GENIUS CHILD
They walked up steps. They were alone. Just the two of them, like they always felt. Alone. Together.
The room was massive and cold. She took his hand. It was cold and sticky. And then he saw it. She saw it. And they paused in front of it.
A massive installation of dark expressionist poetry. A Picasso. Guernica.
He felt the heat. It felt like Dante's Circles of Hell had jumped off the wall and struck him.
Her hand tightened. And soothed. They felt together in their fear and awe. They shared the heat of hell as one.
A glowing, painted crown was placed on his head. By whom. By what. His recollection was blurred.
But his mom remained still as tears flowed from her eyes.
And they stared at Picasso's hell for eternity.
The story, in its myriad embodiements and embellished reminscences, has been told before by Jean-Michel Basquiat. The adjectives continually altered, but the feelings always permanent.
"I remember a glowing crown and the painting. My mother and her tears. I can't recall if it was a dream of a memory or a memory of a dream. It's stuck to me."
It is a memory that has become Jean-Michel. The crown, a signature. The loneliness of being the genius child that nobody loves, tame or wild, his blank canvas where only he can see the possibility of chaos and beauty.
"Shakespeare wrote something like the mind is uneasy with the head that wears the crown. It's never been tame since."
His works are anything but calm.
.
They walked up steps. They were alone. Just the two of them, like they always felt. Alone. Together.
The room was massive and cold. She took his hand. It was cold and sticky. And then he saw it. She saw it. And they paused in front of it.
A massive installation of dark expressionist poetry. A Picasso. Guernica.
He felt the heat. It felt like Dante's Circles of Hell had jumped off the wall and struck him.
Her hand tightened. And soothed. They felt together in their fear and awe. They shared the heat of hell as one.
A glowing, painted crown was placed on his head. By whom. By what. His recollection was blurred.
But his mom remained still as tears flowed from her eyes.
And they stared at Picasso's hell for eternity.
The story, in its myriad embodiements and embellished reminscences, has been told before by Jean-Michel Basquiat. The adjectives continually altered, but the feelings always permanent.
"I remember a glowing crown and the painting. My mother and her tears. I can't recall if it was a dream of a memory or a memory of a dream. It's stuck to me."
It is a memory that has become Jean-Michel. The crown, a signature. The loneliness of being the genius child that nobody loves, tame or wild, his blank canvas where only he can see the possibility of chaos and beauty.
"Shakespeare wrote something like the mind is uneasy with the head that wears the crown. It's never been tame since."
His works are anything but calm.
.
picasso's, guernica | langston hughes, |
the radiant child
View the first part of the Basquiat documentary, Radiant Child, and see the intersection between poetry - Langston Hughes', Genius Child - and non-fiction texts.
life doesn't frighten me
View Maya Angelou's and Jean-Michel's art/poem mashup, Life Doesn't Frighten Me, as an example of "guerilla poetry".