BASQUIAT WINDOW
THE CHALLENGE
To design, craft, and install a promotional window display for the Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure exhibit. The window is located at FIT on 7th Avenue. The goal was to create an eye-catching, dimensional display that reflected the contents of the exhibit to create intrigue and promote the exhibit.
Client
Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure
Year
2022
ABOUT THE EXHIBIT
Organized and curated by the family of Jean-Michel Basquiat, this exhibition
of over 200 never-before-seen and rarely shown paintings, drawings, multimedia presentations, ephemera, and artifacts tell the story of Jean-Michel from an intimate perspective
APPROACH + SOLUTION
This window is designed to capture the spirit of Jean-Michel Basquiat: King Pleasure Exhibit. Every element of the window is heavily inspired by the materiality of the exhibition space itself and the pieces featured within it. The art on display was raw and almost crude in nature, this is translated in the window with the walls covered in pages and pages of Basquiat’s sketches. In the foreground there is a mannequin puling aside
a portion of ropes that span the length of the window. The mannequin is painted in the style and color of one of Basquiat’s paintings. The two elements of the walls and mannequin together represent the general selection of pieces on display in the exhibit. There were numerous sketch pages and books as well as big, broad, acrylic paintings, reflected in the style of the mannequin. The rope reflects a common material throughout the show, which was twine. Basquiat used twine to stretch canvas and even create makeshift frames.