Basquiat exhibit at DDP dives deep into the mind of artist who helped define pop culture

Home > Culture > Arts & Design

Basquiat exhibit at DDP dives deep into the mind of artist who helped define pop culture

Published: 21 Dec. 2025, 17:15 Updated: 21 Dec. 2025, 17:18

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

“Flesh & Spirit” — a work measuring roughly 3.7 meters (12.1 feet) by 3.7 meters by Jean-Michel Basquiat, now on view at Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul on Sept. 22. [JOONGANG ILBO]

Walking along the sleek curves of Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP), designed by the renowned architect Zaha Hadid in central Seoul, you suddenly come upon a space vibrating with a hot, raw energy that stands in stark contrast to the building’s cool metallic skin.

That space is Jean-Michel Basquiat's "Signs: Connecting Past and Future,” where the all-too-brief life of the legendary American artist, who died at 27 in 1988, is being reenacted in the heart of Seoul.

The moment you step into the exhibition, you are first overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the numbers. The total insured value of the works on view is an astonishing 1.4 trillion won (nearly $950 million). Lee Ji-yoon, CEO of the International Contemporary Art Curating Office Suum Project and curator of the exhibition, said the show is “the most expensive exhibition ever held in Korea.” More than 70 authenticated works have gathered here, arriving from eight countries via 10 Korean Air cargo routes.

From left, co-curators of Jean-Michel Basquiat's solo exhibition "Signs: Connecting Past and Future" — Lee Ji-yoon, CEO of Suum Project, Austrian art historian Dieter Buchhart and Anna Karina Hofbauer, art curator and critic. [JOONGANG ILBO]

One standout piece is the monumental “Flesh & Spirit” — a work measuring roughly 3.7 meters (12.1 feet) by 3.7 meters. On loan from the Parker Foundation in San Francisco, the piece cost more than 150 million won to transport alone.The multi-panel painting sold for $30.7 million at Sotheby's auction house in May 2018. A practical detail underscores the scale: it had to be shipped in two separate crates.

Between the collage technique — paper layered onto canvas — and the rough, aggressive brushwork, the shapes of pelvic bones and femurs emerge with startling clarity. "Gray’s Anatomy," which Basquiat read in a hospital bed after a childhood car accident left him needing his spleen removed, became a lifelong obsession. He anatomized the Black body, exposed to the social violence of racism, pouring onto the canvas the conflict between a finite human body and an eternal soul. This is immense energy you can never truly register in a catalog or on a screen — it becomes a spiritual experience only when you stand before the work itself.

A view of Jean-Michel Basquiat's solo exhibition "Signs: Connecting Past and Future,″ which runs through Jan. 31 of next year at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in central Seoul. [JOONGANG ILBO]

Basquiat’s paintings are not mere “scribbles.” Dieter Buchhart, the exhibition’s co-curator, said Basquiat became widely beloved across regions and generations because he was a visionary who anticipated our present — leaving behind works that function like rooms of knowledge, where you can read information about science, history, racism, slavery and imperialism all at once. An Austrian art historian, Buchhart has curated more than 35 Basquiat exhibitions, including at Fondation Beyeler in Basel and Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris.

Basquiat translated his critical view of racism and capitalism into a language all his own. This exhibition digs deep into his artistic world through the recurring motifs in his work — the crown, the skull and the copyright symbol. Among the works on view, the piece that most sharply showcases his satirical edge is “Museum Security” (1983). Across the canvas, words and signs collide in a jumble: oil company ESSO, five cents, the FBI and phrases like “priceless art.”

At the center is a face reminiscent of an African mask, and beneath it, written in red and green, are the words “Museum Security ©.” It is a sardonic critique of the grim reality of the time: In a white-dominated mainstream art world, the only place a Black person could claim was often reduced to “security guard.” At the same time, Basquiat inserts his own distinctive crown symbol, revealing a defiant confidence — a declaration that he himself is the new king of the art world. Sold for about 17.2 billion won at auction in 2013, the work mirrors the complicated emotions Basquiat felt as he moved between fame and discrimination.

The viewers look at″Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown)″ (1983) by Jean-Michel Basquiat at his solo show "Signs: Connecting Past and Future″ which runs through Jan. 31 of next year at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in central Seoul. [JOONGANG ILBO]

Another distinctive aspect of this exhibition is its reinterpretation of Basquiat through a Korean lens. Buchhart points out that next to Basquiat’s “Warrior,” a Joseon-era (1392-1910) folk painting of General Choi Yeong is hung side by side — as if two “warriors” are facing each other across time and space. Elsewhere, Basquiat’s “Untitled (Black Figure)” is placed alongside Korean cultural touchstones such as the facsimile edition of "Hunminjeongeum Haeryebon" (a commentary on the invention of the Korean alphabet) and the calligraphy of the famous Joseon scholar and calligrapher Kim Jeong-hui, arranged as if they are in conversation with Basquiat’s scrawled marks. The effect is to free Basquiat from the box of “Western modern artist” and invite viewers to see him through the shared human perspective of symbols and writing.

