Quotes & Sayings About Basquiat

Most Young Kings Get Their Heads Cut Off. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

Kurt Cobain OD'd on heroin before committing suicide, but he also OD'd on fame. Cobain was like Basquiat: They both wanted to be famous, and were brilliant enough to make it happen. But then what? Drug addicts kill themselves trying to get that feeling they got from their first high, looking for an experience they'll never get again. In his suicide note, Cobain asked himself, "Why don't you just enjoy it?" and then answered, "I don't know!" It's amazing how much of a mindfuck success can be. — Jay-Z

I cross out words so you will see them more; the fact that they are obscured makes you want to read them. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

Before they did all those shows on Jackson Pollock, I loved the way he formulated his paintings. I loved Basquiat - I was into the whole Beat generation, Kerouac, etc., and all those artists talked about that and Kerouac, so I just got in the middle of being spontaneous. — Matt Schulze

I have done only two portraits: one of the artist Francesco Clemente and another of Andy Warhol. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

Through my friend Tony Shafrazi, who's an art dealer and an artist himself - he helped to show Basquiat and Keith Haring, and has worked with the Francis Bacon estate - it was really through my friendship with Tony that I developed even more of an interest in art. — Owen Wilson

I always loved the creative process, from 'Shakespeare in Love' to 'Finding Neverland' to 'Basquiat'; whether it's serious, or it's comedic, whether it's the 'inside look' at that, it seems to be a theme of what I do. — Harvey Weinstein

I had all these tapes in my closet that I had shot years ago with my friend Jean-Michel Basquiat. I was working on a film about him when he died, and then I just put everything away. It was too sad. — Tamra Davis

Medicine men live in caves. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

There are about 30 words around you all the time, like 'thread' or 'exit.' — Jean-Michel Basquiat

If I'm away from painting for a week, I get bored. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

The country makes me more paranoid, you know? I think the crazy people out there are little crazier. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

But Basquiat is the first thing I've done that I'm really proud of. — Claire Forlani

I didn't start doing graffiti until two years after I got to New York. Jean Michel Basquiat was one of my main inspirations for doing graffiti. For a year I didn't know who Jean Michel was, but I knew his work. — Keith Haring

I start a picture and I finish it. I don't think about art while I work. I try to think about life. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

My connection with Basquiat was really in Los Angeles, which really was a whole different world to what he was experiencing in New York. — Tamra Davis

I'm not a real person. I'm a legend. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

I had some money, I made the best paintings ever. I was completely reclusive, worked a lot, took a lot of drugs. I was awful to people. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

This kid was writing saying that they were breaking down some of the racial lines in their towns and communities, because their break dance crews were mixed race, and they didn't give a fuck. They didn't care what the Klu Klux Klan said."

- Michael Holman (screenwriter, Basquiat)

from nthWORD Issue #8, coming soon... — Michael Holman

I am not a black artist, I am an artist. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

On the night he died - he was twenty-seven - Basquiat had been planning to see a Run-DMC show. When people asked him what his art was about, he'd hit them with the same three words: Royalty, heroism, and the streets. — Jay-Z

I want to use whatever connections to get a super-outstanding Basquiat in the White House. It could be one of mine. It could be something that a friend owns. — Jeffrey Deitch

I will Basquiat the canvas of your body like a Broadway Junction wall ... and Gordon Parks you for those dark midnights when your scent fades. — Brandi L. Bates

Every single line means something. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

I thought I was going to be a bum the rest of my life. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

I was a really lousy artist as a kid. Too abstract expressionist; or I'd draw a big ram's head, really messy. I'd never win painting contests. I remember losing to a guy who did a perfect Spiderman. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

I don't think about art when I'm working. I try to think about life. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

I played a guitar with a file, and a synthesizer. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

Occasionally, when I get mad at a woman, I'll do some great, awful painting about her. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

Some days I can't get an idea, and I think, 'Man, I'm just washed up,' but it's just a mood. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

I wanted to be a star, not a gallery mascot. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

If you wanna talk about influence, man, then you've got to realize that influence is not influence. It's simply someone's idea going through my new mind. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

In general, you have great artists who have died far too early and who have left great cultural impact. If you look at people like Vincent van Gogh or Jean-Michel Basquiat-there's a long, long list of artists who have died in tragic circumstances, and far, far too early. — Simon De Pury

Charles Saatchi has never liked my work at all. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

I feel when you walk into somebody's apartment on Fifth Avenue or house in Malibu and you see a Basquiat, a Warhol, a Richard Prince, you say to yourself, '$700,000, $2.2 million, $350,000 ... ' To me that is completely uninteresting. I'd rather go to a house where there's great art and I have no idea who the work is by. — Jean Pigozzi

The black person is the protagonist in most of my paintings. I realized that I didn't see many paintings with black people in them. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

My favorite Twombly is 'Apollo and the Artist,' with the big 'Apollo' written across it. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

The more I paint the more I like everything. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

In the early eighties, there were a lot of artists involved with the music scene. All those young artists, before their careers took off, were into music. Robert Longo used to play some guitar. He had a band for a while. Basquiat had a band. I mean, people were always trying to mix music and art - in fact, I'm guilty of it myself. — Kim Gordon

Basquiat will continue to show us new things about who we are and why he was so important. — Tamra Davis

I wanted to be a cartoonist when I was young. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

I like kids' work more than work by real artists any day. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

Fire will attract more attention than any other cry for help. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

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 about how these people became famous. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

SAMO as an end to to mindwash religion, nowhere politics and bogus philosophy. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

When I made my first film, Basquiat, I think one of the criticisms was that the way I work is episodic. Later, as people started to look at the movies, they started to realize that maybe that's my style. If I could do it better or another way, I guess I would. — Julian Schnabel

In 1983, I was working at an art gallery in Los Angeles and going to film school at Los Angeles City College. At that time, Jean-Michel Basquiat was a young painter and was visiting L.A. for his first show at the Larry Gagosian Gallery. — Tamra Davis

I have a painting where somebody's holding a chicken, and underneath the chicken is somebody's head. — Jean-Michel Basquiat

I wanted to build up a name for myself. — Jean-Michel Basquiat