Basquiat was born in
Brooklyn, New York. His mother, Matilde, was
Puerto Rican and his father, Gerard Basquiat, is an accountant of
Haitian origin. Because of his parents' nationalities, Basquiat was fluent in French, Spanish, and English from an early age. He read in these languages, including
Symbolist poetry,
mythology, and history.
[2] At an early age, Basquiat displayed an aptitude for art and was encouraged by his mother to draw, paint and to participate in other art-related activities. In 1977, when he was 17, Basquiat and his friend Al Diaz started spray-painting
graffiti art on buildings in lower
Manhattan, adding the infamous signature of "SAMO" (i.e., "same old shit") see:
SAMO© Graffiti entry. The graphics were pithy messages such as "Plush safe he think.. SAMO" and "SAMO as an escape clause". In December 1978, the
Village Voice published an article about the writings.
[3] The SAMO project ended with the epitaph "SAMO IS DEAD" written on the walls of
SoHo buildings. Unlike the average graffiti artist, Jean-Michel Basquiat came to personify the art scene of the 80's, with its merging of youth culture, money, hype, excess, and self-destruction. And then there was the work, which the public image tended to overshadow: paintings and drawings that conjured up marginal urban black culture and black history, as well as the artist's own conflicted sense of identity. Basquiat's ploy was to write anti-materialism messages in plain view of some of the worst materialists around. This was not only a key to his rise to fame, but a stunning reflection of the tendency of the bourgeoisie to co-opt cultural opposition
