In this artwork, how is the Tiffany & Co. campaign discussed?
In 2021, luxury jewelry company Tiffany & Co. partnered with American singer Beyoncé and rapper Jay-Z to promote the company's "About Love" campaign. In the campaign, Jay-Z is seen wearing his hair much like Basquiat. The campaign incorporated Equals Pi in most of its material because the painting heavily features a color close to the company's signature robin egg blue.The campaign was met with criticism from the artists former friends and colleagues. Stephen Torton, a former assistant of Basquiat's posted a statement on Instagram saying, "I designed and built stretchers, painted backgrounds, glued drawings down on canvas, chauffeured, traveled extensively, spoke freely about many topics and worked endless hours side by side in silence. The idea that this blue background, which I mixed and applied was in any way related to Tiffany Blue is so absurd that at first I chose not to comment. But this very perverse appropriation of the artist’s inspiration is too much."Furthermore, a curator of Basquiat's work has stated that if the use of the robins egg blue was in reference to Tiffany, it would have been intended as criticism rather than an homage or as something to be commercialized by the company.
Instagram Tiffany & Co. Jay-Z robin egg blue Tiffany Blue Beyoncé