Jean-Michel Basquiat, a young graffiti artist in New York, was born in Brooklyn on December 22, 1960. Since childhood, he showed an interest in art which his mother encouraged. He grew up to be one of the most famous artists of our time, but also one of the most troubled. He died at the young age of 27 from a heroin overdose. I believe factors other than the drug overdose led to Basquiat's death. Those factors are, the stresses of being an artist in the city, hereditary depression, and the death of his good friend and fellow artist, Andy Warhol.
Jean-Michel's career as an artist started when "he left high school a year before graduation, and sold hand-painted postcards on the streets. He also started spraying cryptic aphorisms on subways and around Brooklyn with the signature SAMO ©- (Parker). "In June of 1980, Jean-Michel's art was publicly exhibited for the first time in an art show sponsored by Colab- (Parker). After this, Jean-Michel's art career boomed and he sold art for thousands of dollars. Jean-Michel faced much racism in the powerful white art world. In the movie, "His admirers said "This is the real voice of the gutter!- At another point he is described as the "Pickaninny of the art world."" He hears "There has never been a black painter who was considered important- (Ebert) Jean-Michel later signed on with his first full-time dealer. Annina Nosei cleared out her gallery basement for Jean-Michel to use as his studio. While Jean-Michel was painting, Nosei would bring in clients and disrupt him. She would also sell his unfinished works without his permission. This upset Jean-Michel and he ended up leaving Nosei. Afterwards he went through a number of other galleries and dealers, but he had problems with almost all of them (Brain-Juice).
Jean-Michel suffered from hereditary depression. There is a scene in the movie where he goes to visit his mother in an institution, but she doesn't even respond to him.
