"A smart crackling chronicle of fast game the '80s art market [and] the attraction of
destruction." -- The Village Voice A New York Times Notable Book The definitive biography of
Jean Michel Basquiat--both a compulsively readable portrait of the artist and a vivid
documentation of the 1980s East Village art scene the graffiti movement and the art galleries
and auction houses that helped fuel his meteoric rise--now back in print with a new
introduction by the author. In less than a decade the prodigious painter Jean-Michel Basquiat
went from a teenage graffiti artist to an international art star at the peak of the heady
excessive 1980s art boom. A legend in his own lifetime Basquiat was a fixture of the downtown
scene full of rock music couture fashion outrageous art and heady drugs. Along the way
Basquiat was involved with several of the time's most infamous personalities from Keith Haring
and Andy Warhol to his brief romantic fling with Madonna. Nearly thirty years after his death
the story of Basquiat's life and art continue to inspire artists across the globe. Known as a
defining twentieth-century artist and more successful posthumously than he was in his lifetime
-- with international retrospectives critical acclaim and million dollar sales -- Basquiat's
work has permeated our cultural sphere from homages paid in hip-hop to references across art
and product mediums throughout the country. In Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art Hoban paints a
skillful portrait not only of the artist but of the era deftly exploring the graffiti street
art movement of the 80s the culture downtown that formed the backdrop to his career and the
elite galleries and houses that stoked the contagious enthusiasm around his life and art.