Jean-Michel Basquiat's “Portrait of A-One A.K.A. King” (1982), now on view at the exhibition "Signs: Connecting Past and Future,″ which runs through Jan. 31 of next year at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in central Seoul. [JOONGANG ILBO]

There is another way to read the exhibition, too: through “music” — especially hip-hop, which has profoundly shaped contemporary K-pop. This comes through most vividly in “A-One Called King” (1982), in which Basquiat places a crown atop the portrait of fellow graffiti artist Anthony Clark. The work is perhaps the most intuitive demonstration of how Basquiat uses the crown. It is not a crown bestowed on a king of the museum, but on a king of the streets. Looking at it, you feel a powerful musicality. Basquiat’s canvas operates like hip-hop — sampling, repetition, scratching, the rhythm of text. That is why Basquiat’s name is invoked again and again in hip-hop lyrics.

Once you understand why Basquiat is revered as a “saint” in contemporary popular culture — especially in the hip-hop scene — the exhibition gains yet another layer of depth. Jay-Z declared, “I’m the new Jean-Michel,” boasting that, just as Basquiat shook up a white-centered art world, he too had taken control of the capitalist marketplace.

A view of Jean-Michel Basquiat's "Signs: Connecting Past and Future″ exhibition which runs through Jan. 31 of next year at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in central Seoul. [JOONGANG ILBO]

Kanye West embraced Basquiat’s process of layering and erasing as part of his own musical philosophy. Basquiat’s method — mixing anatomy, history and cartoons without restraint — meets hip-hop’s sampling practice of recombining existing tracks. His narrative, rising from the street tag “SAMO” to the pinnacle of the mainstream, became an early visual role model for hip-hop artists: proof that someone from the streets could become the best in the world. The crown motif you encounter in the galleries becomes, in that sense, the crown of success they themselves fought to win.

Basquiat has also been a powerful visual influence on K-pop bands. V, otherwise known as Kim Tae-hyung, a member of the band BTS, and "T.O.P." Choi Seung-hyun, from the superband Big Bang, have both expressed their love for Basquiat's work.

Another must-see is the abbreviated screening of filmmaker Tamra Davis’ documentary “The Radiant Child”(2010), shown in one section of the exhibition. The vivid voice and strut of a 20-something Basquiat — “Since I was seventeen, I thought I might be a star,” he told the camera — reveals the human side hidden behind the work. Scenes of his collaboration with Andy Warhol, and the energy with which he moved through the streets of New York, make it instantly clear why he is called “the Kurt Cobain of contemporary art.”

Basquiat's eight notebooks totaling 155 pages of creative notes, now on view at Jean-Michel Basquiat's exhibition "Signs: Connecting Past and Future,″ which runs through Jan. 31 of next year at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in central Seoul. [JOONGANG ILBO]

Another reason to see this show — the richness of its archival material — comes to a head near the end. The exhibition includes not only more than 70 paintings and drawings but also eight notebooks totaling 155 pages of creative notes, as well as unusual pieces such as drawings made on a refrigerator.

These notebooks are more than simple voyeurism, more than “getting a peek into his private life.” They show how Basquiat assembled thoughts, which words he repeated, and how he turned symbols into rhythm.

Basquiat’s youngest sister, Jeanine Heriveaux, who came to Korea for the opening of the exhibition, also said she was struck by how the exhibition is organized so that viewers can “take apart, one by one, the many things he wrote and drew.”

That is precisely the feeling. This exhibition is less about “displaying” Basquiat’s results than about dismantling Basquiat’s mind and letting you see how it worked.

A view of the Jean-Michel Basquiat's solo exhibition "Signs: Connecting Past and Future,″ which runs through Jan. 31 of next year at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) in central Seoul. [JOONGANG ILBO]

In a career spanning only about seven years, Basquiat produced some 3,700 works, the value of which has soared so high that the world's most prominent collectors lust after them. The record set in 2017, when Yusaku Maezawa bought Basquiat's skull painting “Untitled” for about $110.5 million, captures that fever.

Art lovers won't get many chances to see this treasure trove of work before the 1.4-trillion-won collection disperses again into museums and private collections worldwide. This winter, come see the vast epic of this young artistic "king," whose rough and unpolished work roared at the world with profound honesty, and stand beneath Basquiat’s crown at the DDP.

BY MOON SO-YOUNG [[email protected]]