Art Lovers' Films: Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat

Join us for an advance screening of Boom for Real, a documentary about one of 80s New York's most charming and hailed (street) art darlings: Jean-Michel Basquiat. Curator, Contemporary Art, Natasha Conland will introduce the film, and tickets include a glass of wine. Art Lovers’ Film is a partnership between Auckland Art Gallery Membership and Rialto Cinemas.

About the film
Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat follows Basquiat’s life pre-fame and how New York City, the times, the people and the movements surrounding him formed the artist he became. Director Sara Driver draws upon memories and anecdotes of friends and other artists who emerged from that period (Jim Jarmusch, James Nares, Fab Five Freddy, Glenn O’Brien, Al Diaz and many others), and visually re-creates the era, drawing a portrait of Jean-Michel and downtown New York City before anyone was motivated by money and ambition. The definition of fame, success and power were very different than today: to be a penniless but published poet was the height of success, until everything changed in the early 1980s.

‘A beguiling look at a teenage Basquiat… [whose] art – raw, inventive, socially engaged – continues to speak to us even as the artist himself cannot.’ – NY Times

Watch the trailer here.

About the speaker
Natasha Conland is Curator, Contemporary Art, at Auckland Art Gallery. She has curated numerous exhibitions, including Groundswell: Avant-Garde Auckland 1971–79 (2018–19), The Walters Prize (coordinating curator since 2006), Shout Whisper Wail! The 2017 Chartwell Show (2017) and Necessary Distraction: A Painting Show (2015). She regularly contributes to leading publications on arts and culture and is the co-editor of Reading Room, the contemporary arts journal published by Auckland Art Gallery’s E H McCormick Library.