The Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark is opening "Basquiat: Headstrong," the first comprehensive exhibition dedicated to Jean-Michel Basquiat's depictions of the human head, focusing on works from 1981 to 1983. These early drawings on paper, many made with oil sticks and bearing traces of studio debris, were largely hidden in his studio during his lifetime and only reached a wider audience after his death, notably through a 1990 show at Robert Miller Gallery in New York. The exhibition includes a single painting, Untitled (1982), which sold for $110.5 million at Sotheby's in 2017.
The exhibition matters because it sheds light on a private, rarely seen aspect of Basquiat's practice—his obsessive exploration of the human head as a subject, influenced by his childhood study of Gray's Anatomy and 19th-century science. By isolating these works, the show offers fresh insight into the artist's creative process and the raw, unfiltered energy of his early career, challenging lingering doubts about his artistic significance that persisted even after his death.