...

Go back in time a little bit,

In order to get rid of the entanglement of three American hooligans, Nagayama Naoki quickly turned to an alley on the street, then grabbed a handful of snow and squatted at the corner.

There was a black guy in the alley spray-painting something on the wall. There were some bottles and cans in the corner.

"Hey, man! You're blocking my wall!" This black guy looks thin and frail, but he has an artistic temperament that is rarely seen in other black people.

"Shh~" Nagayama Naoki raised a finger in front of his mouth to signal him to calm down.

Then the black guy saw the Asian guy knocking a chasing black guy to the ground with an umbrella handle, covering the other guy's face with snow, and then using the umbrella to knock him over.

He picked up his spray paint from the corner and said to the two people who fell to the ground: "Spurris, fuck Fakeer!"

Then he sprayed it hard, and then the two black guys started crying and howling...

"I was so scared!"

In an interview a few years later, Jean-Michel Basquiat said,

“I thought it would be my turn next, so when the guy said ‘run’, I jumped up and started running!”

...

Saw the unusual black guy suddenly start spraying on the wall,

"Are you doodling?"

"What else?" The black guy said unforgivingly, "You ruined my last work~"

"What does it have to do with me? It's also the fault of those three guys!"

"How did they offend you?"

"Those three guys are going to rob me~"

???

What I saw was you getting into a fight, okay... The black guy stopped talking and focused on spray painting again.

Naoki Nagayama actually doesn’t understand the art of street graffiti at all. In fact, he doesn’t even understand the artistic works of postmodern artists.

One square meter of fireproof bricks placed indoors can be sold for thousands of pounds? A banana stuck on the wall can be sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars? Drawing six lines of circles on a blackboard can be worth hundreds of millions?

Sure enough, the world of artists is too deep for people to grasp!

But being unable to grasp it does not prevent Nagayama Naoki from making judgments.

"That's what graffiti looks like, like a child scribbling."

"Hahaha, is this a tribute to Picasso?"

"No, no, red looks better here!"

Listening to this Asian talking nonsense about his work, the black guy couldn't help it:

"Shut up! Do you know street art? Do you know graffiti? Do you know who I am, Basquiat?"

Yoho, he looks like a famous graffiti expert.

"I don't even know, but what's the matter? Isn't it possible to do something as simple as graffiti with hands?"

Upon hearing this, the black boy was so angry that he directly stuffed the spray paint into Naoki Nagayama's hand and pointed at the wall next to him.

"Show me what you're capable of!"

In March 1982, Basquiat was in his prime. He had just held a solo exhibition in February and made a net profit of more than 200,000 US dollars. And now, this Asian boy actually dares to come to my field?

Basquiat secretly sarcastically said: "If you create next to my Basquiat graffiti, in less than a week, the whole of New York will know that you overestimate your abilities!"

Being suddenly stabbed like this, Nagayama Naoki was a little overwhelmed. He didn't have any painting skills at all. In the past, he had to ask the Nakamori sisters to help design earmuffs.

Basquiat stood next to him and sneered: "What's wrong? You can't draw it? Can't you just have hands?"

"How is it possible? I'm just thinking~" Nagayama Naoki said hard, and then thought of the simplest way, just graffiti, it's not too complicated, stick figures are always fine, just a circle with four lines, just right here

It's a corner...

Nagayama Naoki directly used spray paint to draw a big-headed stick figure of the same height in the corner, holding something like a spray paint can in his hand. There were two fallen stick figures on the ground, and there was another one on the other side of the corner heading this way.

The running stickman... This is what happened when those gangsters were knocked down.

"Give me the red spray paint~"

He unceremoniously changed the color, adding red spray to the spray paint in the stickman's hand, adding white eyes to his black head and a crooked dragon-king smile, and also added the line next to his head: "suprise"

!!! mother fu*ker!!!”

"It's done!" Naoki Nagayama proudly said to Basquiat, "How about it, it's not bad!"

