Basquiat: An Artist's Fast Life

Sunday Morning Visits A Retrospective Of The 80s Art Legend

(CBS) 
It wasn’t long before Warhol and Basquiat became close friends, remembers art dealer Tony Shafrazi.

"Warhol is very impressed with Jean-Michel's seriousness, his intention of being a good artist, and his constant preoccupation of wanting to work constantly," says Shafrazi. "And what's remarkable in fact is that they built such an interesting relationship that they decided to work on the same paintings together. Collaborate in a way that's never happened before."

It was in part, says Shafrazi, Basquiat’s pure innocence and spirit that took the art world by storm.

"The distinctiveness, the uniqueness. And then as to what makes it so incredible is the fact that the line is very original. It’s very fearless. Just the nature of the line. From the beginning on how far it goes. The way of depiction. The size of depiction. It’s completely original."

Close friend and gallery owner Jeffrey Deitch remembers Basquiat’s studio as one of the most exciting he ever visited.

"There’d be drawings on the floor. He’d walk all over them, spill paint. And part of that randomness, that, you know, that random energy, gave the work a lot of its special quality."

But not everyone in the art world was raving about Basquiat. Some dismissed him as mere hype. Detractors said he was riding on the comet of trend, it wasn't really art, it wasn't going to last, and it was just what was hip at the moment.

But Mayer notes, "Matisse was also that. Picasso was also that. A really bright artist wants to know what the flavor of the month is, hooks their wagon to that, because they've got something to say." He continues, "Well that's Basquiat. He got the audience, and then he started to speak."