Jean-Michel Basquiat - interview

From an early 1982 interview

MM: There's a certain, let's use the term, crudity, to your heads . . .Do you like it that way or would you like to get them more refined in a realistic way?

JMB: . . .I haven't met that many refined people. Most people are generally crude.

MM: Yeah? And so that's why you keep your images crude . . .

JMB: Believe it or not, I can actually draw.

MM: You're what, Haitian-Puerto Rican, is that - Do you feel that's in your art?

JMB: Genetically?

MM: Or culturally . . . I mean for instace, Haiti is of course famous for it's art.

JMB: That's why I said genetically. I've never been there. And I grew up in, you know, the principal American vacuum, you know, television mostly.

MM: No Haitian primitives on your wall?

JMB: At home? . . . Haitian Primitives? What do you mean? People?

MM: No I mean paintings . . . Where do the words come from?

JMB: Real life, books, television.

MM: And just skim them and start including certain -

JMB: No, man, when I'm working I hear them, you know, and I just throw them down.

MM: . . . It's just spontaneous juxtapostions and there's no logic?

Comments

[Julian]

I feel this interview of jean was an attempt from a "higher" white crowd to try to understand and decipher exactly what dyslexic, lower leveled feeling of life felt like, coming from an african american of his importance. The only thing crude in this interview was the bare generalization and a lack of understanding between two diffrent cultures.

[Jeremy Barnes - Artist / Basquiat Lover]

I have always loved this interview and I don't feel Basquiat's best work was on cavas. The sarcasim, the idea that Basquiat might actually keep Hiatian people on his walls, Basquiat never wanted this interview to go smoothly. As was his career, short, sweet,.... misunderstood. Julian, You have a good point. Basquiat didn't do black art,... he did art. It might have been politically charged, but he's American just like me. Jackson Pollock might disagree, but everyone who has read remarks he made about Basquiat, knows Jackson Pollock was a racist. I love Basquiat. I relate to him, and yes I am white. Maybe it's because I grew up on the poor side of the railroad tracks of an extremely prosperous town, or is it that I was part of a generation that watched Ren and Stimpy, was constantly subjected to advertisment, listened to the Spice Girls and other brutal totalitarian pop music. The point is, Basquiat's work is a reflection on society. It may seem to be random, spontaneous juxtapostions,that have no logic or reasoning..... and to certain people they are... People who still believe in a kind of thinking that was preimpressionistic. We live in a world where children are raised infront of a T.V.... and for every 10 min. of actual T.V. shows, there's 7 min. of advertising. Basquiat's audience is now born.

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