In February 2018 the SCHIRN will be hosting a large exhibition on the work of US artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.
To date, he is the youngest artist ever to have participated in Documenta: American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960—1988), who numbers among the most important artists of the 20th century, began his artistic career in the post-Punk underground art scene in New York’s Lower Manhattan in the late 1970s and as early as 1982 gained international recognition at the most important international exhibition of contemporary art in Kassel.
Basquiat’s uncommonly vibrant, raw imagery is a result of him being extremely well read, an aspect that runs through his work and is evident in his use of upper case letters and text fragments. The latter provide a clue to Basquiat’s encyclopedic interests and his experience as a young artist without an academic training. From February 16, 2018 “Basquiat: Boom for Real” presents an outstanding selection of over 100 works in the SCHIRN gallery – on loan from international museums and private collections – many of them on show for the first time in Germany.
Excitement in the New York art scene
The exhibition also reveals the artist’s relationship to music, text, film and television of his day, placing Basquiat’s artistic explorations in a broader cultural context. It was in 1978 that the media first became aware of Basquiat, when under the pseudonym SAMO© (for “same old bullshit”) he and his school friend Al Diaz left enigmatic graffiti statements on the walls in Soho’s gallery district, causing a stir in New York’s art scene. Soon afterwards he collaged baseball cards and postcards, painted on clothing or architecture fragments and increasingly on enormous canvases.
The highlights of the exhibition include the reconstruction of several of his earliest works to go on display, created for Diego Cortez’ pioneering group show “New York/New Wave” in PS1 in February 1981. These pieces make it easy to appreciate how Basquiat was able to win the admiration of art world and critics alike so incredibly quickly.
More than 30 years after Basquiat’s last presentation in a public collection in Germany Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is devoting a major survey to the American artist in cooperation with Barbican Art Gallery, London.
DIGITORIAL ON THE EXHIBITION
The free Digitorial provides you with background information about the key exhibition aspects.
For desktop, tablet and mobile
Exploring the iceberg
In her works, the artist Grada Kilomba deals with the post-colonial condition, trauma and memory. Schirn Mag spoke to her about aspects of the...
Copy, overwrite, copy again
Anyone who rented a movie after 1976 would have done so on VHS. However, the video tape’s history goes back much further, and is closely connected to...
Downtown 81
Message in a bottle from the 1980s, wandering the streets of New York with Jean-Michel Basquiat. The film Downtown 81 was shot before Basquiat’s big...
Jazz, Bebop and Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s record collection is said to have contained some 3,000 LPs. In particular Jazz and Bebop had a huge influence on the artist.
The political force of films
The SCHIRN MAG presents five outstanding films, which do not only deal with racism in the USA, but do also grab its history by the scruff of the neck...
Basquiat's Legacy Today
Accompanying the exhibition “Basquiat. Boom for Real,” a panel discussion will be held at the SCHIRN’s CROWN CLUB on April 12. Taking as their...
Freeform spontaneous
Gonjasufi is on the road a lot: As a singer, DJ, actor and also as a yoga teacher. He will perform at SCHIRN AT NIGHT on April 7. The SCHIRN MAG...
Basquiat in fashion
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s outfits were a permanent composition of opposites. How the young artist became the muse of fashion designers and a role model...
Basquiat and the Beats
Words, signs and symbols. Jean-Michel Basquiat's pieces are truly suffused with fragments of text. One of his most important sources of inspiration...