Diego Cortez obituary

Curator who introduced Jean-Michel Basquiat to the art world through his influential 1981 show New York/New WaveDiego Cortez, who has died aged 74, was a linchpin of the New York underground in the 1980s, and instrumental in the career of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. In 1978 he co-founded the Mudd Club, a multistorey venue of exposed brick and shabby red velvet furniture in a downtown area considered a no-go zone. Yet what People magazine described as the “punks, posers and the ultra-h