A feature film starring the legendary American artist Jean Michel Basquiat (1960-1988). Basquiat was a painter, graffiti artist, poet and musician when he played the lead in this film, which vividly depicts the explosive downtown New York art and music scene of 1980-81. Length: 01:10:28
The film is a day in the life of a young artist who needs to raise money to reclaim the apartment from which he has been evicted. He wanders the downtown streets carrying a painting he hopes to sell, encountering friends, whose lives (and performances) we peek into. He finally manages to sell his painting to a wealthy female admirer, but he’s paid by check. Low on cash, he spends the evening wandering from club to club, looking for a beautiful girl he had met earlier, so he’ll have a place to spend the night.
Jean Michel Basquiat was 19 years old when he was cast in Downtown 81. His twentieth birthday came during the shooting of the film. Basquiat was already a notorious member of the downtown art scene, known for his witty, omnipresent “Samo” graffiti, his unique band Gray, and his general creativity and stylishness. He was a painter without a studio, making art with whatever was at hand, sweatshirts, refrigerators, doors and discarded wood. Around this time he met Glenn O’Brien, who was working on an article about graffiti. They became friends and Glenn wrote the main part for Jean Michel. During filming, the young artist lived in the production office, where he had his first real studio space. In 1981, Basquiat was one of the art stars of the “New York New Wave Show” at PS1 Institute for Art, where he exhibited several paintings. It was the beginning of a meteoric rise, and within a year he was one of the hottest artists in the world.
Edo Bertoglio, 1981/2000
