Q&A: Actor Jeffrey Wright revisits role as artist Jean-Michel Basquiat

By Kiko Martinez
Digital Media Manager

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the death of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (he died in 1988 at the age of 27 of a heroin overdose). Best known as a graffiti artist in the 1970s in New York City and for his neoexpressionist work in the early 1980s, Basquiat is still admired today for his daring social commentary and for what art historian Robert Farris Thompson refers to as “a quest for a sharper, ecumenical assessment of the troubling – yet promising – configurations of our urban destiny and predicament.”

In 1996, fellow artist and friend Julian Schnabel directed the biopic “Basquiat,” which film critic Roger Ebert called “confident, poetic filmmaking.” Basquiat was portrayed in the film by Tony Award-winning actor Jeffrey Wright (“Angels in America: Perestroika”).

During an interview with Wright last week, I had a chance to talk to him about his role as Basquiat and whether or not he feels the street art-style techniques he incorporated into his work are now fully accepted in the contemporary art world.

Wright can be seen next in the highly-anticipate sequel “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” which hits theaters Nov. 22.

This year we marked the 25th anniversary of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat death. It’s been 17 years since you portrayed him on film. Is that one of those roles that stays with you long after you finish shooting or are you the type of actor that can move on fairly quickly after a project is completed?

You know, I felt at the time – and I still feel – a close kinship with Basquiat as an artist. One of the reasons I was so attracted to playing the role is because I feel his work fits into similar cultural and historical and creative reservoirs that I use often in my work. So much of his work is an absolute celebration of not solely the African American experience, but the diasporal African experience. Those are things I take a huge delight in exploring when I work. You look at his work today and see the references to these ancestral artists that came before him like Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis and other iconographic figures like Muhammad Ali and references to slavery. He used all of those things to form the vocabulary of his art. Those are all things I hold precious myself. Beyond that, when I did his film I, too, was a feasibly creative guy trying to explore New York City and trying to find my creative voice within that world. So, I still feel very close to that story – to his story – and to the movie as a result.

What do you think Basquiat would say about the recent attention he has been getting from people in the entertainment and fashion industries? Musicians like Jay-Z are including his name in song lyrics. There’s also a new clothing line that was just released by Supreme New York that is inspired by Basquiat’s work. For someone who thrived for so long as an eccentric, how do you think he’d react to his work and his name being commercialized like that?

(Laughs) You know, [Basquiat] was a guy that used to wear $1,000 Armani suits while he painted. (Laughs) So, if he was materialist at all, he was subversive about it. If he was commercial at all, it was in the subversion of it. I’m not sure how he would take it, but I’m sure he would encourage people to wear the clothes and destroy the clothes at the same time.

Basquiat, of course, was the first artist to bring street art to the mainstream. Today, we see artists like Bansky going around doing their thing. Do you think the art world has learned to embrace that genre since Basquiat? I mean, I know artists teaching at the college level who started their careers tagging trains as teenagers. So, do you think it’s now a fully accepted form of art?

Well, I don’t know if it’s fully accepted yet, but certain aspects of it and certain artists have been accepted. When one of Basquiat’s paintings sells for $43 million earlier this year at auction, I would say that’s a pretty warm embrace of at least his street art and the way it has evolved over time.