‘Peak Basquiat’—controversial Russian politician's T-shirt emblazoned with name of late artist

The Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov is a familiar face on television, acting as a mouthpiece for Kremlin denunciations of Western contemporary culture and values. But heads were turned when the esteemed politician was seen earlier this week in a video wearing a Jean-Michel Basquiat t-shirt, lounging in his hotel at the G20 conference in Bali. The fashionable garb made people chortle on social media. “Basquiat was a queer, anti-colonial Black artist. Just the sort of guy who’d love Sergey’s war [in Ukraine],” said one contributor. The director of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Tristram Hunt, tweeted: “That’s it. I am calling it. Peak Basquiat.” The image of Lavrov was circulated by the Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on her Telegram channel in a bid to dispel rumours Lavrov is unwell. Lavrov has ties to contemporary art incidentally. His daughter, Ekaterina Vinokurova, is co-owner of Smart Art, a company that was contracted to run the Russian pavilion at the Venice Biennale for ten years.