1971

Gerard Basquiat and his three children move to the Boerum Hill section of Brooklyn. Basquiat leaves St. Ann’s for public school, P.S. 181, the first of many New York City public schools he will attend, including P.S. 6, 101,45, and I.S. 293.

1974

Due to a job promotion and relocation, Gerard Basquiat moves with his three children to Mira Mar, Puerto Rico, near San Juan, where Basquiat attends an Episcopalian school.

1975

Basquiat runs away from home, staying for a few hours at a local radio station until the employees call his father, who immediately brings him home.

”Jean-Michel did not like obedience. He gave me a lot of trouble.” (Gerard Basquiat) 4

1976

On Thanksgiving Day, after a job transfer, Gerard Basquiat and his three children return from Puerto Rico to live in their Boerum Hill brownstone. Basquiat resumes schooling at Edward R. Murrow High School.

After a few weeks, he transfers to the City-as-School, a progressive school in Manhattan. Part of the New York City public school system, the City-as-School is an alternative high school where work-study internships are accepted as credit toward a high school degree. Designed for gifted and talented children who find the traditional educational process difficult, it is based on John Dewey’s theory that students learn by doing. At City-as- School, Basquiat meets Al Diaz, a graffitist from the Jacob Riis Projects on the Lower East Side; they become close friends and early artistic collaborators. 

1976

In December, Basquiat again runs away, this time for about two weeks, hanging out in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village, a place he and Diaz would often frequent. After much searching, Gerard Basquiat finds him and brings him home. Basquiat proclaims, “Papa, I will be very, very famous one day. 5

“I left home at 15, and went to Washington Square Park. I just sat there dropping acid …. Now that all seems boring; it eats your mind up.” (Basquiat) 6

Photo Credit: Downtown 81 (New York Beat) © New York Beat Film LLC. © The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat Photo by Edo Bertoglio 

1977

Through the City-as-School, Basquiat becomes involved with an Upper West Side drama group called Family Life Theater. During this time, he creates a fictional character named SAMO (Same Old Shit), who makes a living selling a fake religion. Basquiat and Diaz, among the most popular students at City-as-School, both very creative and with a knack for getting into a lot of trouble, begin collaborating on the SAMO project as “a way of letting off steam.” 7

They begin spray-painting aphorisms on the D train of the IND line and around lower Manhattan. The writings consist of witty philosophical poems: SAMO as an end to mindwash religion nowhere politics, and bogus philosophy,” “SAMO saves idiots, Plush safe he think; SAMO.

1977

“The stuff you see on the subways now is inane. Scribbled. SAMO was like a refresher course because there’s some kind of statement being made.” (Al Diaz) 8

Nora Fitzpatrick begins residing with Gerard Basquiat. She becomes a maternal figure, and friend, to the younger Basquiat.

At Diaz’s graduation from the City-as-School in June, Basquiat, on a dare, prepares a box full of shaving cream, and while the principal is speaking he runs up to the podium and dumps the box on his head. Although only a year away from graduating, Basquiat feels there is “no point in going back.” 9

Photo Credit: Downtown 81 (New York Beat) © New York Beat Film LLC.© The Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat Photo by Edo Bertoglio 

1978

In June, Basquiat leaves home for good. Gerard Basquiat, with some trepidation, gives his son money with the understanding that he will try his best to succeed.

Basquiat’s fascination with stardom and “burning out” is a recurring subject in his life. Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, two people whose work and artistic achievement Basquiat admires, had both died of drug overdoses at the age of twenty- seven in 1970. His admiration for musicians, singers, and boxers like Joplin, Hendrix, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Joe Louis is shown later in various paintings.

“Jean-Michel was planning to be a star.” (Gerard Basquiat) 10

“Since I was seventeen, I thought I might be a star. I’d think about all my heroes, Charlie Parker, Jimi Hendrix …. I had a romantic feeling of how people had become famous.” (Basquiat) 11

1978

Basquiat stays at the homes of various friends, frequently at the Canal Street loft of British artist Stan Peskett, who throws parties that bring the uptown graffitists, including Fred Braithwaite and Lee Quinones, downtown, although more for the exchange of musical ideas than art. At these parties, Basquiat also meets Michael Holman, a future member of Gray, and Danny Rosen, who immediately becomes a companion on the downtown club scene. Basquiat, Rosen, Holman, and Vincent Gallo, who would also join Gray, are referred to as the “baby crowd” at the clubs.

