“Basquiat, Africa at Heart” – Beating deeply [MOVIE]
“Basquiat, Africa at Heart,” a documentary created by Cyril Bérard, dissects Jean-Michel Basquiat’s influential trip to Africa. Basquiat catapulted to fame when the contemporary art establishment embraced his street graffiti work, finding it raw, vibrant, and revolutionary. Part of a street movement that encompassed rap and punk, his art became an embodiment of hip hop. He appropriated poetry, found articles, painting, folkloric masks, and drawing into his graffiti murals and paintings. His meteoric rise was cut short at the age of 27 when he died of a heroin overdose. Contrary to popular belief, or at least those who don’t know his origin, Basquiat was not a poor street kid. He was raised in a middle class Brooklyn home and attended arts-oriented schools. Very bright, he was fluent in French, Spanish, and English. His mother encouraged his artistic tendencies and, presciently, gifted him a copy of Gray’s Anatomy that ended up having an outside influence on his future art. When his parents divorced, he and his siblings lived with their father. His mother’s mental illness and her confinement to psychiatric hospitals when he was still quite young was very unsettling. Jean-Michel…
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