Wikipedia

Jet Le Parti

Jet Le Parti (born 1999,[1] Columbus, Georgia) is an American visual artist, experimental musician, and poet. His work includes painting, sound art, and writing, distributed through private channels and self-organized exhibitions. He is the founder of Base 36, a cultural organization based in Brooklyn, New York.[2] He was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list in the Art & Culture category in 2025.[3]

Jet Le Parti
Born1999 (age 26–27)
Columbus, Georgia, United States
EducationUniversity of Pennsylvania
Royal College of Art
OccupationsVisual artist, musician, poet
Known forPainting, experimental music, poetry, Base 36
AwardsForbes 30 Under 30 (Art & Culture, Europe, 2025)
Websitejetleparti.com

Early life and education

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Le Parti was born in Columbus, Georgia, and grew up on Fort Benning, a U.S. Army installation near the city.[4] As a teenager, he played competitive baseball and was recognized by the scouting organization Perfect Game, where he was named a Preseason All-American and received a PG Grade of 10, and later committed to the University of Pennsylvania as a recruited athlete.[5]

He enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania, where he played one season of baseball before leaving the sport and studying philosophy and cognitive neuroscience.[6][2] He later attended the Royal College of Art but did not complete a degree.[6][2]

During his time in Philadelphia, he participated in underground music and warehouse events, which influenced his later work.[7] After leaving a studio in New York, he relocated temporarily to Los Angeles with the intention of returning to competitive sport; a shoulder injury ended that pursuit, and he returned to New York.[7]

His academic background and interest in phenomenology, critical theory, and physics have informed his multidisciplinary approach, combining conceptual frameworks with sensory experimentation.[8]

Career

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Le Parti works across painting, experimental music, and poetry, with each discipline informed by recurring philosophical and existential themes. His work addresses subjects including mortality, systemic violence, cultural saturation, and conditions of presence and observation.[9]

Critical writing has associated his work with the philosophies of Martin Heidegger and Jean Baudrillard.[10] His practice engages the cultural critique of the Frankfurt School, including Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, and Mark Fisher's concept of hauntology and cultural saturation.[7]

Themes of the limits of human observation, the inadequacy of language as a representational system, and the transmission of meaning recur across his work.[9][10] Le Parti's work has been described as incorporating referential structures in naming conventions, formal structures and compositional methods.[9][7]

His work has been described as operating between institutional and independent art contexts, recognised without the conventional support of gallery representation or museum placement.[2][7]

Visual art

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To Be Hung (2022) at Sotheby's New York, (2023). Courtesy of Base 36.

Le Parti’s painting practice ranges from large-scale works to reduced compositions, shifting between dense and minimal approaches across bodies of work. His materials include house paint, graphite, ink, and wax.[4][11] His visual work addresses themes including decay, mortality, institutional violence, and phenomenology.[12]

2 Avant Garde Noise Listeners (2026). Courtesy of Sibyl.

His output is organized into bodies of work. The Melting Blues series includes large-scale paintings using muted blue and grey palettes with recurring existential and philosophical concerns.[13] Reign.925 is a body of work produced with artist L.S. Toy, incorporating painting, sculpture, photography, and image-based work. Selected works include To Be Hung (2022), Trojan (2023), Window, Face in Cave, Portrait of a YN (2026), 2 Avant Garde Noise Listeners (2026), and Revenant / Walker in the District (2026).[4][7][11] Earlier works held at Sibyl’s Los Angeles headquarters include History of the World, Pandora/Prometheus, and On Phenomenology.[11]

Pandora (2024), Sibyl Collection, Los Angeles. Courtesy of Sibyl.
Revenant / Walker in the District (2026). Courtesy of Sibyl.

Le Parti has not maintained formal gallery representation; his primary and secondary market activity has taken place through private networks.[2]

A February 2026 analysis in Global Banking & Finance Review described Le Parti as an example of what it termed the art market's "grey zone", referring to artists generating secondary market activity without auction records, gallery representation, or conventional pricing structures. The analysis states that he self-funded exhibitions across Los Angeles, New York, Berlin, and London since 2019, and retained much of his work rather than distributing it through conventional sales channels.[14]

Trojan (2023), RP.1, Chinatown, New York. Courtesy of Base 36.

A March 2026 piece in The Blast, distributed via Yahoo Finance, independently corroborated the characterization, describing Le Parti as "the most frequently cited example" of grey zone artists with a documented public trail.[15]

Exhibitions

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  • Onset of the Relativistic, Base 36, Brooklyn (2022)[1]
  • Veiled Constructions: Dark Perceptions of the Human Experience, Sotheby's Institute of Art, New York (2023)[16]
  • Trojan, RP.1, New York (2023)
  • Lost in Translation: Echoes, Mythos, & Ecce Hommo, Sibyl, Los Angeles (2024)[11]
  • Termination Notice., RP.1, Brooklyn (2026)[10]
  • American Wasteland, RP.1, Brooklyn (2026)[12]

American Wasteland (2026) included works such as Pawn Shop, Sisyphus, and Phases of the Nuclear Option, and was presented in conjunction with the film Our Hero, Balthazar.[12]

Music

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Le Parti at his Brooklyn studio, 2021. Courtesy of Base 36.

Le Parti produces experimental electronic music across drone, techno, and ambient music, and has performed as a DJ in warehouse and club environments.[17][12] His releases are issued through RP.1/Base 36, a label he founded as part of Base 36.

