Julian Schnabel: CVJ: Nicknames of Maitre D's & Other Excerpts from Life, Study Edition

I wanted to read this book when it came out in hardback. By the time I got around to ordering it on amazon the price was way beyond my budget. Now, years later, I finally read it. Worth the wait. That said, where will Schnabel's reputation be in 50 years? Of course we will both be gone, but will his reputation and artwork survive?His film work, to me, is far more impressive than his broken plates and lines drawn on a canvas. I did see his latest broken plate exhibition at Pace Gallery a couple of years ago and was deeply moved by the artwork, creativity and beautiful use of colors. Pace is tiny compared to MoMa or The Whitney, so you can get up-close-and-personal with the paintings. I found the top of a sugar dish on one of the paintings and was tickled by my discovery. If I had won the Lottery that weekend I would have bought it. Very Monet Lillies in broken crockery.I enjoyed reading about his very early years in NYC and how he lived pretty much hand-to-mouth for a long time. He definitely depended on the kindness of strangers.He is one of these artists who was born to be wealthy and famous. Larger than life, with a head full of 'spin', how could he lose? His wives have been foreign beauties, his children creative and attractive. He lives in a palazzo in Manhattan (pink) and is seen at all the hottest art parties. Basquiat is not only one of my favorite films, an entire wall in my living room is devoted to it. Stills from the film, the larger Basquiat poster, photos of the real artist along with some of his work. Everyone who walks into the room turns and makes a comment about how fab it all looks on the wall. Plumbers stop and stare, ask who it is, how come they don't know him. "Who IS this Bask-quate anyway?!" Thank you Mr. Schnabel.He is still relatively young by art world standards, and has time to create new and fascinating works. I'd like to see him get into sculpture on a grand scale. I would also like to see him direct a film about artists Carl Andre and his long-suffering Cuban wife, Ana. No one has told that story in film and Schnabel would do a masterful job.

Great art. A wonderful representation of the mind of Mr. Schnabel

Small size but Large Great subject!

If you're just lucky enough you've probably received hundreds of gifts over the course of a lifetime & the memories to go with them. Sometimes the memories are the real gifts themselves...and Sometimes the gifts are long gone and so are the people who handed them over and the memories are all that remain. My Life is far from over so for me some of the greatest gifts given to me are those of Influence. Enlightenment. Inspiration.A long time ago an ex girlfriend of mine surprised me with something she had heard me talk of in passing. Something I had wanted to get my hands on for years but this particular item has extremely far out of reach at the time. I wanted to get my hands on a scandalous piece of NYC art history. It's not easy to be surprised by anything anymore - but one day it just showed up in my mailbox and for one afternoon Boredom lost its upper hand (and I was surprised):An ORIGINAL hardcover copy of Schnabel's CVJ in pretty much mint condition. It was friggin' HUGE like his paintings and his personality and presence. Sleeved in a veil of clear plastic that shielded this fabric cover that gave off the illusion that it could've been hand painted by Schnabel himself, it was sort of set up in the usual template of Artist's Collection/Portfolio books - usually with commentary written by someone else like those classy and now extinct liner notes inside of classic Jazz albums - except the commentary in between photos of the artist's earlier paintings WERE the artist's. And THIS was an Autobiography.I was probably all about 3 or 4 years old when this originally came out - so I wasn't old enough to bear witness to whatever controversy surrounded the release of this book...and that's exactly why research & educating yourself are one of the more exciting things about growing up: because what turned me on to knowledge of this book's existence in the first place was my reading a whole review practically devoted to it by Robert Hughes. Hughes was an ART critic. Not a Literary critic. There were only a handful of jibes & insults in Hughes' hit piece actually ABOUT the quality, place and importance of Schnabel's art at the time. The wealth of Hughes' "The Artist as Entrepreneur" was a prickly critique of Schnabel's autobiography, writing skills, poor editing and of course there was the technically valid question of whether or not the Artist's rather short time spent on this planet was long enough to warrant an autobiography already.All Hughes' piece did was interest me even more. I originally found out about Schnabel through his filmmaking career, as that was the same exact direction I wanted my own life to lead me after realizing that there wasn't any hope for young POETS in 2005 unless your name was LIL WAYNE or Trick Daddy Dollaz (but in fairness: Lil Wayne IS a true friggin' modern poet that surpasses even Wilde's talents. You may wanna firebomb my house for that statement but I stand by my opinions steadfast, heathens!)I read that copy of CVJ in one sitting and discovered that it was much less an "autobiography" than it was sort of a (this sounds corny as all hell:) "call to arms" for emerging Artists of all kinds. It was meant to serve as an "Ass Kick" to the floundering, lazy and especially the Unsure. All of which I was at the time and even in some ways now into my 30s. Schnabel was writing a GUIDE the best way he knew how and since he wasn't paint-by-numbers his "guide" or "How To's" were basically written out in a way like he painted (and later directed equally beautiful films).There's some macho bullshit in it, too, and in all fairness: Schnabel was also known to shittalk other artists and especially his nemesis CRITICS...but that's who he is. And I'm not sorry enough to say that, well...to me: that was just very Punk Rock of him. And I just simply admire that man.Sadly, in 2014, I allowed a fellow co-worker to borrow this original copy. Her mother was a well-known Artist downtown and helped a young Schnabel out when he and his fellow artist friends were struggling. He never forgot her mother she told me. Even after years of making a very large name for himself.Sadly - my co-worker succumbed to cancer sometime in 2015. I found it extremely distasteful to ask her mourning husband if I could please have my book back. So I didn't. I just hope she had the chance to read it and get just a little inspiration in the short time she had it.Last year I think ALL OF US were searching for ANYTHING to get us out of our heads. I didn't require any Inspiration but I did need a good KICK IN THE ASS. I went on eBay to check out just how much any original copies like mine were going for 10 or 12 years after that old girlfriend acquired mine. I wasn't doing too bad financially but I just wasn't ready to part with what they were asking.BUT! To my surprise I found out that CVJ was reprinted at some point back in one of my "LOST WEEKEND" years. I didn't even know what friggin' planet I was on let alone what favorite "HOLY GRAIL" books of mine were being much more affordably reprinted.So I went ahead and bought a reprint (softcover) and almost s**t when I received this little thing that was LITERALLY -100x smaller (is that a valid equation? I'm dyslexic with Math) but it was still the same brilliant, sad, joyful, funny and above all Motivational book that it was for me years before.In the end....MAYBE it IS the little things that matter after all.-JULIAN STOCKDALE 2022

Scritto dall’artista stesso, racconta i suoi esordi nel mondo dell’arte ed i suoi primi successi .

What a beautiful little readWith loads of lovely colour picturesJS is and has always been a great story teller.... the snippets of his life are so enjoyable to read

This is great. BTW there are more color plates than one would expect.

If I hadn't already watched the film about Schnabel on Netflix and loved The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Basquiat, both of which he produced, I'd probably have given up with this book to be honest. The written word is not where he excels and this is, for me, a lot of pretentious nonsense much of the time. There is the odd interesting section here and there which I enjoyed and which shed light on his process. It also helps to realise that this was written a very long time ago. I'm not sure what he'd write now. There are a lot of good colour plates here, which is why it gets four and not three stars.