The Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden opened a new exhibition titled “Basquiat X Banksy” Sept. 29 as part of the museum’s 50th-anniversary season.
The exhibition, which will run until Oct. 26, 2025, focuses on two significant paintings: Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump” alongside Banksy’s graffiti response “Banksquiat. Boy and Dog in Stop and Search.” This marks the first time the artwork by either Basquiat or Banksy has been displayed in the museum.
Banksy is an anonymous graffiti artist known for public works that feature anti-authoritarian themes and a distinctive use of stencils. Banksy, whose identity remains guarded, first gained attention in the mid-1990s with his graffiti appearing on walls in Bristol and London’s Shoreditch district. Over time, his work has moved from the streets to the art market, now regularly featured in auctions and gallery exhibitions.
Born in 1960, who began art before Banksy, Basquiat was an influential neo-expressionist graffiti artist. His background as the son of Haitian and Puerto Rican immigrants plays a crucial role in the messaging of the exhibition by highlighting how his identity influenced the themes of race, social justice and marginalization in his work. He died in 1988 at the age of 27.
Hakimah Cambell, a visitor at the exhibition, said she had first discovered the work of Basquiat after recently being inspired to paint and purchasing a book of his paintings.
“I recently took up painting and found myself inspired by pictures of his work. It was my co-worker who mentioned the exhibition would be in D.C. and I couldn’t wait,” Campbell told The Hoya. “I feel that I have to see his paintings and the symbols I’ve seen in the books in person to fully know his story.”
Betsy Johnson, assistant curator at the Hirshhorn, said Basquiat’s original large canvas piece uses vivid colors to depict an expressive boy and dog in an urban landscape while Bansky’s response takes this iconic imagery and reframes it as a stop-and-search scenario.
“There’s these glorious fields of color in the brushwork which shows a boy and a dog in New York playing in the spray of a fire hydrant,” Johnson told The Hoya. “It conveys the heat of a hot summer’s day and a sort of joyous action.”
Johnson said the Basquiat piece was initially displayed at the Barbican Centre in London in 2017 and Banksy created “Boy and Dog in Stop and Search” as a mural on the wall of the Barbican outside the exhibition.
“Banksy took this boy and this dog from this very joyful painting and layered a social commentary on top by adding his well-known stencil figures of police officers,” Johnson said.
The exhibition also features 20 small pieces created by Basquiat from 1979 to 1985, drawn from Larry Warsh’s collection, a private contemporary art collection. These works use recurring motifs like skulls and crowns to further explore the themes of identity and heritage. Additionally, the film “Downtown 81,” which was filmed between 1980 and 1981, will be presented. This film stars Basquiat as a struggling artist named “Jean” and portrays the avant-garde community of Manhattan in the 1980s.
Johnson said the pairing of these paintings is important because it highlights an aspect of 1980s street culture where graffiti and art were used to claim space and voice identity.
“Basquiat’s life was also plagued by systemic racism,” Johnson said. “In 1983 there was also the brutal murder of a member of the graffiti art community at the hands of police officers because he was caught doing graffiti in the subway. So I think Banksy in some ways is layering all of this context on top of the Basquiat painting to show us these overtones of systemic racism.”
“This is the first time the works have been shown side by side in the space of a gallery. The Banksy piece we have in the gallery is a version of the one he created on the street outside the Barbican and was first exhibited in L.A. in 2018,” Johnson added. “So we’re showing it for the first time, reunited with the painting that inspired it.”
Itikari Nagagawa, who was visiting the museum with her family, said that although she did not realize the exhibition was on, she was pleasantly surprised to see the works and believes it will have an important impact for the city.
“It’s important for people to come and see because although D.C. has a lot of museums to offer, this shows the history in the form of a modern and contemporary art level,” Nagagawa told The Hoya. “I think that is an amazing way to open up D.C. to more exhibitions like that.”
Johnson said that so far the exhibition has been well-attended by the public and surrounded by general excitement.
“We’ve pretty much doubled our attendance at the museum since opening these shows, so there is a lot of excitement around it and we’re glad to have these artists on view,” Johnson said.
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