Photos and reporting by Stacie Joy
The six-story Jean-Michel Basquiat mural at the Bowery and Great Jones Street is now complete.
Artist Owen Dippie signed the work yesterday, marking the end of a project that began in mid-September.
The mural pays tribute to Basquiat, who lived and worked nearby at 57 Great Jones St.
Both Dippie and his wife, Erin, who helped bring the project together, described the day as an emotional one, marking the culmination of years of work. The two paid for the project out of their own pocket.
Previously on EV Grieve:
12 comments:
I seen it hit the news on Channel 7 pretty awesome! I'm going to go check it out in person real soon!
Very impressive. It's one of the street pleasures of the EV seeing these gigantic portraits on the side of buildings. We need more.
Beautiful and monumental work. Looking forward to enjoying it in person. It must have been an interesting part of the challenge to position the portrait on a "canvas" that has windows in it.
torn as it's really good, at what point does homage become exploitation and good for business not that the artist (Dippie) here is being so just feel like there's a pay off that feels like something Jean would look rather dimly on real estate and hospitality love this stuff until it gets in the way of more money Que 5 Points fiasco and other no longer useful permission situations
It’s a gorgeous piece of fine art. Amazing scale. I bet it’s even more impressive in person, but the photos are lovely. Nice to see him represented. I was a young art student studying here in NYC at SVA when he died and we were devastated.
It's a billboard, a self perpetuating advertisement (via social media). The beneficiaries are collectors,
art dealers, auction houses, ad agencies, and millionaires and billionaires who own his work. As Basquiat died intestate we'll never know what's wishes would have been. He is possibly the only major artist since WW2 not to have a
charitable foundation in his name. Just the opposite for his contemporaries Warhol and K Haring whose vast resources provide for grants, residencies, social services, and medical research to name a few. Jasper Johns (96?) is leaving his entire 170 acre estate to function as a creative sanctuary for working artists. Hard to believe Basquait wouldn't want something similar, some kind of charitable foundation.
The estate's administrators (his sisters) choose to support educational, artistic, and community causes privately through the estate's commercial revenues rather than through a public charitable vehicle.
Leave it to the EV Grumps to find the flaw in a huge piece of public art that is beautifying the neighborhood!
The artist funded this himself. By all accounts there seem to be little motivation to paint this mural beyond beautification of the neighborhood and a tribute to one of the NYC's most notable artists.
It's ok to let a good thing be a good thing....
You and XTC are right. By keeping his name in the public eye... values are maintained or increased. Trends... fads make a difference. But like you... I just like it like MJ and RBG at E.11th.
Self Funded or not Homage such as we've seen in the hood these last several years has a double sided edge sorry MNG ( still with the name calling i see ) but two things can be true at the same time since it's not math but opine one doesn't cancel the other
I'd rather have this beautiful mural rather than the vandalized crap scribbled on every available public and private space by self serving moron's that's been surfacing all over the EV for the last 10 years.
"Vandalized scribbled crap"......Lol...I guess Basquait is the only one entitled to "bomb the system."
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