THE INTERMISSION gallery in Piraeus, in collaboration with Galerie Enrico Navarra, is pleased to present the first-ever exhibition of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work in Greece, opening on 22 May. Titled Untitled, the exhibition draws its name from a 1983 artwork signed by the artist and simply marked “Untitled”—a gesture directly echoing the conceptual legacy of Marcel Duchamp, an understated yet powerful commentary on authorship, and above all, a direct reference to Basquiat’s own resistance to classification. Untitled, in this sense, is a title that refuses to be a title.

This is not an exhibition that seeks to “define” Jean-Michel Basquiat. On the contrary, it aims to illuminate the many facets of the artist: flexible, bold, playful, always two steps ahead of his time, utterly free and unconventional. His work dances with chaos, experimenting with diverse media and making brilliant shifts between painting and drawing, text and poetry, pop culture and antiquity, political commentary and childhood symbolism. The streets of New York ignite his imagination, as does Ancient Greece, the violent satire of Looney Tunes, Wall Street, politics, history, and the media frenzy of the Reagan era. All of these obsessions are woven into a single, explosively coherent universe.

Basquiat didn’t just paint—he unfolded his mind onto canvas, onto paper, onto anything. “No one else treated the canvas like this,” writes artist and author Charlie Fox in the accompanying exhibition text. Untitled brings together a series of works characteristic of Basquiat’s short yet powerful trajectory, from the late 1970s through 1987. His works on paper reveal the wild, raw energy of the “radiant child” of New York’s art scene, who continues to represent urban youth culture around the world, decades later. With bold color strokes, sketches, texts, symbols, hip-hop rhymes, and his ever-present crown emblem, Basquiat constructs compositions that evoke childlike immediacy—his aim was always to “paint like a child”—while also delivering potent social and political commentary.

The exhibition presents a selection of early works on paper by the self-taught neo-expressionist artist. With each piece, Basquiat traces both collective emotions and personal memories, such as the car accident that led to a major surgery when he was just 7 years old. The Untitled (Portrait of Joe Louis) from 1982 is a tribute to the legendary heavyweight boxing champion (1937–1949), known as the “Brown Bomber,” a recurring figure in Basquiat’s work, here rendered as a cartoon-like totem. Champion, legend, and commodified icon—the work reminds us that fame and wealth are part of the same savage game. Everything is a commodity: sport, the body, painting—even Jean-Michel Basquiat’s own signature (shown in a work on paper included in the show that also inspired the exhibition title). Similar critiques appear in Loans (1984), painted in watercolor and oil on cheap paper, reflecting the economic realities of 1980s New York—Reagan’s America and Wall Street’s golden age.

In Untitled (Alice in Wonderland, 1983), Basquiat condenses the entire surreal fairytale into a single, chaotic composition. The Cheshire Cat with kaleidoscope eyes, the Mad Hatter’s hat bearing its price tag, the caterpillar, the crocodile, and the White Rabbit’s pocket watch stuck just before midnight—if one X-rays Basquiat’s Wonderland, New York appears beneath it, in all its glory and madness. His 1981 work Western Kid is one of Basquiat’s most concise yet poignant texts:
A kid brought up on Westerns sits on an Indian chief’s lap.
“I’m not Jewish,” says the kid.
Flashbacks of the Crusades.

A biting commentary on American mythology, misrepresented histories, and the tragicomic spectacle of cultural memory. The work exemplifies Basquiat’s commitment to confronting racism and representing the survival struggles of marginalized communities in the U.S.—especially the African-American experience. His personal connection is evident too: his father was from Haiti, and his mother from Puerto Rico.

The exhibition Untitled invites an open-ended reading of Basquiat’s work—not as a static, museumized relic, but as a lived experience. An experience where the rhythm of the works echoes the jazz improvisations of his hero, Charlie Parker.

The exhibition space is designed by Kois Associated Architects, who created an environment that amplifies the intensity of Basquiat’s work and highlights the exhibition’s dialogue with the urban and cultural fabric of Piraeus.

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BIOGRAPHY
Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in 1960 in Brooklyn, New York. At the age of 17, he left home and began living on the streets of New York City, where he found expression through art. With spray paint in hand, he tagged walls under the name SAMO (Same Old Shit), in collaboration with Al Diaz, his artistic partner at the time. The intensity and distinctive style of his work quickly made him an integral part of the emerging New York art scene of the 1980s.

His participation in the group exhibition New York/New Wave at MoMA PS1 in 1981 marked a turning point in his career, opening doors to the international art world. Within a few years, he participated in Documenta 7 in Kassel, Germany, as the youngest artist ever invited to the prestigious exhibition, appeared on the cover of the New York Times Magazine, and collaborated with his idol, Andy Warhol.

Basquiat’s work blends the personal and political, the poetic and spontaneous. Drawing from jazz, Black history, pop culture, medical diagrams, and the streets of New York, he developed a complex visual vocabulary that would go on to deeply influence contemporary painting and future generations of artists. His work continues to be exhibited, reinterpreted, and remains profoundly relevant, as evidenced by major institutional exhibitions, including the 2019 retrospective at Fondation Louis Vuitton.

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The exhibition “Untitled” by Jean-Michel Basquiat runs at The Intermission May 22-August 2.
Opening: Thursday 22 May, 6 pm – 9 pm
Location: Polidefkous 37A, 185 45, Piraeus, Athens

Visiting Hours: Wednesday – Saturday, 12 pm – 8 pm

For more info visit the gallery’s site here