Basquiat looked at the magical stick figure and didn't want to say anything else: "This is not street graffiti at all!"

Naoki Nagayama asked out of curiosity: "What do you mean? This is not a street? Am I not spraying paint on the wall? Or are there any rules for street graffiti?"

But this question stopped Basquiat. Yes, when did street graffiti have rules? It is the freest art!

Thinking of this, Basquiat couldn't help but be speechless. He couldn't see it as clearly as this outsider... Finally, he reluctantly admitted: "Okay, it's just street graffiti."

Then I started to perfect my work again.

"Haha~" Nagayama Naoki found it very interesting to see this black guy starting to spray paint again. Although he had just met a few black gangsters, this black guy seemed to be different from them. He was a very interesting guy. "What's your name?"

Is it Basquiat?”

"Yeah, have you heard my name?"

"Isn't that what you just said?"

.....The black guy stopped talking again.

"My English name is William~" Naoki Nagayama introduced himself and told his identity in the United States, "I am a writer."

"Oh ho? Are you the one who writes jokes?"

"Of course not, I am a children's literature writer~"

...

The two of them became familiar with each other through this question and answer.

By the time this painting is finished, we can already be called friends.

"So, those three black gangsters have been following you? And then you bought clothes and had lunch?" Basquiat was surprised, "Are you so brave?"

"They can't do anything anyway~" Naoki Nagayama wanted to raise his arms to show off his muscles, but was blocked by his cotton coat.

"Yes, you Asians seem to know kung fu, bushido, taekwondo and so on..." Basquiat thought of how Nagayama Naoki had neatly knocked down two gangsters before, and he seemed to be better at it.

Nagayama Naoki was amused: "Who said that? I just acted more decisively."

After finishing speaking, he sighed: "But I didn't expect New York to be so dangerous. Even black people robbed Manhattan during the day. It seems that the afternoon tour will be cancelled."

But suddenly I saw that Basquiat was also a black man, and he explained dryly: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that you..."

"Yo man, not all black men are gangsters!"

Basquiat also felt a little embarrassed for his black compatriots, and thought that the guy he just met in front of him had a bad impression of black people, so he decided to restore some of the image of black people.

"William, this afternoon I will show you what a real black man in New York looks like!"

"What?" Nagayama Naoki was a little surprised. He originally thought he would go back to the hotel in the afternoon.

"follow me!"

I don’t know why, Nagayama Naoki kind of trusts this guy. Maybe it’s because he’s well-dressed? Or maybe it’s because he’s thin and can be bullied?

Anyway, after returning to the clothing store to pick up the camera, I followed him.

...

Following Basquiat's lead, Naoki Nagayama gradually walked through midtown Manhattan and arrived at the Chelsea neighborhood, where industrial culture and street art blend. It is known as the most literary neighborhood and is home to countless people.

Galleries and art galleries.

Here, large portable speakers are standard equipment for street fashionistas, spray cans are the weapons of street painters, and music and painting are channels of communication between different races and cultures here.

Basquiat is obviously the star here. Many people greeted him on the street, and the classic black man bumped his chest no less than ten times, which made Naoki Nagayama a little worried about Basquiat's small body.

"Hey, Basquiat, where are you taking me?" Naoki Nagayama asked while taking pictures.

"Go and experience the real New York culture~" Basquiat smiled like a child, "William, don't worry, I won't sell you~"

Haha, if this was not the bustling Manhattan, but Brooklyn, I would be really worried.

"Look, that's my 'gallery' over there."

Basquiat pointed to an empty street and said that the walls on both sides of the street were covered with strange but colorful graffiti.

Their creators were excitedly introducing the origins of each graffiti, and then suddenly inspiration came to them.

"William, please wait a moment, I have thought of another work."

As he said that, he took out the spray can from his backpack. It turned out that such a big bag was full of spray paint...
To be continued...