Street art icon Basquiat gets first major UK show at the Barbican: ‘Boom for Real’
Nearly 30 years after the death of the trailblazing artist, more than 100 of his works are being displayed at the Barbican Art Centre in London – but according to superfan Banksy, there is a certain irony in the choice of venue
The explosive works of Jean-Michel Basquiat, a trailblazer in the New York art scene of the 1970s and ’80s, are to be shown in London starting this week in his first major British exhibition, titled “Boom for Real”.
The former graffiti artist, who died in 1988 at just 27 years old, mined a huge range of influences including jazz, pop culture, abstract and primitive art, and old masters in producing his dynamic and distinctive paintings, earning him a devout legion of supporters.
Japanese billionaire pays US$110m for Basquiat painting, a record for a US artist
“These works are able to induce almost maniacal passion in people; once you get hooked there’s no going back,” said Eleanor Nairne, curator at the Barbican Art Gallery, where the exhibition opened on Thursday. “His work is really expressive, loose, free. Very rough and ready, but with that raw texture to it, teeming with thoughts, influences.”
His Untitled work sold for a record US$110.5 million in New York this year, a sign of the increasingly high esteem in which his work is being held.
His vibrant, busy pieces reveal a stream of consciousness, absorbing influences from high and pop culture – including jazz master Charlie Parker, Leonardo da Vinci, Henri Matisse and Looney Tunes’ Road Runner – and reproducing them in abstract forms. Common motifs include the use of symbols and text, often repeated in blocks, exploring themes such as colonialism and class politics.
