Jean-Michel Basquiat
New York City graffiti artist turned art world sensation, Jean-Michel Basquiat was a self-taught African American painter who died in 1988 of a drug overdose at the age of 27. In the ten years before his death, he showed at prestigious galleries in the United States and Europe and painted collaborative works with Andy Warhol and Francesco Clemente. This Italian catalog accompanies a Basquiat exhibition in Trieste and features fine reproductions of major Basquiat paintings, along with portrait photographs of the artist, a chronology of his life, and essays and interviews in both Italian and English translation. It provides a good overview of Basquiat's life and work, though the translation is sometimes quirky and the text concentrates more on Basquiat's activities in Europe than does Richard Marchall's Jean-Michel Basquiat (Abrams, 1995). As evidenced by the film and written accounts of Basquiat's life that have been appearing in the past few years, both large public libraries and academic collections can expect interest in this artist.AKathryn Wekselman, Univ. of Cincinnati Lib.Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.