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BASQUIAT Jean-Michel
Born in 1960 died in 1988
Jean-Michel Basquiat was born on December 22, 1960 in Brooklyn, New York.
In 1977, Basquiat, along with friend Al Diaz begins spray painting cryptic aphorisms on subway trains and around lower Manhattan and signing them with the name SAMO© (Same Old Shit).
In 1978 Basquiat left home for good and quit school just one year before graduating form high school. He lived with friends and began selling hand painted postcards and T-shirts.
In 1982, Basquiat was featured in the group show "Transavanguardia: Italia/America" along with Neo-Expressionists Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, Enzu Cucchi, David Deutsch, David Salle, and Julian Schnabel (who will go on to direct the biographical film Basquiat in 1996).
It was also in 1983 that Basquiat was befriended by Andy Warhol, a relationship which sparked discussion concerning white patronization of black art, a conflict which remains, to this day, at the center of most discussions of Basquiat's life and work. Basquiat and Warhol collaborated on a number of paintings, none of which are are critically acclaimed. Their relationship continued, despite this, until Warhol's death in 1987.
In 1986, Basquiat travelled to Africa for the first time and his work was shown in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. In November, a large exhibition of more than sixty paintings and drawings opened at the Kestner-Gesellschaft in Hannover; at twenty-five Basquiat was the youngest artist ever given an exhibition there. In 1988, Basquiat had shows in both Paris and New York; the New York show was praised by some critics, an encouraging development.
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