This book is FUNNY! Julian Schnabel's early autobiography is full of laughs: his conversations with art critic, Clement Greenburg are hysterical; his comments during a Q&A concerning 3rd generation Abstract Expressionist, Jules Olitsky, late night sessions in the studio and the beginning of the famed plate paintings are surprising and delightful.
Young Schnabel's surfing experience in Texas re-surfaces in the seemingly non sequitur imagery of his early movie, "Basquiat". Seen through the perspective of his own personal history, footage of the surfer depicts the stages of his friend Jean-Michel Basquiat's career in a touching and chilling manner: dropping into a great breaking wave...later riding it, then wiping out, and finally late in the movie the empty waves roll in....
Richly illustrated with the good, the bad and ugly it is also a fun read, being blog-like in its brevity and humor.
This is "Portrait of God" by Julian Schnabel, oil and wax on tarpaulin, 9' x 12', 1981 from the series, "Mutant King Paintings", one of my favorites from the book. It's just so weird...I never noticed, but it looks like a cross image at the bottom of the left hand figure....
I bought this book second hand in Washington, DC in 1988 for $20. Amazon wouldn't let me write a review so I thought I'd put it up on jamesthatcherarts. It makes me miss the '80's.
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