Warhol – Basquiat

Kunstforum Wien is presenting a major retrospective of the works of Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The two artists undertook numerous collaborations in 1984 / 85, which provide compelling testimony to the multi-faceted cross-fertilization between these two so disparate artistic personalities. Individual works by both artists are on view alongside the collaborative efforts. A monumental Retrospective Painting unites some of Warhol’s legendary screen-print subjects: from the Campbell’s Soup Can and Marilyn to his Flowers and Electric Chair. Major works by Basquiat will also be featured: paintings and drawings executed between 1981 and 1988. While his early phase still bears traces of the graffiti style, the later images are more intricately detailed. Basquiat’s oeuvre represents one of the great milestones in the New Painting movement of the 1980s, an authentically expressive artistic testimony that diverged from the carefully cultivated and staged postmodernism of the painter princes.