MARIPOL!
Basquiat AM
signed, numbered and stamped in marker by the artist (bottom right)
archival pigment print on museum paper
36 × 36 inches (91.4 × 91.4 cm)
Executed in 1982, printed in 2025. This work is edition 3 from an edition of 15 plus 3 artist's proofs. 

EXHIBITED:
Los Angeles, Beyond the Streets, Beyond the Streets, May–August 2018
New York, Beyond the Streets, Beyond the Streets, June–August 2019
Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Crossing Lines, December 2019

NOTES:
“I still dream about him. The memory that I have of him is that I could see that there was something about him that was happy – and then sad. And happy. And sad. But when he was on the happy side, it was amazing… He was special. He was beautiful.”
— Maripol

Shot by Maripol at the height of downtown New York’s creative explosion, Basquiat AM captures Jean-Michel Basquiat in a moment of raw presence — unguarded, radiant, and impossibly young. Taken in 1982, the same year as his breakout solo show at Annina Nosei, the original Polaroid is a fragment of history, reframed here as a museum-quality pigment print.

Maripol photographed Basquiat on multiple occasions, capturing both candid and composed moments that have since become part of the visual archive of his early career. Though not collaborators in the formal sense, their connection helped shape the image of downtown New York as a crucible of art, style, and rebellion.

Drawn from Maripol’s personal collection, the image stands as both document and tribute. A legendary artist and cultural figure behind some of the era’s most iconic visuals, Maripol channels both muse and witness. Her connection to Basquiat was personal, maternal, and magnetic.