Not too long ago I watched the movie Frida, about the artist Frida Kahlo. The way in which it totally enveloped you into the artist's daily life and surroundings with it's geniune feeling scenery and cast, reminded me of the also great artist-biography movie Basquiat about Jean-Michel Basquait. Two great movies with one word titles about two great artists, one from Mexico active in the 1920's and 30's and one from New York in the 1980's. It's nice to see such well made depictions of the artists' life, for those that are interested I've included my short reviews of both movies below. First is Frida:
I knew the basic history about Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, her work and the relationship with the communist leaning Diego Rivera, but seeing the story displayed in front of you with great actors really helped me to understand her work in a way that I could not have before. Salma Hayek does a great job of portraying Kahlo. Good actors will go out of their way to find roles that challenge them and help break the type-cast mold in which they might have found themselves, and that's exactly what this role did for Hayek.
The history behind the whole thing is amazing, two avant-garde (at the time) Mexican artists who have dangerous political views exhibit their work around the world while having a torrid and confusing love affair, and hiding political refugees at their estate.
"They are so damn 'intellectual' and rotten that I can't stand them anymore... I would rather sit on the floor in the market of Toluca and sell tortillas, than have anything to do with those artistic bitches of Paris."
-Frida Kahlo
I mean you couldn't write this kind of stuff. It's stories like this that really keep me coming back to art history as a valuable resource for understanding cultures and people. Alfred Molina does an amazing job portraying the gregarious and larger than life Diego Rivera. Hayek was good, and Molina was amazing ( I hate to say that because in the story Rivera is so mean to Frida).
Now leap forward and northward about 50 years... to Basquiat. Directed by Julian Schnabel, himself a painter who has connections to the 1980's art scene which the movie depicts brilliantly. Jeffrey Wright gives an eerily dead-on performance as the young genius painter Jean-Michel Basquiat. I mean you watch old documentaries or bits of interviews or videos with Jean-Michel, and you watch the movie and Wright's performance is so dead on it's very scary. Wright should of won best actor easily for this role. David Bowie plays Andy Warhol to a tee, Dennis Hopper is awesome, Gary Oldman, Benicio Del Toro, the whole cast is incredible. No movie I have ever seen captures a time and place and the people so perfectly, how they did it is beyond me.
I think it's clear that by 1986 Basquiat had lost some of his rebelliousness and innocence and was using the artworld has much as it was using him. Unfortunately for him, it's my opinion that he was too far gone into trying to please everyone else and not himself at this point. Not too disimalar to what happend to another young genius African American artist that was exploited to some extent - Jimi Hendrix.
I am not saying one doesn't take responsibility for their own actions, decisions, and life, they absolutely should of course. But to say there wasn't many people surrounding both of these artists who were making money off of them with no interest in the person behind the art, and pushing them farther into personal chaos, is to be naive. Maybe it's not a racial thing - these two artists being exploited; there were also many other artists that were exploited, especially musical artist's during Hendrix's time. In Basquiat's case he had a very troubled childhood supposedly where he claimed he was beaten by his father, he ran away from home in his late teens and lived on the streets of New York. With no true direction other than his crayon, his spray can, his pencil, his brush guiding him.
It's unfortunate that he didn't have anyone around him who was able to help him get the personal help he needed. Which goes my back to my last post about Andy Warhol, or specifically this one from a year or so ago: Andy Warhol. Many deaths of artists happened around Warhol. In the linked post, it describes Warhol's own thoughts on this. If I understand his sentiment right, he says that he didn't encourage anyone around him into destructive behavior and tried to talk them out of it to what extent he could, but said that if people want to destroy themselves they will. I firmly believe that's true, but also that to just stand by and watch it happen while you make money off of your art-collaboration with the man destroying himself (Warhol and Basquiat) that's not exactly innocent either. I want to end with the note that I do firmly believe that Warhol wanted the best for everyone around him and not the opposite.
"I don't think the stereotype of the artist in the studio quietly working is really true anymore. There's always photographers coming through the studio and stuff like this. There is a lot more of daily life that is sort of documented and put out there, ...if you go to a restaurant they write about it in the Post on page six."
-Jean-Michel Basquait (from a 1986 interview)
I think it's clear that by 1986 Basquiat had lost some of his rebelliousness and innocence and was using the artworld has much as it was using him. Unfortunately for him, it's my opinion that he was too far gone into trying to please everyone else and not himself at this point. Not too disimalar to what happend to another young genius African American artist that was exploited to some extent - Jimi Hendrix.
I am not saying one doesn't take responsibility for their own actions, decisions, and life, they absolutely should of course. But to say there wasn't many people surrounding both of these artists who were making money off of them with no interest in the person behind the art, and pushing them farther into personal chaos, is to be naive. Maybe it's not a racial thing - these two artists being exploited; there were also many other artists that were exploited, especially musical artist's during Hendrix's time. In Basquiat's case he had a very troubled childhood supposedly where he claimed he was beaten by his father, he ran away from home in his late teens and lived on the streets of New York. With no true direction other than his crayon, his spray can, his pencil, his brush guiding him.
It's unfortunate that he didn't have anyone around him who was able to help him get the personal help he needed. Which goes my back to my last post about Andy Warhol, or specifically this one from a year or so ago: Andy Warhol. Many deaths of artists happened around Warhol. In the linked post, it describes Warhol's own thoughts on this. If I understand his sentiment right, he says that he didn't encourage anyone around him into destructive behavior and tried to talk them out of it to what extent he could, but said that if people want to destroy themselves they will. I firmly believe that's true, but also that to just stand by and watch it happen while you make money off of your art-collaboration with the man destroying himself (Warhol and Basquiat) that's not exactly innocent either. I want to end with the note that I do firmly believe that Warhol wanted the best for everyone around him and not the opposite.
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