Virgin

A French language poster for the film Downtown 81, starring Jean-Michel Basquiat.

• Virgin.
• Published circa 2001 to promote the historical early 1980s Basquiat film: Downtown 81.
• Offset lithograph.
• This work is presented unframed.

The historic Basquiat film Downtown 81, directed by Edo Bertoglio and produced by Maripol and Glenn O’Brien, emerges as a nostalgic portrait of pre-Giuliani Manhattan, an unruly place full of garbage, graffiti, rubble-strewn lots, unlicensed after-hours clubs and dreamy kids eager to make their mark as avant-garde artists and musicians.

The film's central figure is Jean, a young Bohemian engagingly played by a not-yet-famous Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Jean survives mainly by relying on the worldwide network of hip: there will always be another bar to go to, another gig to crash, another wealthy European to write a check, another gorgeous model in a Cadillac to give him a ride home.

The script by Glenn O'Brien (also the film's co-producer) follows the basic day-in-the-life format, beginning with Jean's release from a hospital.

Jean returns to his rundown Alphabet City apartment to find an angry landlord demanding his back rent, and departs with a painting he hopes to sell. The day is laced with many obstacles, but also many fortuitous encounters. Basquiat mingles with Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Tuxedomoon, James White and the Blacks, DNA, the Plastics and Walter Steding; go-go dancers; and eccentric street characters, including Deborah Harry who plays a bag lady with magical powers.

It's as a documentary that Downtown 81 is most successful, particularly at those moments when the somewhat unfocused filmmaking allows us to look past the foreground characters and catch glimpses of a vanished New York: the pornography shops and grind houses of West 42nd Street, the greasy spoons and outlet stores of East 14th Street and the labyrinthine interior of the legendary Mudd Club.