Basquiat

Everyone should see this film, made in 1996 about the life of Haitian/Puerto Rican, Jean-Michel Basquiat. He was "the first black" artist to gain real "recognition" in the uppity world of Fine Art. basically he started off with the graffiti movement in the early 80's but wanted to pursue painting exclusively. He was constantly "typecast" as a tragic inner city youth from the ghetto who was expressing his inner primal anger through art, but all he wanted was to be recognized as an artist...no labels, no categorizing...but of course Black people always have to be "The first Black so and so....but I digress, he was really exploited by white dealers and fine art collectors
and was friends with the famous artisit Andy Worhal. He died of a heroin overdose in 1987.

Here's a snipet about him

"The only thing the market liked better than a hot young artist was a dead hot young artist, and it got one in Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose working life of about nine years was truncated by a heroin overdose at the age of twenty-seven. His career, both actual and posthumous, appealed to a cluster of toxic vulgarities. First, the racist idea of the black as naif or rhythmic innocent, and of the black artist as "instinctual," someone outside "mainstream" culture and therefore not to be rated in its terms: a wild pet for the recently cultivated collector. Second, a fetish about the freshness of youth, blooming among the discos of the East Side scene. Third, guilt and political correctness, which made curators and collectors nervous about judging the work of any black artist who could be presented as a "victim." Fourth, art-investment mania. And last, the audience's goggling appetite for self-destructive talent: Pollock, Montgomery Clift. All this gunk rolled into a sticky ball around Basquiat's tiny talent and produced a reputation.

~Artchive.com