Photoshoot Fresh - Basquiat and Kicks Week

This week I wanted to spotlight a great influence of mine, Jean-Michel Basquiat. Today I’m rocking with another Uniqlo shirt this time with one of JMB’s favorite combination of detailing of symbols and letters on the pocket and the Nike Air Max 95 Cyber kicks with the very intriguing 👀 , a special GS edition.

Was thinking back to the first time I actually set my eyes on a Basquiat painting or drawing in person and it wasn’t until a year after I moved to NYC which was back in 2001. Before that it was via the library catalogues and books that were scarcely available.
I first went to The Strand bookstore (many more trips would ensue) on a mission to get the Basquiat book written by Phoebe Hoban as it was never available in the library!

As I read about his early trips with his mother to the Brooklyn Museum, I found out they had at least one painting in their collection (at the time in early 2000s) so I trekked there for the first time to see that and other collections on view at the time. Later on, still new to living in the city, I would make my rounds to Moma and the Whitney (old location on the Upper East Side) to eventually see one of the more famous ones in the collection, Hollywood Africans.

Drop a comment below or via Twitter or Instagram about the first time you actually viewed a Basquiat work in person.