Understanding the Modena Paintings
The Modena Paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat remain stand-out works amongst the legendary artist’s oeuvre. They are not only fascinating from a technical standpoint, but also due to their rich history.
With the Basquiat. Modena Paintings exhibition currently on view at Fondation Beyeler, we turned to the exhibition’s curator Iris Hasler for a more contextual look at the idiosyncratic masterpieces. It is no surprise they served as inspiration for THE SKATEROOM’s recent collection of skateboard art editions. [In addition to] our retrospective on Jean-Michel Basquiat, Ernst Beyeler, the founder of the gallery, already sold works by Basquiat in 1983. He had a group show titled “Painting from Picasso to Basquiat” and he incorporated a few works from Basquiat already back then. In 2012, Fondation Beyeler showed a retrospective on Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work, and so three of these paintings were in our museum back then, for the show. Then we found out about the planned exhibition from 1982. We thought it would be interesting to finally put the show together.
All works © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York.
