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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!

1 hour, 30 minutes

Last on

Tue 10 Oct 2023 01:00
成人论坛 Four

Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

  • 00:04

    Charlie Parker Quintet

    Hot House

  • 00:06

    Donna Summer

    A Man Like You

  • 00:08

    James White and the Blacks

    Almost Black (Richard Sen's Padded Cell Edit)

  • 00:10

    The B鈥�52s

    Moon 83

  • 00:11

    Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five

    New York New York

  • 00:13

    Television

    Glory

  • 00:14

    Blondie

    Accidents Never Happen

  • 00:19

    Public Enemy

    Lost At Birth

  • 00:21

    Charlie Parker

    Bird Gets The Worm

  • 00:22

    Miles Davis

    Mtume

  • 00:24

    Blondie

    Rapture (Special Disco Mix)

  • 00:29

    The B鈥�52s

    Trism

  • 00:30

    Miles Davis

    Billy Preston

  • 00:31

    Brian Eno

    Wire Shock

  • 00:38

    Miles Davis

    R.J.

  • 00:40

    Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five

    It's Nasty

  • 00:49

    The B鈥�52s

    Downtown

  • 00:54

    The B鈥�52s

    Hero Worship

  • 00:43

    Brian Eno, David Byrne

    The Jezebel Spirit

  • 01:00

    Brian Eno

    In Dark Trees

  • 01:05

    James Brown

    Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)

  • 01:08

    Sister Sledge

    We Are Family

  • 01:12

    Ludwig van Beethoven

    Symphony No.3 In E Flat Major: Movement 2- Marcia Funebre, Adagio

  • 01:19

    Brian Eno

    Stedelijk

  • 01:22

    Brian Eno

    Small Craft on a Milk Sea

Credits

Executive Producer Janet Lee
Director David Shulman

Broadcasts

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成人论坛 World Service: Witness

成人论坛 World Service: Witness

The rise and fall of a New York graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat