If he were alive today, Jean-Michel Basquiat would be 55 years old. His life was the romantic myth of a tormented artist who lived fast and died young, updated with the self-destructive mythology of rock and gangsta scenes which are worthy of a rap videoclip.

Son of a Haitian father and a Puerto Rican mother, Basquiat had very early success: he was only 22 when in March 1982 he opened his first solo show and sold all his paintings in a single night. The next five years were spent working and existing in frenzy. Under the spotlights of the society of spectacle, this intense life has been one of the most persistent myths of recent North American art. Legend aside, Basquiat left behind about a thousand paintings and that many drawings, which continue to be exhibited all around the world...