Basquiat’s Heads Get a Museum Show
45 works devoted to the artist’s most iconic motif.
Summary
- The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art will open the first comprehensive showcase dedicated to Jean-Michel Basquiat’s depiction of heads
- Featuring 45 works, the exhibition centers in on 1981-1983, key years of creation, and offers insight into this prolific motif while unpacking their role in his life and work
After a childhood car accident left him hospitalized, a seven-year-old Jean-Michel Basquiat was gifted a copy of Gray’s Anatomy, a medical reference book, by his mother. Throughout his life and practice, the artist kept a deep fascination with anatomy and science close, so when Basquiat, 22 at the time, was asked how he typically began a painting, his answer was simple: “I suppose I would start with a head.”
A new exhibition at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark puts a spotlight on this aspect of the artist’s oeuvre in Headstrong, the first comprehensive showcase dedicated to Basquiat’s heads. On view from January 30 to May 17, the exhibition focuses in the years in which these pieces were made, 1981-1983, widely regarded as of the most prolific and experimental periods of his career.
Moving between the caricaturesque, abstract and anatomical, these works explore the tension between surface and psyche, and collectively map the spectrum of emotion and identity, ranging from invisibility to the affect of Basquiat’s own rise to art superstardom.
Photo: Camilla Stephan / Louisiana Museum Of Modern Art
Photo: Camilla Stephan / Louisiana Museum Of Modern Art
Photo: Camilla Stephan / Louisiana Museum Of Modern Art
Photo: Camilla Stephan / Louisiana Museum Of Modern Art
Photo: Camilla Stephan / Louisiana Museum Of Modern Art
Photo: Camilla Stephan / Louisiana Museum Of Modern Art
Photo: Camilla Stephan / Louisiana Museum Of Modern Art
Photo: Camilla Stephan / Louisiana Museum Of Modern Art
Photo: Camilla Stephan / Louisiana Museum Of Modern Art
Photo: Camilla Stephan / Louisiana Museum Of Modern Art
Works on paper played a central role in Basquiat’s practice, and the drawings in Headstrong, most of which were executed in rich oil stick, stand out for their intensity, immediacy and gesture. Graced with flecks of dirt and shoe scuffs, these pieces were completed on the floor and largely kept private during his lifetime. Together, they offer rare insight into the evolution of a single motif while raising questions about their personal and conceptual function for the artist.
As Sophia Heriveaux, the artist’s niece, wrote in No More Rulers’ recent book, Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Head – The Mind, these works invite viewers to engage with Basquiat not as a myth, but a “fellow human mind,” opening space to reconsider how they connect to his broader explorations of power, race and representation at a time when Black artists were afforded little visibility.
A corresponding Headstrong catalogue will be available via the museum, and features new interviews with contemporary artists Arthur Jafa, Julie Mehretu, Dana Schutz and Alvaro Barrington, alongside George Condo, a friend and contemporary of Basquiat. Head to the museum’s website for more information on the show.
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
Gl Strandvej 13,
3050 Humlebæk,
Denmark
