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“I didn’t start doing graffiti until two years after I got to New York. Jean-Michel Basquiat was one of my main inspirations for doing graffiti. For a year I didn’t know who Jean-Michel was, but I knew his work.” —Keith Haring
Nineteen-year-old Jean-Michel Basquiat stars as an artist in a once-lost film immortalizing New York City’s 1980s downtown scene. Over a day and a long dream-like night, Basquiat wanders the city, running into fellow street artists Lee Quiñones and Fab 5 Freddy, and catching musical performances by Kid Creole and the Coconuts, James White and the Blacks, and Arto Lindsay with DNA. Legend has it that Debbie Harry, who played a fairy princess in the film, bought one of Basquiat’s paintings after the filming ended. US, 1981/2000, 35mm, 72 min. 35mm print from Metrograph Pictures.
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Edo Bertoglio (b. 1951, Lugano, Switzerland) is a photographer and director. After earning his degree in film direction and editing from the Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français in Paris, he moved first to London and then, in 1976, to New York, where he remained for 14 years. He worked as a staff photographer for Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine from ’78 to ’84, documenting the artistic and musical life of figures from the downtown scene, such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Deborah Harry, and John Lurie. Bertoglio’s photographs appeared in the leading fashion, music, art, and pop culture magazines. His work was included in the New York / New Wave group exhibition in 1981, curated by Diego Cortez, which featured a mix of graffiti, photos, music, and readings by dozens of artists, such as Basquiat, Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Joseph Kosuth. That year, he directed Downtown 81, finished in 1999 and selected for the Cannes Film Festival of 2000. Bertoglio’s New York Polaroids 1976–1989 is a rare personal diary capturing the daily life of the New York downtown scene.
Contains mature content.
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