Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Modena Paintings in Riehen, Basel

It wouldn’t be Art Basel without notable exhibitions opening across the Swiss city and surrounding areas.

Fondation Beyeler is now welcoming visitors to a rare viewing of Jean-Michel Basquiat‘s Modena paintings.

Basquiat. The Modena Paintings (11 June–27 August 2023) reunites a series of eight large-scale paintings the artist made when he travelled to Modena, Italy in the summer of 1982.

Gallery owner Emilio Mazzoli invited Basquiat to produce the paintings on-site for a solo exhibition. The masterpieces were made within a few days but were never shown together as the exhibition was abandoned following a disagreement between Mazzoli and Basquiat’s New York gallerist Annina Nosei.

Forty years later, Fondation Beyeler brings together Basquiat’s work in a display that not only features some of his most famous work but has never been seen together.

With their lively colour scheme and expressive style, works like Untitled (Cowparts) (1982) and Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump (1982), are quintessential Basquiat though the series does not include frequent motifs like the crown and dinosaur.

Several years after producing the paintings, Basquiat was said to be relieved the arrangement with Mazzoli fell through, comparing it to ‘a sick factory’. Wanting to be ‘a star, not a gallery mascot’, Basquiat was discouraged by the set-up where he was expected to make eight paintings in a week, for a show the following week.

Despite Basquiat hating the arrangement and destroying a number of unfinished canvases, eight paintings survived and eventually made their way into different private collections in the U.S., Asia and Europe.

The paintings’ unusual origin story and rare public display make for a unique viewing of art history that illuminates Basquiat’s oeuvre during his rapid ascension to fame.