Presents the life and career of the artist, including his childhood in Brooklyn, years as a graffiti artist, rise to stardom as a painter, collaborations with Andy Warhol, and death from a drug overdose at twenty-seven.

Sebastian von Eschburg, scion of a wealthy, self-destructive family, survived his disastrous childhood to become a celebrated if controversial artist. He casts a provocative shadow over the Berlin scene; his disturbing photographs and installations show that truth and reality are two distinct things. When Sebastian is accused of murdering a young woman and the police investigation takes a sinister turn, seasoned lawyer Konrad Biegler agrees to represent...

Siggi Jepsen, a young man in juvenile detention, must write an essay on "The Joys Of Duty" as part of his punishment. The topic overwhelms Siggi so much, he suffers at first from writer's block. Once put in solitary confinement, he finds the clarity to recount his childhood during the war in a small north-German village. His memories focus on his relationship with his father, a police officer of the village and a family friend and expressionist painter....

"Nearly a hundred years ago, a radical artistic utopia was born in Germany. Founded in 1919 by Walter Gropius, Bauhaus was supposed to unite sculpture, painting, design and architecture into a single combined constructive discipline. Bauhaus constituted one of the most significant contributions to everyday 20th-century culture and influential contemporary designs, and it was never just an artistic experiment. Confronted with the social conditions...

"The art world is one of the most secretive of global businesses, and the list of its crimes runs long and deep. Today, with prices in the hundreds of millions for individual artworks, and billionaires' collections among the most conspicuous and liquid of their assets, crime is more rampant than ever in this largely unregulated universe. Increased prices and globalization have introduced new levels of fraud and malfeasance into the art world--everything...