JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT

Thirty-eight years after his death, Jean-Michel Basquiat is everywhere, from museum walls to fashion and popular culture. Yet as his influence grows, the man behind the paintings has become increasingly obscured by myth, celebrity, and commerce. Directed by Quinn Whitney Wilson and Viridiana Lieberman, JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT returns to the source, offering an intimate portrait of Basquiat through the eyes of his sisters, Lisane and Jeanine, alongside close friends and collaborators.

The first Basquiat documentary approved by the artist’s estate, the film traces his upbringing in a middle-class Haitian and Puerto Rican family in Brooklyn, his immersion in New York’s punk and downtown art scenes, and his meteoric rise as one of America’s most influential artists. Through personal memories, rare archival imagery, and never-before-seen works, JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT looks beyond the familiar iconography to reveal his humor, vulnerability, ambition, and complex inner life, reclaiming the young man behind a cultural legacy that continues to expand.

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