PAMM’s landmark exhibition traces the figures, signs and symbols that continue to shape the visual language of our time.
23 June 2026
This June, Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) unveils ‘Basquiat: Figures, Signs, Symbols’, a major exhibition bringing together 10 masterworks by Jean-Michel Basquiat, described as the largest presentation of the artist’s work ever staged in Florida. Drawn from the Kenneth C. Griffin Collection, the exhibition offers a focused encounter with one of the most influential artistic voices of the late twentieth century.
More than four decades after his meteoric rise, Basquiat’s visual language remains strikingly contemporary. His fractured figures, cryptic texts and layered symbols continue to speak to questions of power, identity, race and historical memory. At PAMM, iconic works including Untitled (1982), In Italian (1983) and Pez Dispenser (1984) reveal an artist who moved effortlessly between painting, poetry, popular culture and political critique.
Rather than celebrating Basquiat as a market phenomenon, the exhibition returns attention to the complexity of his practice. Through portraiture, coded language, colour and gesture, visitors are invited to engage with the artist’s expansive visual vocabulary and the diasporic perspectives that informed it. Accompanied by archival footage of Basquiat speaking about his work, ‘Figures, Signs, Symbols’ offers a rare opportunity to encounter the artist beyond the mythology and closer to the enduring force of his ideas.
This exhibition will be on view at the Pérez Art Museum, Miami, Florida, from 25 June 2026 to 6 June 2027.
