Basquiat. Boom for Real

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960–1988) is acknowledged today as one of the most significant artists of the 20th century. More than 30 years after his last solo exhibition in a public collection in Germany, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting a major survey devoted to this American artist, organized in collaboration with the Barbican Centre, London. Featuring more than 100 works, the exhibition is the first to focus on Basquiat’s relationship to music, text, film and television, placing his work within a broader cultural context.

Dr. Philipp Demandt, the Director of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, comments: “Basquiat’s myth still overrides the scientific examination of his artistic oeuvre. And frequently the historic and cultural context in which his unusual works were created is neglected as well. The exhibition Basquiat. Boom for Real starts out from this premise, demonstrating the vitality and diversity of the artist’s entire oeuvre and telling of the wide-ranging influences. Because Jean-Michel Basquiat’s art is closely linked with life itself: social, political and art-historical subjects flow together in his work. It is a mixture which dissolves the boundaries of the disciplines and those of his own identity.”

In the 1970s and 1980s, Basquiat teamed up with Al Diaz in New York to write graffiti statements across the city under the pseudonym SAMO©. Soon he was collaging baseball cards and postcards and painting on clothing, doors, furniture and on improvised canvases. Basquiat collaborated with many artists of his time, most famously Andy Warhol and Keith Haring. He starred in the film New York Beat with Blondie’s singer Debbie Harry and performed with his experimental band Gray. Basquiat created murals and installations for New York nightclubs like Area and Palladium and in 1983 he produced the hip-hop record Beat Bop with K-Rob and Rammellzee.

Having come of age in the Post-Punk underground scene in Lower Manhattan, Basquiat conquered the art world and gained widespread international recognition, becoming the youngest participant in the history of the documenta in 1982. Basquiat’s raw, vibrant imagery is matched by a startling erudition, seen in the extensive fragments of bold, capitalized text that abound in his works. These bear witness to his encyclopedic interests and his experience as a young artist with no formal training. Basquiat maintained a playful approach to language and rebelled against political indifference through his searching texts.

This exhibition at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt traces Basquiat’s journey from his beginnings as an artist to his early death, aged 27, in 1988. Thematic sections illuminate the context in which his works were made and the story of their reception. It discusses questions such as the role of SAMO© and the influence of Downtown New York scene on Basquiat’s artistic development and the significance of his interdisciplinary art production, which has seldom been considered before. An outstanding selection of paintings, drawings, notebooks and objects by Basquiat are presented from public and private collections, together with rare films, photographs, music and archive material, which capture the range and dynamism of his practice over the years.

The exhibition Basquiat. Boom for Real is made possible by the Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne.

A comprehensive catalog with a foreword by Philipp Demandt and essays by Dieter Buchhart, Eleanor Nairne, Christian Campbell, Carlo McCormick, Glenn O’Brien, Francesco Martinelli and Jordana Moore Saggese has been published. A free digital tutorial guide, named digitorial, is available online here.

Every Thursday from 7pm the Crown Club opens its doors at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. Inspired by the New York Mudd Club, talks, parties, film screenings and readings take place in a club atmosphere. The exhibition Basquiat. Boom for Real is open until 10pm. Admission to the Crown Club is free with a valid exhibition ticket. See all program dates here.

Director: Dr. Philipp Demandt
Curators: Dr. Dieter Buchhart and Eleanor Nairne, Barbican Art Gallery, London
Schirn Project Management: Matthias Ulrich
Press contact: Pamela Rohde (Head of Press/Public Relations):
presse [​at​] schirn.de / T (+49 69) 29 98 82 148
Press material: www.schirn.de/en/ (texts, images, and films for download under PRESS)