Widow Basquiat
A Memoir
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4.4 • 7 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
MADONNA. ANDY WARHOL. KEITH HARING. FAB 5 FREDDIE. DEBBIE HARRY. JULIAN SCHNABEL.
Jean-Michel Basquiat's transition from the subways to the chic gallery spaces of Manhattan brought the artist into the company of many of New York's established and aspiring stars. In 1988, unable to deal with the demands that his new fame brought, Basquiat, the most successful black visual artist in history, died from a heroin overdose at age twenty-seven.
Widow Basquiat is an exploration of the artist as seen through the eyes of his muse, Suzanne. It is a love story like no other.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Clement (Prayers for the Stolen) creates a stunningly lyrical portrait of Suzanne Mallouk, the longtime girlfriend of painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, that is original, insightful, and engrossing. Narrating Suzanne's childhood in Canada and her troubled relationship with the avant-garde street artist up until his death, the brief passages alternate between Clement's poetic voice and Mallouk's plainspoken accounts. The author, who was a close friend of both Mallouk and Basquiat, eventually emerges as a secondary character in the narrative a confidante to Mallouk. Clement crafts her story with intimacy but leaves it free of sentimentality or moralizing. When Basquiat died, Clement writes, "Suzanne covers her mouth with her hands... There are no teeth inside her words." At another time, Mallouk "was able to sleep for seven days and her body fell beneath her when she tried to walk." The book benefits from this favoring of poetic truth over realism. While filled with pop culture anecdotes art fans might seek Andy Warhol and Rene Ricard both make appearances, for instance Clement's account is an honest love story above all else.