“They were gorgeous, extremely stylish, and danced fantastically.” (Edit DeAk) 12

Photo Credit: Basquiat with Untitled (Julius Caesar on Gold) (1981; left) and Untitled (L.A. Painting) (1982; ground), New York, c. 1981 © Pierre Houlès

1978

Basquiat begins to sell hand-painted postcards and T-shirts to make a little money. He approaches Andy Warhol and Henry Geldzahler inside the SoHo restaurant WPA; he sells a postcard to Warhol but Geldzahler dismisses him as “too young.”

Basquiat begins dating Alexis Adler and the two often stay together at friends’ houses in downtown Manhattan. They live for a while in the apartment of their close friend Felice Ralster, until Basquiat becomes unbearable because he writes and draws over everything in the apartment.

“Basquiat painted on anything he could get his hands on: refrigerators, laboratory coats, cardboard boxes, and doors.” (Mary Ann Monforton) 14

1978

Basquiat and Adler move into a small apartment at 527 East 12th Street, his first fixed address. During this time, he becomes a regular among a crowd of filmmakers, musicians, and artists that hang out at the “new” downtown spots: the Mudd Club, Club 57, CBGB’s, Hurrah’s, and Tier 3. Along with Patti Astor, co-founder of the Fun Gallery, David Byrne, Blondie, Madonna, Tina Lhotsky, the B-52s, John Lurie, Diego Cortez, Edit DeAk, Ann Magnuson, and John Sex, Basquiat regularly makes the scene at the Mudd Club.

At the same time, a cultural aesthetic is flowering uptown in the streets of Harlem and the basements of the South Bronx: rap, graffiti, and breakin’ -the roots of hip-hop culture. Fred Braithwaite notes that “the scene downtown … was pretty much all white except for me, Jean-Michel, and a few other people.”

As Basquiat saw it, “there’s not enough black people downtown in this … whatever it is, pseudo art bullshit.” 16

1979

Shortly after the article in The Village Voice, Basquiat and Diaz have a falling out that ends the SAMO collaboration, and “SAMO is dead” begins appearing on various SoHo walls.

“Jean-Michel saw SAMO as a vehicle, the graffiti was an advertisement for himself. … all of a sudden he just started taking it over.” (Al Diaz) 20

Basquiat concentrates on painting T-shirts and making postcards, drawings, and collages. They display a combination of graffiti art and Abstract Expressionism, and focus on baseball players, the Kennedy assassination, and consumer items such as Pez candy. Basquiat collaborates on many of these with John Sex and Jennifer Stein, and sells the work in Washington Square Park, around SoHo, and in front of The Museum of Modern Art.

Photo Credit: Henry Flynt ‘The SAMO© Graffiti Portfolio, 1979-91’, ‘Boom For Real’ Catalogue

1979

In May, Basquiat, along with Michael Holman, Shannon Dawson, and Vincent Gallo form the band Channel 9, later renamed Test Pattern, then Gray. They are subsequently joined by Wayne Clifford and Nick Taylor. Basquiat plays clarinet and synthesizers for the group, which performs a distinct blend of jazz, punk, and synth-pop, often referred to as “noise music.”

“It wasn’t about the level of playing, it was about the sound.” (Michael Holman) 21

In the fall, while wandering around the School of Visual Arts, Basquiat meets fellow artists and downtown scenemakers Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf. Haring and Scharf are as much a part of the scene at Club 57 as Basquiat is at the Mudd Club. Basquiat and Haring share an on-again, off-again relationship for the rest of their lives. Basquiat admires the raw, graffiti qualities of Haring’s work, and he sees Haring as truly a part of the graffiti subculture in a way that he is not. After reading “SAMO is dead,” Haring per- forms a eulogy for SAMO at Club 57. In 1988, Haring paints A Pile of Crowns for Jean-Michel Basquiat as a memorial to Basquiat.

1979

Through Fred Braithwaite, Basquiat meets Glenn O’Brien, the producer of TV Party on New York cable television and music editor at Interview. They become good friends, and Basquiat frequently appears on O’Brien’s TV Party.

At the Mudd Club, Basquiat meets Diego Cortez, an artist and filmmaker, who knows people within and outside of the East Village club scene. Cortez takes a liking to Basquiat’s work, sells some drawings, and eventually shows the work to art dealers. He also formally introduces Basquiat to Henry Geldzahler, who becomes a friend and early collector of Basquiat’s art.

“Diego had done a lot … some performance stuff with Laurie Anderson. He was one of the few people who had contacts in both music and art at the Mudd Club.” (Glenn O’Brien) 22