The undisputed king of buying Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work right now is Ken Griffin. This week, 10 works from his collection went on view at the Pérez Art Museum Miami and are open to the public for an entire year. The masterpieces from Griffin’s collection include the large painting of a skull that Yusaku Maezawa bought at Sotheby’s 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 it to Griffin for a price as high as $200 million.
But there’s another Basquiat collector, someone a lot less famous than Griffin, someone who has never appeared on the ARTnews Top 200 Collector List, who doesn’t yet sit on museum boards or get honored at galas. According to sources, he’s 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 sources, his assets total between $3.5 billion to $4 billion. But he’s not your typical billionaire: He’s a Canadian who was a semi-pro hockey player and, to this day, is referred to in headlines as the “NHL-goalie-turned-entrepreneur.”
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.Richard Drew/AP
His line of work makes him an anomaly among art collectors—and 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’s company has been associated with organized crime. To be fair, mafia affiliations have long been a bogeyman of the garbage business—and yet the industry’s mobbed-up reputation can’t exactly explain away that, according to authorities, a gunman targeted Dovigi’s home. More on this in a bit.
He does have a few habits typical of your 21st-century billionaire. For instance, buying and selling properties in Aspen and Miami. He’s also started collecting art with the passion of a seasoned vet. His purchases are private—he buys mostly on the secondary market, and rarely at auction—sources within the art-adviser community and at auction houses say that he’s been on a spree acquiring Basquiats. He’s not particularly well-known among the longtime insiders, as he’s yet to exhibit a yen for gladhanding, gallerist schmoozing, or playing the game. And yet he’s built a collection that, by some estimations, ranks among the top in the country, homing in on grade-A examples of American masters—Roy Lichtenstein, Ed Ruscha, and with a particular focus on Basquiat. Since starting his collecting journey five or six years ago, he’s snapped up some incredible paintings.
And Manhattan apartments. And beach houses. And ski lodges. And…boats. In 2023, he bought Ahpo, a 378-foot yacht owned by Jamaican Canadian billionaire Michael Lee-Chin, and then renamed it Lady Jorgia. The asking price was said to be $362 million. For most, this would have sufficed for nautical recreation. Not Dovigi. Last year, the world’s first hydrogen-powered pleasure craft came on the market, commissioned by Bill Gates. At 390 feet, it’s bigger than the Lady Jorgia. It’s called Breakthrough, and Gates never stepped foot on it. Last year, Dovigi bought the boat. It was said to have an asking price of $650 million, and anything in that area would make 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.