Phoebe Hoban + Brad Gooch: Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art

Join us for an event with award-winning author Phoebe Hoban, discussing her book Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art. Joining Phoebe in conversation is poet, novelist, and biographer Brad Gooch. This event will be hosted in the Strand Book Store's 3rd floor Rare Book Room at 828 Broadway on 12th Street.

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ACCESSIBILITY:

Strand Book Store is an ADA compliant venue. The event space is accessible via elevator.

ASL interpretation is available for this event by request only. Please reach out to our events team at ZXZlbnRzIHwgc3RyYW5kYm9va3MgISBjb20= by Nov. 26 to request.

Please ask a Strand employee upon arrival for directions to accessible seating if preferred.

For further information on accessibility in this space, or to make a request, please contact ZXZlbnRzIHwgc3RyYW5kYm9va3MgISBjb20=

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New York Times Notable Book

“A smart, crackling chronicle of fast game, the ’80s art market, [and] the attraction of destruction.”— Village Voice

A bold and vivid biography that chronicles the dazzling rise and tragic death of Neo-expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

In less than a decade, Jean-Michel Basquiat went from being a teenage graffiti artist to an international art star. His meteoric rise to fame coincided with the outrageous excess of the heady ’80s art boom. A fixture of the downtown scene, with its explosive mix of music, fashion, art, and drugs, he soon became involved with some of its most celebrated personalities, including Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, and Madonna.

Basquiat fulfilled that cynical aphorism: Die young and leave a beautiful corpse. But Basquiat did more than that: he left a beautiful corpus. With each passing year, the remarkable energy, perspicacity and originality of his work increases in power.

In a world where Black Lives Matter and the imperative need for diversity are among the driving forces of our time, Basquiat’s success in the 1980s white art world, and his ongoing universal celebrity, have made him a significant role model for a generation of artists to come.

From the rise and fall of the graffiti movement, to the East Village art scene, to the art dealers and out-of-control auction houses, Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art, the definitive biography of the young painter, is a vivid portrait of both the artist and his time.

Photo credit: Grace Roselli, Pandora's BoxX Project

Phoebe Hoban has written about culture and the arts for a variety of publications, including The New York Times, New York Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, Harper’s Bazaar, ARTnews, and The New York Observer, among others. She is the author of three artist biographies: Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art, a national bestseller and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty, named a best book of the year by New York Magazine, The Village Voice, and Booklist; and Lucian Freud: Eyes Wide Open. She lives in New York City.

Photo credit: Jack Pierson

Brad Gooch is a poet, novelist, and biographer whose previous ten books include Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring, Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor, which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and a New York Times bestseller; City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O’Hara; Godtalk: Travels in Spiritual America; and the memoir Smash Cut. He is the recipient of National Endowment for the Humanities and Guggenheim fellowships, and lives in New York City.

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