Museum Visit: Basquiat x Banksy

Hirshhorn Museum, Sep 29, 2024–Oct 26, 2025

October 24,2024

For my Museum Visit, I knew I wanted to go to the Hirshhorn Museum in DC, to visit the Basquiat x Banksy Exhibition. This would be the first time either of their work would have displayed her and they would be shown in conversation with one another. I love both artist’s work, so it was amazing to be able to interact with their work in person. My son is 4 years old so I decided to make a family trip out of my museum visit and see if I can better engage him in looking at art with me. I have tried in the past and he didn’t last long before losing interest. Luckily right outside of the exhibit was the museum gift shop and I remembered them having stickers of Basquiat’s work, so I thought to look around before going in. I was happy to find a board book for little ones highlighting Basquiat as an artist and had to buy it. I read it with my son in the large area near where the exhibition sign was printed and while reading about his use of symbols and the imagery of the crown on the illustration, I thought to make a game out of viewing Basquiat’s art for my son to get him excited about looking at art.

I told him we would play I spy a crown and look for any pictures of crowns as we walk through. When we walked into the main area of the exhibition, I brought him to Basquiat’s Boy and Dog in a Johnny Pump (1982) and asked him, “What do you see?” Mateo responded, “Colors!” I asked, “What else?” and he said, “And a dog!” We proceeded to list the colors we spotted in the large painting and then kept moving to play to find the elusive crowns throughout the rest of the exhibit. The Exhibition was smaller than I expected, but it was a beautiful experience I’m glad I got to share with my son. Especially now that he has the. Book to associate with the memory.

My husband then took my son to get some ice cream while I did another lap where I could take more time and spend more attention. At this time, I was able to take the time to read the plaques and look a little closer at the artwork. I enjoyed being able to compare the artwork side by side, comparing the way they stood in contrast to one another. There is something so magical about how these artworks were made more than 3 decades apart revealing “how homage and appropriation (borrowing of elements of existing artworks, for example) operate to connect generations of artists in a dialogue across geography and time.” This had me thinking about how to incorporate this idea into a lesson plan for art.

Ultimately, I think I was most inspired by the interactions with my son and how I could engage him in conversation about art at a museum for the first time to this degree, so I feel inspired to make this more of a regular adventure. I can see many directions I could incorporate these artists into a conversation about big ideas: culture, identity, time, and activism to name a few.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Basquiat x Banksy: Connecting Generations of Artists through Homage and Appropriation. Smithsonian Institution, https://hirshhorn.si.edu/exhibitions/basquiat-x-banksy/. Accessed 20 Nov. 2024.