# @sothebys on YouTube

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://youtube.com/watch?v=9s8YBEE_Qi4
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/64542261-sothebys-youtube
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/dcf36bbf68.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-04-14T08:57:42.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Sotheby's (@sothebys) — https://gondola.cc/sothebys

## Caption

New York, 1981. The city is fraying at the edges, its storefronts dimmed and its rhythms unsettled. Somewhere within it, a 20-year-old Jean-Michel Basquiat is moving between borrowed rooms and park benches, painting not on canvas but on whatever the street offers. A set of discarded window blinds becomes something else entirely—a surface, a signal, a threshold between visibility and obscurity. 

"Law Offices – Notary Public" captures a moment that feels almost impossible to stage: the instant an artist crosses from survival into authorship. Symbols emerge, destabilised and reimagined, hinting at a language that would come to define a generation. What reads at first as raw improvisation reveals itself, slowly, as something sharper—coded, deliberate, and already unmistakably Basquiat. 

This statement piece is a highlight of the Art Moderne et Contemporain Evening Auction taking place at Sotheby's Paris on 16 April.

Still haven’t subscribed to Sotheby’s on YouTube? ►►https://www.youtube.com/sothebys/

Want more information on the sale and the work? 
►►https://www.sothebys.com/en/digital-catalogues/art-moderne-et-contemporain-evening-auction

#Basquiat #JeanMichelBasquiat #ContemporaryArt #StreetArt #ArtHistory #NewYorkArt #1980sArt #ModernArt #ArtCollectors #Sothebys

## Stats

- **Views:** 1,931
- **Likes:** 80
- **Shares:** 0
- **Comments:** 5

## Tags

arthistory, newyorkart, basquiat, 1980sart, streetart, jeanmichelbasquiat, contemporaryart, sothebys, modernart, artcollectors

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