The Louis Vuitton Foundation presents: "Basquiat x Warhol. Painting 4 hands"

In 2018, the Louis Vuitton Foundation presented the exhibition “Jean-Michel Basquiat” with more than 700,000 visitors. From April 5 to August 28, 2023, the Foundation continues its exploration of the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, and reveals on this occasion its collaboration with Andy Warhol.

Between 1984 and 1985, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) and Andy Warhol (1928-1987) collaborated to create some 160 paintings together, à quatre mains, including some of the largest works produced during their respective careers. Keith Haring (1958-1990), who witnessed how their friendship and collaboration blossomed, spoke of “a conversation occurring through paint rather than words” and of two minds merging to create a “peculiar and unique third mind.”

In spring 2023, at the Louis Vuitton Foundation, “Basquiat x Warhol. Painting 4 Hands” presents the most important exhibition ever devoted to this body of work. Curated by Dieter Buchhart and Anna Karina Hofbauer, in collaboration with Olivier Michelon, curator of the Louis Vuitton Foundation, the exhibition brings together more than 100 paintings jointly signed by the two artists.

Individual works are also presented, as well as a group of works by other important artists (Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer, Kenny Scharf…) in order to evoke the energy of the downtown New York art scene of the 1980s. The exhibition is enriched and interspersed with photographs, including the famous “Boxing gloves” series on boxing gloves by Michael Halsband, which was made for the poster of Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol’s exhibition in 1985.

The exhibition has opened with a series of portraits of Basquiat painted by Warhol, of Warhol painted by Basquiat and continues with their early collaborations. These works, initiated by the two artists’ dealer, Bruno Bischofberger, benefited from a collaboration with Italian artist Francesco Clemente (b. 1952). After completing these 15 paintings with Clemente, Basquiat and Warhol continued their collaboration on an almost daily basis. The energy and strength of their incessant exchanges are the driving force behind the exhibition, which runs through all the rooms of the Foundation.

Basquiat admired Warhol as an elder, a key figure in the art world and a pioneer of a new language and a revolutionary relationship with pop culture. Warhol, in turn, found in Basquiat a renewed interest in painting, for thanks to him, he returned to large-scale hand-painting. Warhol’s subjects (such as newspapers or the logos of General Electric, Paramount and the Olympics) serve as the basis for a whole series of artworks that will make the exhibition shine.

“Andy would start a painting and put something very recognizable or a product logo on it, and then I would deface it. Then I would try to get him to work on it a little bit more, try to get him to do at least two things,” Basquiat explained. “First I drew it and then I painted it as Jean-Michel. I think the paintings we do together are better when you don’t know who did which part,” Warhol noted.

The exhibition shows these comings and goings, a dialogue of styles and forms that also addresses crucial issues such as the integration of the African-American community into the narrative of North America, a continent in which Warhol was a major icon maker.