Basquiat’s Former Home Has Been Inexplicably ‘Whitewashed,’ Erasing All Graffiti
Screenshot via Google Street View
Another cultural icon is now lost to the past. The building at 57 Great Jones Street in downtown New York City, where street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat spent his final days, has been fully painted over in white, removing all the graffiti created in his memory.
Workers were spotted whitewashing the façade earlier this month, wiping off tributes including a depiction of the late artist as the Statue of Liberty along with an inscription by graffitist Nic 707, who died in April 2020 from COVID-19, according to a report by Taylor Dafoe for Artnet News.
The facade of a New York City building where Jean-Michel Basquiat lived and worked at the time of his death has been mysteriously whitewashed: https://t.co/gm1dSgLHyw pic.twitter.com/RtIDTwXQVm
— Artnet (@artnet) February 24, 2022
The building was owned by Andy Warhol at the time of the tragedy. Basquiat lived in its loft for five years, and it was where some of his most notable works were created.
Basquiat overdosed on heroin in this very place at only 27 years old, and was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. A referral-only restaurant named Bohemian now resides in this building, says the publication.
Image via Village Preservation / Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
Following the paint job, all that remained in memoriam of the artist was a plaque that the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation had commissioned in his honor in 2016. However, Artnet News reports that tributes are trickling in again, with fresh new messages like “We [heart] JMB” and “LONG LIVE [crown]” appearing on the walls.
[via Artnet News, images via various sources]
