Basquiat, the Blue Ribbon Paintings, and the Art of Reproduction

Conventional narratives around Jean-Michel Basquiat (American, 1960–1988) tend to emphasize his meteoric rise as a self-taught prodigy, often placing him outside the art historical canon rather than in dialogue with postmodern ideas and artistic networks. In contrast, this exhibition reframes Basquiat’s legacy by emphasizing his deep engagement with ideas around appropriation, identity, and reproduction.

With more than fifty works, this exhibition brings to light his rarely studied engagement with printmaking as both central to his practice and a site of innovation and collaboration. It also highlights his relationship to generations of artists from Leonardo da Vinci to Robert Rauschenberg and his connections with pioneering Black printmakers such as Bob Blackburn, revealing and celebrating a lineage of Black experimentation and intergenerational exchange in reproductive media.