I've never understood why, but the Arts & entertainment world have always felt a quite sinister fascination for the "died too young" artists. Perhaps the most famous case is James Dean in the cinema, but you'll surely know Kurt Cobain in the music world or Jack Kerouac in the literature. And, if you look to the contemporary painting, you'll find Jean-Michel Basquiat. Died at only 26, after a frenzy life highlighted with his ferocious graffiti art works, his multiple drug addictions and his problematic friendship with the also polemical Andy Warhol, Basquiat establishes himself not only as one of the most important artists of the second half of the past century, but also as a tragic icon of the contemporary Art world.

GRAFFITI AND GHETTO

Born on December 22, 1960 in Brooklyn, New York, Jean-Michel Basquiat grew up in the Brooklin streets, where he begins to create ferocious graffitis on subway trains of Lower Manhattan subways, signing them with the anagram SAMO, which means "SAMe Old shit".

In 1980, when he was only 19 years old, Basquiat take part in the exhibition Times Square Show, and attracted the attention of both critics and specialized press. The following year, he exhibits in the P.S.1, where he achieved a great success, and he began his friendship with one of the most famous and controversial artistic personalities of that period, ANDY WARHOL. Warhol and Basquiat admired each other, and collaborated in almost a hundred works.

In 1983 Basquiat travelled to the Italian city of Modena, where he attended to his first individual exhibition. This hyped event was a extraordinary success, making him the most respected Afro-American painter. But this success had also a dark, negative side: Basquiat began an excessive drug use, which often makes him to stay in a paranoia state. On August 12th 1988, Basquiat was found dead of a drug overdose on his apartment. He was only 27 years old.

Stylistically, Basquiat's work is much harder to explain that a superficial analysis could make believe, and it was inspired by multiple references such as contemporary artists as Picasso, the jazz music, the African Art and culture, and perhaps the drug abuse.

In 2002, his work Profit I was auctioned at Christie's for more than $5,5 million. The work was painted in Italy in 1982, when Basquiat was only 21 years old.

THE GRAFFITI ARTISTS

Basquiat is, without doubt, the most important and well-known figure of the graffiti movement of the NY scene in the early 80s, but at least two other artists are worthy of being recognized here: KENNY SCHARF(born 1958) worked in Soho, where he exhibits in the Fun galleries (name given by Scharf himself) as the Civilian Warfare or the Gracie Manson. KEITH HARING (1958-1990) also worked in the Soho and East Village, but his style was even more ferocious, self-destructives than Scharf's works. Haring, arguably the most important artist of the grafitti movement, was also an accomplished figure outside the artistic world, participating in many campaigns against the HIV.

Other important artists of the graffiti movement were Mike Bildo, Tom Otterness or Rhonda Zwillinger.