Amid audible gasps, a painting by the late Jean-Michel Basquiat broke Andy Warhol’s record for most expensive painting by an American artist when it sold at auction yesterday for $110.5 million, according to the New York Times.
The 1982 painting of a skull has “put him in the same league as Pablo Picasso and Francis Bacon,” art dealer Jeffrey Deitch said.
The buyer was 41-year-old Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, who plans to display it at a future museum in his hometown in Chiba.
“I am happy to announce that I just won this masterpiece,” he wrote in a post on Instagram. “When I first encountered this painting, I was struck with so much excitement and gratitude for my love of art. I want to share that experience with as many people as possible.”
Throughout the years, Hip Hop music has featured many allusions to the Basquiat — born in Brooklyn to a Haitian father and a Puerto Rican mother. He passed away in 1988 at the age of 27 from an overdose. Jay Z made headlines in 2013 when he bought the Basquiat painting “Mecca,” and has made several references to the artist on throughout his career.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRD5iedeCwU
But Jay is far from the only one to recognize Basquiat’s work in his lyrics. J. Cole, Rick Ross, Killer Mike, Cy-Hi The Prynce and more have proven themselves to be art-lovers at one time or another.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhbI5gfYSxE
And a Rammellzee vs. K-Rob release from 1983 that featured design and production work from the artist made DX’s list for the most expensive Hip Hop albums in existence.
lol what a predictably awful painting
LOL WHAT A PREDICABLY AWFUL LIFE YOU HAVE!!!! THAT PAINTING IS WORTH MORE THAN YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY!!!! LOL!!!!
Hes only worth 2.6 Billion so…
That painting looks like shit
YOUR LIFE LOOKS LIKE SHIT!!!! THAT PAINTING IS WORTH MORE THAN YOUR LIFE!!!!
To be honest Basquiat’s paintings were mostly trash.
TO BE HONEST, YOUR LIFE IS TRASH!!!!
At some point you gotta stop and ask yourself what else you can do with 110 million. That’s more money than 99% of rappers have ever seen. You can literally change the political make up of a corrupt region or bring awareness to problems killing our people. That can be viewed as art as well
Fine art is all about money laundering for dirty money.
sick painting, terrible investment.
Trash. I could paint that.
funny all you under me just showed how much you know about art or fine culture in general…his style is original that’s why its worth that just like warhol took average images and made them art…go read a book…now would i pay that much…if i had 2.6 billy sure
Dope! Someone who will go down in the history books with the greats of Art was first recognized through hip-hop. Let’s see how this story is told overtime. I’m sure hip-hip will not get any credit for participating in his legacy.