Jean-Michel Basquiat Gallery Exhibition and Our Friend Jean NFT Auction in Miami
Brooklyn-based The Bishop Gallery recently hosted a unique event during Art Basel Miami. The event was an exhibition in which the world saw Jean-Michel Basquiat, personally and intimately like never before. The “Our Friend, Jean” exhibition was curated by The Bishop Gallery and hosted by Triller, an AI-powered global platform. Together they served up Miami’s finest at this first-ever physical and digital curated experience that focused on an historic NFT auction of photographs of the legendary, Neo-expressionist artist taken by photographers Alexis Adler and Al Diaz. Both Adler and Diaz had personal and professional relationships with Basquiat during his brief but legendary career.
The “Our Friend Jean NFT Auction“, was an exclusive event of art, music along with a live NFT drop that included four rare photos of Jean- Michel Basquiat. The selection of NFT drops featured personal photos of Basquiat that were available on the Triller marketplace along with exclusive previews and purchase opportunities. The Bishop Gallery chose the Triller NFT Marketplace because the Triller platform is specifically engineered to minimize the minting process’s computing costs and complexities to reduce the carbon footprint effects and provide accessibility for creators looking to monetize through NFT sales.
The exhibition’s opening was at Wynwood at BLK Studios, where musician Fat Joe first took the stage to perform, followed by rapper Busta Rhymes, who came out to perform. The night’s entertainment was completed by French Montana, who performed a set while DJ D-Nice spun the entire night.
Samples of the Baquiat NFTs can be see here and here on Triller.
ABOUT THE OUR FRIEND, JEAN EXHIBITION
The “Our Friend, Jean” an exhibit features early works by Jean-Michel Basquiat. All artworks are on loan from a select group of collectors who knew him personally as collaborators, friends and lovers. More than 20 early works will be on display, including drawings, writings, apparel and mixed media collage, giving viewers a tiny but intimate look at Basquiat’ life prior to the fame. Collectors include Jane Diaz, Hilary Jaeger, Catherine Legnini, and Alexis Adler whom also serves as co-curator. The exhibition also includes ephemera and photography from Al Diaz, co-creator of SAMO with Basquiat.
“The rudiments of the visual language invented by Basquiat are in the two simple works loaned by friend and collector, Jane Diaz. His familiar raw, jagged line, the split-second connections he made, the humor” according to the 2020 Hyperallergic article written by collector Robert Becker. Jean created these works while crashing at Jane’s apartment in the Lower East Side during the late 70’s. “What started off a casual chat bloomed into about a week of marathon nights, listening to music, endless conversation about art, about our futures, smoking pot, dancing to West-Side Story, sleeping together, drawing together and making art,” writes Jane. When Jean-Michel left, Jane “gathered up” most of the drawings he abandoned and threw them away, but held onto just two (2) pieces, “Little Monkey,” (1979) drawn with crayon and pasted with magazine cutouts, and a color Xerox of four small collages
