Basquiat: Rage to Riches
Documentary film telling the story of Brooklyn-born artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose work reflected a new type of expressionism in modern art.
Nearly 30 years after his death from a drug overdose in 1988, the legendary artist Jean-Michel Basquiat managed to take the world by storm yet again when one of his skull paintings from 1982 sold at Sotheby's for over one hundred million dollars. The monetary value and historical importance of the work by this former Downtown NYC street graffiti artist is now considered on a par with such luninaries as Picasso, Pollock and Francis Bacon.
This film features exclusive interviews with Basquiat's two sisters - Lisane and Jeanine Basquiat - who have never before talked about their brother and his art for a TV documentary. Other contributors include some of the most powerful art dealers in the world, such as Bruno Bischofberger, Larry Gagosian and Mary Boone. They helped fuel Basquiat as he rocketed to art world fame, but their own careers and fortunes may have benefited just as much, and possibly more.
With striking candor, Basquiat's art dealers and most intimate friends, lovers and fellow artists spill the beans on the cash, the drugs and the pernicious racism that Basquiat encountered and fought against on a daily basis. And the main weapon that Basquiat used to fight this racism was his art.
The beating heart of this documentary is the actual art of Basquiat - and the substantive ways in which it embodied and reflected breakthroughs in music, poetry and a new type of expressionism in modern art. But the story of his life is the raw material for countless legends!
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Music Played
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Charlie Parker Quintet
Hot House
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Donna Summer
A Man Like You
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James White and the Blacks
Almost Black (Richard Sen's Padded Cell Edit)
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The B鈥52s
Moon 83
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Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
New York New York
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Television
Glory
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Blondie
Accidents Never Happen
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Public Enemy
Lost At Birth
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Charlie Parker
Bird Gets The Worm
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Miles Davis
Mtume
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Blondie
Rapture (Special Disco Mix)
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The B鈥52s
Trism
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Miles Davis
Billy Preston
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Brian Eno
Wire Shock
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Miles Davis
R.J.
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Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
It's Nasty
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The B鈥52s
Downtown
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The B鈥52s
Hero Worship
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Brian Eno, David Byrne
The Jezebel Spirit
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Brian Eno
In Dark Trees
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James Brown
Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)
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Sister Sledge
We Are Family
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Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No.3 In E Flat Major: Movement 2- Marcia Funebre, Adagio
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Brian Eno
Stedelijk
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Brian Eno
Small Craft on a Milk Sea
Credits
Role | Contributor |
---|---|
Executive Producer | Janet Lee |
Director | David Shulman |
Broadcasts
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