Basquiat (1996)

Michael Wincott: Rene Ricard

Photos 

Quotes 

• Rene : What is it about art anyway that we give it so much importance? Artists are respected by the poor because what they do is an honest way to get out of the slum using one's sheer self as the medium. The money earned, proof, pure and simple, of the value of that individual, the artist. The picture a mother's son does in jail hangs on her wall as proof that beauty is possible even in the most wretched. And this is a much different idea than fancier notion that art is a scam and a ripoff. But you can never explain to someone who uses God's gift to enslave, that you have used God's gift to be free.

• Rene : What's your name?

  Basquiat : Jean-Michel Basquiat.

  Rene : Oh my God, you sound famous already!

• [first lines] 

  Rene : Everybody wants to get on the Van Gogh boat. There's no trip so horrible that someone won't take it. The idea of the unrecognised genius slaving away in a garret is a deliciously foolish one. We must credit the life of Vincent Van Gogh for really sending this myth into orbit. I mean, how many pictures did he sell, one? He couldn't give them away. He has to be the most modern artist, but everybody hated him. He was so ashamed of his life that the rest of our history will be contribution to Van Gogh's neglect. No one wants to be part of a generation that ignores another like Van Gogh. In this town, one is at the mercy of the recognition factor. One's public appearance is absolute. Part of the artist's job is to get the work where I will see it. I consider myself a metaphor on the public.

  Basquiat : [scrawls onto a pillar]  PAY FOR SOUP BUILD A PORT SET THAT ON FIRE -SAMO

• Rene Ricard : When I speak nobody believes me, but when I write it down everybody knows it to be true.

• [Basquiat is nailing one of his pieces to the wall] 

  Rene : Child, you got no respect at all... nobody taught you how to mount paintings? You know me, when it comes to a mounting, the rougher the better.

• Rene : That's $2000 and he's from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, suck my pussy, you star!

• Rene : I am a public eye, a witness, a critic. When you first see a new picture. You don't want to miss the boat. You have to be very careful. You might be staring at Van Gogh's ear.

• Rene Ricard : We're no longer collecting art; we're buying people.