Landmark show pairs monumental works

by in At the Museums dept

RALEIGH, NC (PNAN) – On view November, Sunday, 22, 2026, “Basquiat × Banksy” at the North Carolina Museum of Art, marks the first time Banksy’s work has been exhibited at the NCMA and only the second time artwork by Basquiat has traveled to the museum since the 2011 exhibition “30 Americans.”

Jean-Michel Basquiat, born Brooklyn, New York (1960-1988), “Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump,” 1982, acrylic, crayon and spray paint on canvas, 96 × 164 in., Private collection; © Estate of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Licensed by Artestar, New York; Image courtesy of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.

The exhibition features this presentation pairs Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump” (1982) with Banksy’s response, “Banksquiat. Boy and Dog in Stop and Search” (2018). Placed in dialogue, the two monumental works reveal connections among street art, contemporary art and popular imagination.

Banksy, born near Bristol, London, “Banksquiat. Boy and Dog in Stop and Search,” 2018, acrylic and wax marker on birch wood, 96 × 135 5/8 in., Private collection; Courtesy of Pest Control, Image courtesy of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.

“We are excited to bring these two incredible works together for NCMA audiences,” said Interim Director and CEO Katherine White. “The show invites visitors to make connections between two artists whose ideas and artwork have shaped contemporary visual culture while exploring questions of identity, power and popular culture.”

Remaining on view until May 30, 2027, this exhibition originated at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. It was organized by the Hirshhorn’s Associate Curator Betsy Johnson.

About

Jean-Michel Basquiat is one of the best-known artists of his generation and is widely considered one of the most important artists of the 20th century. His career in art spanned the late 1970s through the 1980s until his death in 1988, at the age of 27. Basquiat works are edgy and raw, and through a bold sense of color and composition, he maintains a fine balance between seemingly contradictory forces such as control and spontaneity, menace and wit, urban imagery and primitivism. The Basquiat brand embodies the values and aspirations of young, international urban culture. Basquiat often incorporated words into his paintings. Before his career as a painter began, he produced punk-inspired postcards for sale on the street, and became known for political-poetical graffiti under the name of SAMO. The conjunction of various media is an integral element of Basquiat’s art. His artworks are typically covered with text and codes of all kinds – words, letters, numerals, pictograms, logos, map symbols, diagrams and more – and feature multipanel paintings and individual canvases with exposed stretcher bars, the surface dense with writing, collage and imagery.

Banksy, arguably the most famous street artist working today, has managed to conceal his identity despite widespread speculation. His first identifiable artworks appeared on trains and buildings around Bristol, England, in the early 1990s. Early in his career, he developed his signature style, a mostly monochromatic stencil technique adopted partly for speed of execution and partly in homage to French artist Blek le Rat (aka Xavier Prou), who pioneered stencil-based graffiti works in Paris in the 1980s. Since Banksy’s first large-scale mural appeared in Bristol in 1999, he has become known for witty pranks and antiauthoritarian political works. In 2018 he famously caused one of his paintings to self-destruct seconds after it was sold at auction (ironically, the half-shredded work was later auctioned for a much higher price). Although his identity is secret, he has left a trail of clues in interviews and the documentary Exit through the Gift Shop (2010).