Jean-Michael Basquiat
Life Doesn’t Frighten Me
Jean-Michel Basquiat was only 27 when he died in 1988, but in a few short years his paintings and other work challenged established notions of high and low art, race and class. He forged a visionary language that defied characterization.
During the last five years of his life, Basquiat lived and worked two blocks from where I live, in a former stable owned by his friend and mentor Andy Warhol. I moved into his neighborhood only a few months before he died of a heroin overdose. In the 80’s, my neighborhood was dingy, derelict, downtrodden, and downright frightening. But it had a silver lining: It was also the epicenter of punk rock, with CBGB and St. Marks around the corner.
I first came upon upon Basquiat’s name in a book my son received on his first birthday. “Life Doesn’t Frighten Me” was a poem by Maya Angelou, each line accompanied by a Basquiat painting. It was most definitely not your ordinary children’s book, but I liked its powerful words and mesmerizing images. I sang Maya Angelou’s poem, especially the lines “shadows on the wall, noises down the hall, life doesn’t frighten me at all,” to my baby son as if it were a lullaby.
Cut to today. In the decades since I made up that melody, I’ve had a long love affair with street art. “Life Doesn’t Frighten Me” is the only children’s book I’ve kept from my son’s childhood.
Basquiat was one of New York’s original graffiti artists of the 80’s before the art world claimed him as a neo-expressionist star. When I learned of an ongoing exhibit of his work at the new Brant Foundation Art Study Center in the East Village, I rushed to get tickets. They’re free and are gobbled up quickly, but getting on the waitlist is well worth it.
As I gazed upon Basquiat’s paintings arranged in a cavernous art space, several images struck a literal chord. I could hear it again, that suggestive and repetitive lilt: Life doesn’t frighten me at all, not at all, not at all.
That mantra must have somehow ingrained itself in my son’s infant mind. Now a young man, Abraham is fearless, bold, daring, and impassioned. Maya Angelou gave Jean-Michel Basquiat’s vision a poem’s wings. His art lit up her message about strength, fancy and fearlessness. I thank them both.
NYC
If you’re ever in my part of town, NoHo, message me and I’ll show you where Basquiat lived.