Jean-Michel Basquiat at Gagosian || Full Coverage April 2024

Gagosian is pleased to announce Made on Market Street, the first exhibition focused exclusively on works that Jean-Michel Basquiat produced in Los Angeles. Curated by Fred Hoffman with Larry Gagosian, the exhibition will be on view from March 7 to June 1, 2024. With exhibition design by Stefan Beckman, Made on Market Street features loans from the Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat; Nicola Erni Collection, Steinhausen, Switzerland; the Broad Art Foundation, Los Angeles; Museum Brandhorst, Munich; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and other public and private collections.

Between November 1982 and May 1984, Basquiat produced approximately a hundred paintings, numerous works on paper, and six silkscreen editions in Venice, California. For an artist closely affiliated with the New York art scene of the 1980s, Basquiat was extraordinarily prolific in Los Angeles. Made on Market Street reflects on this consequential era by bringing together nearly thirty works—several of which are among his most important paintings. Larry Gagosian notes, “Los Angeles has always been a great city for artists and Jean-Michel seemed to find it a refreshing change from New York. While the immensity of his talent was immediately apparent, it was nonetheless a highlight of my own career to work with him, to introduce him to Los Angeles, and to witness the amazing impact that his art and legacy have made on our culture.”

After first meeting Basquiat in 1981, Gagosian invited him to Los Angeles. Basquiat’s solo exhibition with Larry Gagosian Gallery in LA—the first time his work was presented on the West Coast—opened in April 1982, immediately following his first solo show in New York at Annina Nosei’s gallery. The Los Angeles exhibition was seen as the arrival of a significant voice by the public and collectors alike. In November 1982 Basquiat returned to California, living and working at Gagosian’s residence on Market Street, a three-story structure with an interior courtyard open to the light and air from the beach nearby.