Love the painting. I've hung a quilt from a curtain rod, but it doesn't lay flat. Have you looked into having it mounted?

Basquiat? Love it.

You could get two wood dowels cut at Lowes or Home Depot, then attach them to the top and bottom of the canvas.

What about a quilt hanging bar?

You must build a frame or pay, or ruin the look of the knockoff you bought. What is "incredibly expensive" ? btw.

Most canvases purchased unframed allow a border un painted for this reason. The frame and stretch. Ask a trim carpenter to build it, rather than a frame shop. May be less by far.

The shower curtain method Susie brought up (above) should work well. The two-dowel method (Smitovich) is often used for hanging tapestries and rugs. A pair of curtain rods would also work if dowels aren't the look you want. Adding the hidden rod pockets will take some hand sewing.

Go to Dick Blick site and order heavy duty stretcher bars.... lots of sizes, crossbars available as well. They also have tutorial videos on how to do this. Given the size, you will most likely need a helper to pull it evenly.

Google tapestry hanger and/or quilt hanger. Some hanging options will show up. Please, don't start putting screws, tape or glue on it unless you don't care if it's destroyed.

If you decide to build a frame, which I suggest, depending on your skill level you can use Simpson Strong Ties because you want the corners to be as close to 90 degrees as possible. Also, If you go this route, turn the wood in the opposite direction then what is shown in the photo. You want as little wood contacting the back of the face of the painting as possible so as to reduce the possibility of seeing the outline of the edge of the wood.

When attaching the canvas to the frame, make sure that the painting is on the side that does not contain the metal bracket. You want the metal bracket to be closest to the wall when hanging.

The bars from Dick Blick mentioned above are also a great idea but that process can become very expensive expecially with a large frame.

When you are ready to attach the canvas to the frame, dont start at the corners. Start at an edge. After you have stapled down the first edge then do the opposite edge. Then finally the remaining two. After that is done, do the corners last.

The canvas isn't a quilt, nor should it be hung as if it were. Sorry, do it right or wait until you CAN. storing it rolled into a tube/brown paper on it first.

By the time you horse around with a 5 X7 foot diy plan for this? The framer or a trim carpenter is going to look cheap. : )

Thank you to everyone. I am not seeing a prompt offered to reply to each comment, but i appreciate the feedback more than you know. Have a nice spring and thank you all.

I need to not be so cheap! .... And given the painting is going to be featured, and unavoidable to not see, it's worth the investment. Thank you for so many great and really well-stated responses!

how much did you pay for this? I am shocked an artist would release such a large painting unstretched, and that you were thinking of gluing it to a wall or board which is very disrespectful to the art, you could probably get a student/carpenter/artist to stretch it for you at not too much cost, go to an art supply store or arts college or even a gallery and ask, you will only destroy whatever value this art holds if you treat it so cavalierly, a large painting needs a heavier frame with cross bracing, there may already exist a pre frame canvas upon which you could stretch this one, avoid the thinner stretcher bars as they tend to. skew out of square

We beat him into submission, and he'll be a happy camper in the end. He may eat Ramen noodles while staring at it......like having a beautiful baby........

he will only be living like an artist then, that’s how we get thru lean years, that and peanut butter

J. Williams, I bought in on-line, and it came from China. They have these businesses where the employees paint fake reproductions and ship them out, like from and assembly line.

Yes, Jan, you twisted my arm on this! You're funny. It's dumb and irrational to buy something and then not display it when that part is incidental, but critical, the mounting / framing of it. Thanks for your help and tough-love decorating advice!

well that’s interesting, not being entirely familiar with Basquiat I did not know it was a direct copy

https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20131111/park-slope/jean-michel-basquiats-family-tells-irs-his-art-is-overvalued

Does it bother you that work such as this is copied so closely by the Chinese? I honestly don't know how I feel about these knockoffs. I mean, clearly it's a cool piece, but it's also clearly not just "in the style of" Basquiat but is intended to copy almost identically his vision. It's not a print which are usually licensed products but an assembly line near-copy of an artist's work that is surely copyrighted (and churned out en masse without even an appropriate means to display). I've seen these copies produced for years now by the Chinese opportunists , but it's suddenly starting to piss me off a tiny bit.

Does it honor or disrespect the artist?
(Legalities aside.)

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/06/17/chinese-copy-art_n_5489121.html

Yeah, it’s been floating around in my mind too, Basquiat is not even that long dead, don’t copyrights still hold? And apparently they rip of actual living still producing artists as well which is disturbing and sad. You see artists sort of pirating off each other and riding on others’ coattails which is obnoxious, but direct copies is another whole story.

https://www.thoughtco.com/copyright-for-artists-1122610

From a link in the above article: New Jersey artist Clinton Hobart discovered counterfeits of his painting "Three Persimmons" were for sale on a website based in China. "In a gallery, this would sell for about $450 unframed to $500 framed," Hobart says. But the counterfeit online is $23.99. "No artist wants to find that someone is taking their stuff and is passing it off as their own," he says.

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Yep. I can absolutely imagine how infuriating this is to the real creators of the artwork being copied. I'm beginning to see how wrong this is, and to think that American businesses are the biggest buyers of the fakes? Incredible.

I did my own with Blick stretcher bars and lots of youtube videos! https://www.dickblick.com/products/best-medium-duty-stretcher-bars/

Thanks for the links, J Williams. I'm recalling that in my workplace we are only allowed to select from a set group of licensed images that we pay to subscribe to, in order to use photos in our presentations. The idea that if anything is on the internet it must be fair game is absolutely erroneous, as your article points out. This reminds me too of the fake Louis Vuittons and other such products. I guess we're inundated with this stuff in many forms. If I were a painter or photographer by profession, I'd be very concerned.

Another place I've used. https://www.utrechtart.com/Stretcher-Bars-Canvas.utrecht