Downtown 81 (docufilm) - film screening
Thursday 12th January, 7.00 p.m., MUDEC Auditorium
Year of Production:USA 1981
Directed by Edo Bertoglio With Ted Bafaloukos, Tom Baker, Eszter Balint, Jean-Michel Basquiat
Music: Vincent Gallo and live performances (Mudd Club, Peppermint Lounge)
Production company: Kinetique, Sagittaires Films, Zeitgeist Films
Length: 72”
Room capacity:200 pax (subject to availability)
Entry: free, by prior reservation
Story
Over the course of a day in Manhattan, between 1980 and 1981, Jean-Michel Basquiat, at the time little more than a street artist, wanders around Downtown N.Y. and Harlem looking for somewhere to spend the night. Under his arm, he carries one of his paintings, one of those that would later be valued at tens of thousands of dollars, but which at the time is only worth a twenty-dollar bill and a cheque that Jean-Michel cannot cash. Along the way, he encounters all the underground life of the New York art scene of the time.
The film depicts in great depth of detail and very accurately that period in New York when so many underground trends – from rap to New Wave, from graffiti art to video music – were all emerging at the same time feeding one from another, and the trailblazers of the time, first and foremost Basquiat himself, were just a step away from celebrity, but still with one foot rooted in poverty and the risk of not making it.
Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child - film screening
Thursday 19th January 7.30 p.m., MUDEC Auditorium
Year of Production: USA 2010
Directed by Tamra Davis.With Jean-Michel Basquiat
Production company: Arthouse Films
Length: 88”
Music: J. Ralph, Adrock, Mike D
Room capacity: 200 pax (subject to availability)
Entry: free, by prior reservation
Story
A complete, intimate and moving biographical documentary on the life of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Produced and directed in 2010 by Tamra Davis, a close friend of Basquiat, and pieced together by interspersing a rare interview, recorded shortly before the artist’s death, with exceptional supporting material that tells of his extraordinary artistic activities. Video clips effectively relate not only his rapid rise to fame and equally rapid decline, but the whole New York background against which it all took shape. Enhanced by numerous testimonies of friends, artists and gallery owners (including Julian Schnabel, Annina Nosei and Bruno Bischofberger), The Radiant Child conjures up the climate between the seventies and eighties during which the Basquiat “phenomenon” became established.
The America of the ’80s - conference
Sunday 22nd January, 11.00 a.m., MUDEC Auditorium
Speakers: Gianni Mercurio with Edo Bertoglio and Maripol
Room capacity: 200 pax (subject to availability)
Entry free, by prior reservation
Gianni Mercurio, curator of the exhibition, talks with Edo Bertoglio, the Swiss photographer and director who worked for Andy Warhol’s “Interview” magazine and who has documented the artistic and musical life of the Downtown New York personalities of the Seventies and Eighties, including Jean-Michel Basquiat. In that period he was in a relationship with Maripol, the famous stylist who co-produced Downtown 81 together with Glenn O’Brien.
Basquiat and the city signs - conference
Thursday 26nd January 7.30 p.m., MUDEC Auditorium
Speaker: Vincenzo Trione
Room capacity: 200 pax (subject to availability)
Enry:free, by prior reservation
Jean-Michel Basquiat and New York. Moments of an adventure that leads from the streets to the art system. A story of contradictions destined to remain unresolved.
Hip Hop, No Wave, Post-Disco in Jean-Michel Basquiat - conference
MUDEC Auditorium
Posponed until a later date
Speaker:Carlo Antonelli
Room capacity: 200 pax (subject to availability)
Entry: free, by prior reservation
Story
Carlo Antonelli tells the story of the artist through one of his most ardent passions: music. A journalist and film producer, while working as MD for the record company Sugar, Carlo Antonelli directed and discovered a number of artists (including, Andrea Bocelli, Elisa and Negramaro). He has been editor-in-chief of the Italian editions of “Rolling Stone”, “Wired” and “GQ”.
Factory Girl - film screening
Thursday 2nd February 7.30 p.m., MUDEC Auditorium
Year of Production: USA 2006
Directed by George Hickenlooper. With Sienna Miller, Guy Pearce, Hayden Christensen, Jimmy Fallon
Length: 90”
Room capacity: 200 pax (subject to availability)
Entry: free, by prior reservation
Story
The frantic race to fame and the decline of the beautiful and charismatic Edie Sedgwick (Sienna Miller – "Alfie," "Casanova," "South Kensington"), one of the greatest icons of American pop culture. The encounter with Andy Warhol (Guy Pearce – "Memento," "Rules of Engagement," "The Count of Monte Cristo"), anti-hero par excellence and promoter of the counter-culture, radically changed her life, catapulting Edie into the centre of a revolutionary artistic world, made up of sex and excess, which finally escaped her control.
Jean-Michel, the man and the artist - conference
Sunday 5th February, 11.00 a.m., MUDEC Auditorium
The conference has been cancelled
Speaker: Jeffrey Deitch
Room capacity:200 pax (subject to availability)
Entry: free, by prior reservation
An art advisor, dealer, critic, curator and New York gallery owner, one of the most active and interesting figures of his kind in the last two decades: a solid and visionary career that led him in the years between 1988 and 1996 to build a vast network of client-collectors and acquaintances with artists, curators, critics and museum directors. He is a former director of the MOCA museum in Los Angeles. A close friend of Basquiat and co-curator of the exhibition, he tells of his relationship with the young prodigy, of his vulnerability and his uniqueness as a man and as an artist.
Basquiat - film screening
Thursday 9th February 7.30 p.m., MUDEC Auditorium
Year of Production:USA 1996
Directed by Julian Schnabel. WithDavid Bowie, Gary Oldman, Dennis Hopper, Jeffrey Wright, Claire Forlani
Music: John Cale, Julian Schnabel
Production company: Eleventh Street production, Miramax Films
Length: 108”
Room capacity: 200 pax (subject to availability)
Entry: free, by prior reservation
Story
In 1981 in New York, Jean-Michel Basquiat is a nineteen-year-old with no clear ideas about his future. He has no fixed abode and exists in the New York artistic underground. One day he finds the courage to show some of his postcards to Andy Warhol who is enthusiastic about the quality of them. And so begins the ascent that would lead him on to achieve great success with the public and critics alike.
New York devils in the’80s - conference
Sunday 19nd February, 11.00 a.m. MUDEC Auditorium
Speaker:Demetrio Paparoni
Room capacity: 200 pax (subject to availability)
Entry: free, by prior reservation
Story
In the second half of the 20th century a few artists tend to be identified with the devil as rebels victimised in the name of good. Far from considering the devil as a positive character, the intention is to give a symbolic value to the suffering of those who, because of their diversity, were pointed as emissaries of Satan. Though rarely depicted in his works, the figure of the Devil is tremendously important in the art of Basquiat: in the large painting Black Devil Head Basquiat has transformed the face of the devil in an African mask, recovering stylistic elements of the African American culture.”