
The life and work of New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat have been marked by a long quest for identity, by his Haitian and Puerto Rican family origins and by a founding trip to Africa. To portray this major painter of the 20th century, who died in 1988 at only 27 years old, is also to evoke the place of black American artists in the conservative and racist America of the Reagan years.

as Self (Archive footage)

as Narrator (voice)

as Self - Expository Comissioner

as Self - Director

as Self - Musician

as Self - Artist

as Self - Graphic artist

as Self - Gallery director

as Self - Singer composer

as Self - Photographer

as Self - Musician, hip-hop historian, co-founder of the group Gray

as Self - Director

as Self - Journalist

as Self - Producer of the film Downtown 81

as Self - Professor of American Art History, Maryland

as Self - Producer and Galerist

as Self - Friend

as Self (Archive footage)