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The undisputed king of buying Jean-Michel Basquiat\u2019s work right now is Ken Griffin. This week, 10 works from his collection went on view<\/a> at the P\u00e9rez Art Museum Miami and are open to the public for an entire year. The masterpieces from Griffin\u2019s collection include<\/a> the large painting of a skull that Yusaku Maezawa bought<\/a> at Sotheby\u2019s in 2017 for $110 million, officially cementing Basquiat in the nine-figure canon with few other artists. It turned out to be a bargain. In 2024, Maezawa sold<\/a> it to Griffin for a price as high as $200 million.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s another Basquiat collector, someone a lot less famous than Griffin, someone who has never appeared on the ARTnews<\/em> Top 200 Collector List, who doesn\u2019t yet sit on museum boards or get honored at galas. According to sources, he\u2019s spent hundreds of millions on Basquiats in the past few years and owns more than a dozen major paintings. His name is Patrick Dovigi and his money is trash. Let me explain: Dovigi is a waste-management kingpin who owns a $13 billion rubbish conglomerate called Green for Life Environmental, founded in the suburbs of Toronto. According to The Wall Street Journal,<\/em> his net worth last year was $1.2 billion. But he\u2019s not your typical billionaire: He\u2019s a Canadian who was a semi-pro hockey player and, to this day, is referred to in headlines<\/a> as the \u201cNHL-goalie-turned-entrepreneur.\u201d<\/p>\n GFL Environmental Founder, President & CEO Patrick Dovigi, second left, is joined by BC Partners Paolo Notarnicola, left, as he rings a ceremonial bell on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, celebrating his company’s IPO, on March 4, 2020.<\/span>Richard Drew\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n His line of work makes him an anomaly among art collectors\u2014and has brought out more than a few critics. In 2020, an investment management firm recommending a short play against GFL released a report alleging that Dovigi\u2019s company has been associated with organized crime. To be fair, mafia affiliations have long<\/a> been a bogeyman of the garbage business\u2014and yet the industry\u2019s mobbed-up reputation can\u2019t exactly explain away that, according to authorities, a gunman targeted Dovigi\u2019s home. More on this in a bit.<\/p>\n He does have a few habits typical of your 21st-century billionaire. For instance, buying and selling properties in Aspen and Miami. He\u2019s also started collecting art with the passion of a seasoned vet. His purchases are private\u2014he buys mostly on the secondary market, and rarely at auction\u2014sources within the art-adviser community and at auction houses say that he\u2019s been on a spree acquiring Basquiats. He\u2019s not particularly well-known among the longtime insiders, as he\u2019s yet to exhibit a yen for gladhanding, gallerist schmoozing, or playing the game. And yet he\u2019s built a collection that, by some estimations, ranks among the top in the country, homing in on grade-A examples of American masters\u2014Roy Lichtenstein, Ed Ruscha, and with a particular focus on Basquiat. Since starting his collecting journey five or six years ago, he\u2019s snapped up some incredible paintings.<\/p>\n And Manhattan apartments. And beach houses. And ski lodges. And\u2026boats.<\/em> In 2023, he bought Ahpo, a 378-foot yacht owned by Jamaican Canadian billionaire Michael Lee-Chin, and then renamed it Lady Jorgia. The price tag was $362 million. For most, this would have sufficed for nautical recreation. Not Dovigi. Last year, the world\u2019s first hydrogen-powered pleasure craft came on the market, commissioned by Bill Gates. At 390 feet, it\u2019s bigger than the Lady Jorgia. It\u2019s called Breakthrough, and Gates never stepped foot on it\u2014last year, Dovigi bought the boat for $650 million, making it one of the most expensive yachts in history. This week, according to public data, Breakthrough is moored off the Costa Smeralda in northeastern Sardinia, near Porto Cervo.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n