Basquiat: Boom for Real
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
Basquiat: Boom for Real Details
Focusing on Jean-Michel Basquiat’s extraordinary breadth of influences, from graffiti to bebop jazz to Hollywood cinema, this exciting new survey charts his ground-breaking career. Basquiat first came to prominence when he collaborated with Al Diaz to spray-paint enigmatic statements under the pseudonym SAMO©. He went on to work on collages, Xerox art, postcards, performances, and music before establishing his reputation as one of the most important painters of his generation. Accompanying a major exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery, this book opens with introductory essays from the curators, which place his practice in a wider art historical context and look at his career through the lens of performance. Six thematic chapters offer new research, with essays from poet Christian Campbell on SAMO©; curator Carlo McCormick on New York / New Wave; writer Glenn O’Brien on the downtown scene; academic Jordana Moore Saggese on Basquiat’s relationship to film and television; and music scholar Francesco Martinelli on Basquiat’s obsession with jazz. This insightful new survey also features extended captions, rare archival material, and extensive photography, demonstrating how Basquiat’s legacy remains more powerful and relevant than ever today.
Reviews
I bought this because I collect all of the basquiat monographs, and went to the Barbican for this retrospective. However, this book does contain nearly every single work that has been shown in other, better monographs. If you own the Jean Michel Basquiat show and the Tony Shafrazi monograph, this book does not offer anything those don't. The paper that they use could have been better, but again, this is discounted to $35 usd.I would save your money and wait for the Taschen XXL coming out in June, which will cost $150, but Is 400 pages and 15"x12" in size and I guarantee it will have all of these works, because it is being done by these same authors, but it will have plenty more, in better quality and size.
