.

In 1982, at the age of 21, he was the youngest participant to date in a documenta ( documenta 7 ). Around this time, he entered into a relationship with the then unknown singer Madonna . ^{[ 9 ]} In 1983, he rented a house on Great Jones Street from Andy Warhol, where he lived and worked. Exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world made his work increasingly well-known. In 1984, he moved to the Mary Boone Gallery, one of the most respected galleries in New York. "I wanted to be in a gallery with older artists," said Basquiat. According to McGuigan, however, he wanted above all to end the defamatory comparisons of art critics to graffiti and to become an "established" artist, ^{[ 10 ]} because, according to Fred Braithwaite aka Fab 5 Freddy : "Graffiti had become another word for nigger." ^{[ 11 ]}

Basquiat ended his collaboration with the Mary Boone Gallery in 1986. He traveled to Germany, where he had a solo exhibition at the Kestnergesellschaft in Hanover. ^{[ 12 ]} In Hamburg, he worked with Salvador Dalí , Keith Haring , Joseph Beuys and others on the set for André Heller's Luna Luna , an avant-garde amusement park. ^{[ 13 ]}

When Andy Warhol died in February 1987, Basquiat fell into a serious crisis. From June 1987, the New York art dealer Vrej Baghoomian became his gallery owner, but Basquiat did not exhibit for over a year. In 1988, Basquiat showed his last paintings at the Vrej Baghoomian gallery, in which he addressed death by referring to dying through the repeated words MAN DIES in the "Eroica" paintings and the painting Riding with Death .

With the artist Ouattara Watts , whom he had met in Paris in early 1988, Basquiat planned to fly to Abidjan , Ivory Coast , to his homeland on August 19, 1988. There, shamans were supposed to free him from his drug addiction. The plane tickets remained unused; on August 12, 1988, he died of a heroin overdose. He left behind more than 1,000 paintings and objects as well as 2,000 drawings. ^{[ 14 ]} In one of his last notebooks, he noted that he wanted to buy a saxophone. ^{[ 15 ]}