His production method is rooted in the interception and reprocessing of radio frequency signals, extracting samples from intercepted transmissions and rearranging them as rhythmic or textural elements.[18]

In March 2026, Billboard Japan published a feature on his album Listening Post, placing his work within experimental electronic music traditions associated with signal-based composition and noise practices, including Scanner, William Basinski, Tim Hecker, Shinichi Atobe, Takaaki Itoh, Wata Igarashi, Merzbow, and Susumu Yokota.[18]

Discography

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  • Surface to Air (2024)
  • Vacate 8 (2024)
  • Exit (EP) (2025)
  • S.O.S. (2025)
  • Breach (2025)
  • 12B (2025)
  • Listening Post (2026)

Poetry

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Le Parti published a poetry collection, every day is a countdown, under the name J.L. Parti, through Base 36.[9] The collection comprises 22 poems.

A piece in The Village Voice placed the collection within the tradition of American witness poetry.[9] The piece identified a hybrid literary lineage: the deadpan vernacular tradition of Mark Twain, the politically incantatory language of Gil Scott-Heron, the accumulative formal energy of the Beats, and the cultural-materialist poetics of Amiri Baraka, while arguing that the underlying cognitive mode constitutes a distinct formalism built from the full range of registers the speaker has inhabited. The review described the collection as refusing both victim and triumph narratives, arriving instead at what he termed a traveling blues structure.[9]

The collection includes shorter poems such as Skin, Weekend, Teeth, and Countdown, as well as longer works including Fruits of the Loom I and II, Bits & Pieces, Airport Orders, and Ramble.[9] The poem Ramble was presented spatially at the center of the American Wasteland exhibition.[12]

Base 36

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Base 36 is a cultural and artistic collective founded in 2020 by Le Parti in Bushwick, Brooklyn.[7] It functions as a platform for interdisciplinary research, production, and exhibition, integrating visual arts, music, and cultural theory. The organization's name refers to the base-36 numeral system, which encodes alphanumeric data using digits and letters.[7]

Base 36 includes RP.1, a gallery and record label; Converting Culture, an editorial publication on art, culture, and criticism, where Le Parti serves as editorial director and editor-in-chief;[19] and 121.radio, a streaming platform with city-specific programming.[18]

Base 36 has organized live events integrating music, visual art, and nightlife programming, including iPlay, an afterhours event series.[12] In 2021, a police raid on a Brooklyn venue resulted in equipment confiscation and a temporary suspension of operations for an extended period, prompting a recalibration of Base 36's approach to space and programming.[7]

Le Parti also operates Sibyl, a private art advisory and collection service with storage and viewing facilities in Los Angeles.[2] In 2026, Artnet published an interview with Le Parti, discussing Sibyl's founding and model.[11]

Recognition

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Le Parti was included in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list in the Art & Culture category in 2025.[3]

His work has been covered in Rolling Stone (MENA edition),[20] Billboard Japan,[18] Artnet News,[11] Entrepreneur (Middle East),[2] Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art,[7] The Village Voice,[9] and Hypebeast.[13]

References

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  1. 1 2 "Jet Le Parti – Biography". AskArt. Retrieved November 18, 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "The Linen Road: Artist Jet Le Parti Is Painting New Routes for Gulf Capital". Entrepreneur Middle East. January 25, 2026. Retrieved January 25, 2026.
  3. 1 2 "Forbes 30 Under 30 2025: Art & Culture". Forbes. Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  4. 1 2 3 "Jet Le Parti: Art as the Multiform Manifestation of Life". Casawi Magazine. March 2025. Retrieved 2025-03-01.
  5. ↑ "Jet Le Parti Class of 2017 – Player Profile". Perfect Game. Retrieved November 18, 2023.
  6. 1 2 "Les Nouveaux Riches Magazine – Self-taught artist. Jet Le Parti". April 21, 2020. Retrieved November 18, 2023.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Jeffrey Grunthaner (November 22, 2024). "By Any Means Necessary: Origins of Base 36". Whitehot Magazine of Contemporary Art. Retrieved 2026-04-21.
  8. ↑ "Down the Rabbit Hole with Jet Le Parti". Office Magazine. October 29, 2021. Retrieved November 18, 2023.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Will Jones (April 14, 2026). "Jet Le Parti and the Poetry of the Impossible Middle Ground". The Village Voice. Retrieved April 14, 2026.
  10. 1 2 3 "Termination Notice. – Exhibition Text". RP.1. 2026.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Jet Le Parti on Founding Sibyl, a New Model of Art Intelligence and Hub for Collecting". Artnet News. March 5, 2026. Retrieved 2026-04-21.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Inside American Wasteland: When Hollywood Independence Collided with the New York Underground". RP.1. 2026.
  13. 1 2 "Inching Towards the End of the World with Jet Le Parti". Hypebeast. 2023-01-10. Retrieved 2026-04-21.
  14. ↑ "Beyond the Auction Block: How the Art Market Values What It Cannot See". Global Banking & Finance Review. February 12, 2026. Retrieved 2026-04-21.
  15. ↑ Morgan Slate (March 13, 2026). "Stealth Wealth: How A New Generation Of Artists Is Getting Rich In The Dark". The Blast / Yahoo Finance. Retrieved 2026-04-21.
  16. ↑ "Veiled Constructions: Dark Perceptions of the Human Experience". ArtRabbit. Retrieved November 18, 2023.
  17. ↑ "Jet Le Parti · Artist Profile". Resident Advisor. Retrieved November 18, 2023.
  18. 1 2 3 4 "Interview & Column: From the Listening Post – Jet Le Parti Listening Post". Billboard Japan. March 31, 2026. Retrieved March 31, 2026.
  19. ↑ "Converting Culture". Retrieved November 9, 2025.
  20. ↑ Stone, Ethan (2026-02-25). "Jet Le Parti: The Cost of Leaving a Mark". Rolling Stone MENA. Retrieved 2026-04-21.
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