Julian Schnabel

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Julian Schnabel

Born

October 26, 1951 (age 56)
Brooklyn, New York

Spouse(s)

Jacqueline Schnabel (div.)
Olatz López Garmendia

Awards won
Golden Globe Awards
Best Director - Motion Picture 2008 The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Other Awards
Prix de la mise en scène 2007 The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Julian Schnabel (b. 26 October 1951) is a filmmaker and American artist. He has been acclaimed at Cannes and has won a Golden Globe, as well as BAFTA, César Award, Golden Palm and two nominations for the Golden Lion and an Academy Award nomination. He has directed three films which were widely acclaimed, including Before Night Falls, which became Javier Bardem's breakthrough Academy Award nominated role, and the four-time Academy Award nominated The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

1 Early life and education
2 Art
3 Museum collections
4 Directing
5 Writing and recording
6 Personal life
7 Filmography
8 References
9 External links

[edit] Early life and education

Born in Brooklyn, New York City to Esta and Jack Schnabel.^[1] Schnabel moved with his family to Brownsville, Texas when still young.^[2] Although he was Jewish, he attended a Marist Brothers Catholic school there. It was in Brownsville that he spent most of his formative years and where he took up surfing and resolved to be an artist.^[3]

He received his B.F.A. at the University of Houston. After graduating, he sent an application to the independent study program at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. His application included slides of his work sandwiched between two pieces of bread; he was promptly accepted.^[2] Struggling in the art world, Schnabel worked as a short-order cook and frequented Max's Kansas City, a restaurant-nightclub, while he worked on his art. In 1975, Schnabel had his first solo show at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston. Over the next few years he traveled frequently to Europe, where he was enormously impressed by the work of Antoni Gaudi, Cy Twombly and Joseph Beuys.

[edit] Art

It was with his first solo show, at the Mary Boone Gallery in 1979, however, that Schnabel would truly come to be regarded as a major new force in the art world. He participated at the Venice Biennale in 1980, and by the mid-1980s had become a major figure in the Neo-expressionism movement. By the time he exhibited his work in a show jointly organized by Boone and Leo Castelli in 1981, he had become firmly established. His now famous "plate paintings"—large-scale paintings set on broken ceramic plates—received a boisterous and critical reception from the art world. A reputation for making brash pronouncements about his importance to the art world ( "I'm the closest thing to Picasso that you'll see in this *#@ life") engendered contempt from both colleagues and the viewing public. What was beyond doubt, however, was the vibrancy that Schnabel brought to the art scene. Using Kabuki theatre sets, velvet and animal hides, Schnabel's bold, somewhat confrontational style recalled the energy and daring of Picasso and Pollock.

Schnabel's signature works contain an underlying edge of brutality, while remained suffused with compositional energy. Schnabel claims that he's "aiming at an emotional state, a state that people can literally walk into and be engulfed."

Schnabel insists he is a painter first and foremost, though he is more well known for his films.

“

Painting is like breathing to me. It’s what I do all the time. Every day I make art, whether it is painting, writing or making a movie.^[4]

”

[edit] Museum collections

His works are in the collections of various museums throughout the world, among them the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art; The Whitney Museum of American Art; The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles; Reina Sofia and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.

[edit] Directing

In addition to his work as an artist, Schnabel has written and directed three films: Basquiat, a biopic on the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat (1996), Before Night Falls (2000), an adaptation of Reinaldo Arenas' autobiographical novel, which he also produced, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), an adaptation of a French memoir by Jean-Dominique Bauby. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly earned him the award for best director at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Globe for best director, the Independent Spirit Award for best director, and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director. Schnabel, who designed Lou Reed's critically acclaimed 'Berlin' Tour in 2007, also released 'Berlin the Movie' (http://www.berlinthefilm.com/). Despite the fact that producing The Diving Bell and the Butterfly might seem like a commission to do someone else's work, Schnabel took on the film. According to Schnabel,

I used to go up to read to Fred Hughes, Andy Warhol’s business partner, who had multiple sclerosis. And as Fred got worse, he ended up locked inside his body. I had been thinking that I might make a movie about Fred when his nurse, Darren McCormick, gave me Bauby’s memoir, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Then, in 2003, when my father was dying, the script arrived from Kennedy. So it didn’t feel quite like taking on a commissioned job. ^[5]

[edit] Writing and recording

Schnabel published his autobiography CVJ: Nicknames of Maitre D's & Other Excerpts From Life, in 1987 and released the album "Every Silverlining Has a Cloud" on Island Records [Catalog #314-524 111-2] in 1995. Recorded in Brooklyn, NY in 1993, the album features guest musicians including Bill Laswell, Bernie Worrell, Buckethead, and Nicky Skopelitis.

[edit] Personal life

Schnabel lives in New York, maintaining studios in New York City and in Montauk on the eastern end of Long Island with a house in San Sebastian in Spain.^[3] He has three children by his first wife, clothing designer Jacqueline Beaurang: a son, Vito an art dealer, and two daughters, Lola a painter and film-maker, Stella, a poet and actress. He also has twin sons, Cy and Olmo, by his second wife, Spanish Basque actress and model Olatz López Garmendia. Garmendia appeared in Before Night Falls, and is also to be seen in The Diving Bell, as Bauby's physical therapist.^[3] Schnabel is fluent in Spanish.