Dom Pérignon goes Neo-Pop with this Tribute to Basquiat

Dom Pérignon are no stranger to creating enthralling collaborations with artists – particularly pop artists. With works of Jeff Koons and Andy Warhol previously seeping into the bottle labels and across the front of outer packaging. Now, Basquiat.

While a key piece of 80s iconography, the neo-expressionist works of the late Jean-Michel Basquiat have travelled into the present day in a number of media. From being the main influence behind The Strokes’ most recent album cover to pieces featured in fashion drops by Comme de Garçons and Supreme. As an ever-trending artist, this exciting new launch is made to entwine the street-art style of Basquiat with the sleek chic of Dom Pérignon in a release that is as funky as it is fresh (and fizzy).

Sure, it’d be simple to stick a Basquiat across a Champagne bottle. Yet, this is a new creation, not an instance of copy and paste. The collaboration is a carefully-crafted merge between the mesmerisingly chaotic art of Basquiat and the core emblems of Dom Pèriginon, finalised after a journey to find the resonance between the two. With this, came choosing the most suitable work from the New York artist and injecting a taste of Pérignon between his signature graffiti-like doodles. The choice being, In Italian, a piece from 1983. In this piece the meaning remains, to this day, a mystery. Only to be interpreted by those who lay their eyes upon it. Like many of Basquiat’s pieces, each time you look back you spot something new. Meaning that each time you look back, you perceive the piece differently and reach a new conclusion as to what it means.

Basquiat once said, “My art is usually how I feel at the moment” and “anything can act as an influence.” It is this open-minded approach that always resulted in canvases strewn with complex mosaics featuring images that are, at times, near indecipherable. His aim was never to create a work of art or a masterpiece to hang sweetly in a gallery. It was to create a piece that carried emotional intensity and power. This is a trait that Dom Pérignon wholly resonated with as a Maison and, In Italian, was their chosen piece to represent such resonance across the front of their very own vintage Champagne.

The result? Three special editions of Dom Pérignon Vintage 2015, each fronted with a decorative multicoloured shield intertwining the Maison’s classic emblem with Basquiat’s art style and signature three-point crown. That isn’t all. The three Champagnes each come in differing colour combinations: green, blue and yellow. When the trio are united together and the coffrets are aligned side-by-side, the full painting of In Italian is brought into view. For any art collectors who enjoy a flute of fizz from time-to-time, this release is one to obsess over. Will you collect them all?

The limited-edition series is now available exclusively at Selfridges, each 75cl gift box is priced at £220. Find out more via domperignon.com and purchase via selfridges.com/GB/en/cat/dom-perignon/