I went to New Orleans to be saved. During the summer the days were getting brighter and every flaw in my life incredibly vivid. Nothing in me felt real except a loud emptiness. When I saw New Orleans fall apart it was my chance to join a cause that was undeniably good. The poor were fighting against nature and losing. They were innocent and could cure my guilt but that shallow reason for going left me helpless against their hunger and desperation. I was an emotional carpetbagger, a Northerner going south to re-create himself.
Read MoreBasquiat needed fame. He didn't need money or power but fame. The spotlight saved him from disappearing into the chaos rising in him. It gave him an image of himself he could exist within, a manufactured self to show the world and also hide behind. He of course was the audience member who didn't believe it. Again and again he fought his way out until nothing was left but a man who died in his dreams. Yes Basquiat did kill himself and we paid to see it.
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