Curiosity Draws 250,000: Jean-Michel Basquiat Exhibition Closes in Seoul
Creatrip Team
a month ago
The special exhibition “Jean-Michel Basquiat: Iconic Symbols Linking Past and Future” closed at Seoul’s Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) after 130 days with about 250,000 visitors. On its final day 4,612 people visited. The show presented some 70 paintings and drawings, plus eight of Basquiat’s creative notebooks shown in Korea for the first time. High-profile works included Museum Security (Broadway Collapse) (1983), Portrait of A-One Called King (1982), Exu (self-portrait), and the large Flesh and Spirit (1983). Because Basquiat’s works are held by many private collectors rather than a single major museum, the exhibition gathered loans from nine countries; 63 crates arrived on Korean Air cargo routes. The insured value was roughly 1.4 trillion won, making it one of Korea’s most valuable exhibitions. Curators say the notebooks reveal Basquiat’s deliberate use of language and symbols, challenging the notion of him as merely a “street genius.” The Seoul show paired Basquiat’s materials with Korean cultural artifacts (e.g., Hunminjeongeum haerye copy, Bangudae petroglyphs, and calligraphy by Kim Jeong-hui) to probe the question “what does writing and drawing mean to humans?” Notable visitors included artists, architects, cultural figures and collectors, underscoring the rare opportunity to see so many Basquiats together in Korea.
