“Downtown 81” (ダウンタウン81), Original Japanese B2 Movie Poster 2001, Rare, B2 Size (c. 51 × 73 cm) O576

This is an original Japanese B2 theatrical poster printed for the limited Japanese release of Downtown 81 (a.k.a. New York Beat Movie), the post‑punk urban fairy‑tale shot in 1980–81 and finally completed for release in 2000. Directed by Edo Bertoglio from a script by Glenn O’Brien and produced by Maripol, the film follows a young Jean‑Michel Basquiat wandering downtown Manhattan, trying to sell one of his own paintings while drifting through clubs, lofts and street corners populated by DNA, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, James White and the Blacks, Debbie Harry and other fixtures of the early‑80s New York scene.

Japanese release & rarity
In Japan the film played a very small art‑house circuit in the early 2000s, primarily in specialist and independent cinemas rather than the national multiplex chains. Surviving records and auction listings in Japan indicate that the B2 theatrical poster was produced in relatively modest quantities and appears on the market far less often than contemporary major‑studio titles.

Design
The design fuses cinema one‑sheet and Basquiat artwork into a single object. A colour portrait of a 19‑year‑old Basquiat, in red sweater and dark coat, fills the frame, echoing the grainy texture of 16mm film. Over the photograph, Basquiat’s iconic hand‑drawn vocabulary is recreated in bold black: the three‑pointed crown, crossed‑out and rewritten text (“JEAN MICHEL BASQUIAT / DOWNTOWN81”) and a dripping, mask‑like head scrawled directly over his face. The English title typography runs in refined serif letters, while a single Japanese tagline along the bottom reads, “バスキア19歳。おとぎ話が現実になることを未だ知らない” (“Basquiat, 19 years old – still unaware that the fairy tale is about to become reality”), perfectly capturing the bittersweet knowledge that his meteoric career and early death lay ahead. Small credit text and production logos sit unobtrusively along the lower edge, letting the portrait and “graffiti” dominate the composition.

Basquiat & Japan
Jean‑Michel Basquiat (1960–1988) is one of the defining artists of the late 20th century, a key figure in New York’s downtown art and music worlds whose paintings now rank among the most valuable ever sold by any American artist. In 2017 his 1982 Untitled skull painting sold at Sotheby’s for $110.5 million to Japanese collector Yusaku Maezawa, underlining his huge following in Japan. Basquiat himself visited Japan repeatedly in the 1980s, holding at least six solo and ten group exhibitions there and incorporating Japanese words, hiragana and pop‑cultural references into his work. The 2019 “Jean‑Michel Basquiat: Made in Japan” retrospective at Tokyo’s Mori Arts Center Gallery focused specifically on these deep ties, further cementing his status as a cult figure in Japanese art and fashion culture. This poster, produced for a niche Japanese theatrical run of a film starring Basquiat himself, sits right at the intersection of that long‑running mutual fascination.

Condition
Excellent. Please review the photos—they show the exact poster for sale. The sheet is clean and glossy with strong colour and no fading. There is a single tiny pinhole in each corner from theatrical display, and only very light handling from storage; no folds, tears or writing.

This is an original Japanese theatrical B2 poster from the film’s limited early‑2000s Japanese release.
It is not a reproduction or a reprint.

It is over 24 years old.

Certificate of Authenticity included.