Brooklyn Boro

BP Adams announces 2nd annual Central Brooklyn Arts and Culture Weekend

To Be Headlined by ‘Celebrity Path’ Induction of Fabolous and Jean-Michel Basquiat

June 6, 2017 Brooklyn Daily Eagle
This undated photo provided by Sotheby's shows Brooklyn native Jean-Michel Basquiat's Masterpiece "Untitled." The sale of the artwork on May 18, 2017, in Manhattan was an auction record for the artist. It also set a record price for an American artist at auction. The late artist will be inducted into Brooklyn’s Celebrity Path at the second annual Central Brooklyn Arts & Culture Weekend June 10-11. Sotheby's via AP
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On Tuesday, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams announced that his second annual Central Brooklyn Arts & Culture Weekend will be headlined by a “Welcome Back to Brooklyn” ceremony that will bestow engraved pavers along the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s famed Celebrity Path, as well as the “keys to Brooklyn” to multiplatinum hip-hop star Fabolous and the late groundbreaking abstract/neo-expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, both of whom are world-famous sons of the borough.

Since 1985, more than 160 Brooklynites who have gone on to make outstanding contributions in art, business, film, literature, music, sports and more have had their names inscribed on this walkway. Adams highlighted the importance of celebrating Brooklyn’s creative geniuses as essential to promoting cultural enrichment and supporting the borough’s artistic institutions, important elements of his Central Brooklyn Arts & Culture Weekend; the family-friendly celebration will take place on Saturday, June 10 and Sunday, June 11 along the stretch of Eastern Parkway from Grand Army Plaza to Washington Avenue.

“Fabolous and Jean-Michel Basquiat have shown the world the best of Brooklyn — the sheer genius of their respective music and art broke ground and touched countless lives around the world,” said Adams.

Brooklyn native Fabolous, aka John David Jackson, is of Dominican and African-American descent, having grown up in the Breevort Houses of Bedford-Stuyvesant, according to a release from the Brooklyn Borough President’s Office. He worked his way to the top of the hip-hop recording industry and has launched projects including a jersey collection, an emoji app and becoming an ambassador for Jay Z’s D’USSE cognac as well as Floh Vodka. 

“I feel honored to be inducted into Brooklyn’s own Celebrity Path and receive a key to the city this month,” said Fabolous. 

Basquiat was a Brooklyn-born abstract artist who broke ground with his informal graffiti art around the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the late 1970s. His half-Haitian, half-Puerto Rican background inspired his work, which gained fame in the hip-hop, post-punk and street art movements of the 1970s and 1980s, due to their evocative messages around racism, sexism, political violence and economic inequality in America. He transitioned from street graffiti to neo-expressionist paintings, working his way up in the art world to display his works in galleries and museums around the world, notably the Brooklyn Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, the Institute of Contemporary Arts and Serpentine Galleries in London, and Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.

“Our family continues to be incredibly proud of the extent to which Jean-Michel’s life work has been appreciated,” said Jeanine Basquiat, sister of Jean-Michel Basquiat, who spoke on behalf of the Basquiat family.

 

For more information on the events throughout the weekend, visit brooklyn-usa.org.

 

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