In the midst of a budding avant-garde pocket of Left Bank Paris, a new public square has been taking shape over the past year. Swept in by eye catching modern architecture and vertical gardens, the Place Jean-Michel Basquiat is decked with digital renditions of the 80s art star’s bold, figurative cartoonish works.

As his works sell for astronomical prices worldwide, why has Paris dedicated a square to the street artist turned fine artist, whose meteoric rise ended in his death in 1988 from heroine at the age of 27? 

Born in New York to a Haitian father and mother of Puerto Rican descent, Basquiat has long been admired in France as an enfant terrible of the art world. “Basquiat is a God to Parisians,” says cultural press agent, Virginie Duval, “because he represents all that Paris was never able champion: that huge sense of freedom, and unorthodoxy, from a very young black artist.”

With his penchant for painting in an Armani suit and bare feet, the Neo-Expressionist superstar was also an artist-activist–who among other things opposed racism and police brutality in his graphic, colorful works of anguished figures. Several of these are on show around the Place Jean-Michel Basquiat, reflecting his hallmark mix of acrylic paint, oil paint stick, paper collage and ink.

Basquiat Finds Himself At Home In Socially Innovative Community

The square falls within the Rive Gauche’s modernist Tolbiac neighborhood, nudging the François Mitterrand national library. Opposite is Bercy village, beyond the quays and industrial ports of the Seine. The area is a post-industrial work in progress, with some of the most exciting architecture and new urban spaces in Paris. Yet there is nothing in the least bit touristy about it. Unfurling from “Paris 13, la guinguette EP7”–a  “restaurant bistronomique” where cocktails and digital creation collide–the Place Jean-Michel Basquiat embodies the zone as a dynamic cultural laboratory.

Perhaps it is only fitting that such an experimental neighbourhood in every sense–architecture, art and urban planning–pays homage to this groundbreaking and provocative icon. For local 13th district mayor, Jérôme Coumet, it is no coincidence. “Firstly the square is for the man," he says. "Basquiat is an artist who has given a voice to art in the public space. Secondly, he loved Paris and left his mark on the 13th district with his street art, and of course he was francophone.”  

All that fits perfectly in a neighbourhood heavily endowed with oeuvres by various international artists. The Left Bank square was launched last September with a fanfare of Hip Hop music, Afro dance and experimental acoustics, in the presence of  the artist’s family. Also present was activist fashion designer agnès b. Any day now, her contemporary art foundation, LA FAB, will open on the square as a permanent home to her contemporary art collection.

Naturalement works by Basquiat will hang in that space. And the ethos of agnès b’s 4593 square feet (1400 square metres) “cultural and solidarity factory,” which aims to welcome artists, be socially engaged and offer free entertainment, would no doubt have pleased him as well.