MEDSAN - Basquiat King of Air (バスキア風の空の王) - UNIQUE WORK

THERE IS ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD - EDITION 1/1
PRINT ON CANVAS, digital print not painted

With this square-format work, Medsan brings the 1985 Air Jordan 1 “Chicago” into the graphic vocabulary of Jean-Michel Basquiat. The most mythologized sneaker in basketball history becomes an urban totem here, surrounded by three-point crowns, schematic skulls, and the SAMO tag that launched the painter onto the walls of Downtown Manhattan. The slogan “KING OF AIR” replaces Basquiat’s “KING OF,” and Michael Jordan’s 23 answers to the copyright the artist placed on his own words.

The rendering imitates frontally the material of 1980s neo-expressionism: red and black impastos that seem knife-charged, freely left vertical drips, chalky-looking writings, erasures and arrows from a notebook turned painting. The raw canvas shows through in panels, as in Basquiat’s wood-and-tarp assemblages, while the grid of black lines structures the saturated space. The palette sticks to primaries — blood red, bright yellow, blue, black and white — and the shoe emerges from this chaos of signs with almost advertising clarity. The bones drawn on the toe recall the painter’s obsession with anatomy, grafted onto the sneaker’s leather.

The connection is not arbitrary: Basquiat and Jordan are two Black figures who became global icons at the same time, in the same 1980s New York, crowned kings by a market they outpaced. Crown a sneaker, and you pose the question the painter already asked: who decides what is worth, and at what price? The skull, never far away, reminds us of what fame costs.

A piece that is both raw and scholarly, ideal for bringing a street, neo-expressionist touch to a contemporary interior, for sneaker collectors as for urban art enthusiasts. The buyer receives a unique giclée print — pigment print on canvas mounted on a wooden stretch frame — numbered 1/1 and hand-signed.

Technical specifications:
Artist: Medsan
Reference: Basquiat / Air Jordan 1 Chicago / neo-expressionism / SAMO / crown / street art
Dimensions: 40 x 40 cm
Edition: One-of-a-kind work — 1/1 (worldwide unique copy)
Year: 2026
Support: Pigment print on canvas (giclée), mounted on a wooden frame (thickness ~2 cm)
Signature: Yes, hand-signed
Condition: Excellent
Certificate: Certificate of authenticity (upon request)

About the Studio:
Atelier Joconde is a group of artists brought together by a living and plural contemporary creation. Set up as a true place of artistic production, the studio operates both as collective creation and as individual approaches, depending on the projects and works. Atelier Joconde is also a family venture. Le Yack, a figurative contemporary painter, develops a narrative and introspective body of work with cinematic and realistic influences. Beside him, Medsan, oriented toward pop art painting, explores color, modern iconography, and visual culture. Finally, Neo Pablo engages in a more instinctive search, blending abstract art, outsider art, and figurative abstraction. Each work is conceived, realized, and followed within the studio, with a shared artistic standard and an identity unique to each artist.

Keywords:
Medsan, Atelier Joconde, Le Yack, Basquiat, Air Jordan 1 Chicago, neo-expressionism, SAMO, crown, street art, sneaker, square format, Contemporary, One-of-a-kind, 1/1