Figures, Signs, Symbols: Reading the Many Languages of Jean-Michel Basquiat

At Pérez Art Museum Miami, ten masterworks reveal the density of Basquiat’s visual language, bringing history, identity, popular culture and the rhythms of 1980s New York into restless conversation.

25 August 2026

Jean-Michel Basquiat transformed figures, words, symbols and cultural references into a visual language that continues to resist easy interpretation. ‘Basquiat: Figures, Signs, Symbols’ at Pérez Art Museum Miami brings together ten works that invite a closer look at the histories, identities and ideas embedded within his practice.

In conversation with ART AFRICA, co-curator Franklin Sirmans reflects on looking beyond Basquiat’s mythology, the significance of his African and Caribbean connections, and the enduring power of his work.

Brendon Bell-Roberts: ‘Basquiat: Figures, Signs, Symbols’ brings together just ten works, yet it offers a remarkably expansive reading of Basquiat’s practice. Why privilege depth over scale, and what does this focused selection reveal that larger retrospectives cannot?

Franklin Sirmans: Working with Megan Kincaid and the Griffin Collection, we knew we had a great core group of works and a new catalogue based on that core that would provide new ways of seeing and new scholarship on this important American artist whose work and life continue to be the focus of discussion in contemporary art anywhere and everywhere around the world. That was enough.

Ever since the 2005 retrospective, we (Kellie Jones, myself, Fred Hoffmann and Marc Mayer, Brooklyn Museum) did myself and many others have been thinking of how do we can get to know the artist better through smaller, more specifically drawn exhibitions. ‘Headstrong’ (masks, heads and skulls) opened last year at the Louisiana Museum in Denmark to look at that one important aspect of the work. There are thankfully many now, but that’s in the last 20 years. In 2014, I did Basquiat and the Bayou in conversation with the exhibitions ‘Prospect 3′ and ‘Note for Now’ in New Orleans. It was meant to look at the influence of the music and culture of that region and how it affected Basquiat’s work, primarily drawn from works that touched on the history of the American South, with works like Zydeco and King Zulu.

Hopefully, people really get to spend some time with each painting and the sculpture in a show of this scale, and walk away with a solid idea of what Basquiat’s art brought to the conversation around contemporary art in the early 1980s. We have a little bit of everything that was paramount to the work being made from 1982 to 1985; thus the subtitle: Figures, Signs, Symbols. Those are the integral elements of the work that guide our journey.

The exhibition places Basquiat’s figures, symbols and fragments of text at its centre, encouraging visitors to read his paintings as complex systems of meaning rather than isolated images. What curatorial approach can guide viewers toward a visual language that resists fixed interpretation?

For Megan Kincaid (co-curator) and I, we wanted the works to be presented in a manner that seeks to isolate each painting in a way that heightens its power in juxtaposition to each and every other work. We wanted to privilege getting up and as close as possible with each work, knowing that many people only know the work through images on the screen.

Basquiat’s work is often overshadowed by the mythology surrounding his life. How can this exhibition shift attention away from the artist as a cultural icon and toward the intellectual and formal sophistication of his practice?

This show is dominated by the work itself. Unfettered views of 9 paintings with one sculpture in the gallery. Two benches have been deployed to encourage slowness. We also included a large portrait of the artist taken by his friend Lee Jaffe and two videos that allow the artist to speak for himself and to have some commentary from his family as well. The catalogue also focuses on art history and cultural criticism in a way that hopefully illuminates the art itself. We are less concerned with the biography.

Miami is a city shaped by migration, diaspora and Caribbean histories. How does presenting Basquiat’s work in this context create new conversations around identity, belonging and cultural memory?

I do think it is important to note that Basquiat’s work within the context of New York City was presented “at home” in Brooklyn in 2005. Likewise, Miami represents a home for Basquiat, a kid who grew up speaking Kreyol and Spanish (languages of Miami) in addition to English and whose parents were from Haiti and Puerto Rico. When standing in front of a painting like In Italian with its text written and crossed out in French, Spanish and Latin, there’s a certain resonance in Miami. If anything, I think that the present moment is highlighted when considering how diverse and multi-textured his life and art were and are… There’s a sense of strength in this commingling of figures, signs and symbols.

Basquiat moved fluidly between references to art history, music, literature, anatomy, politics and popular culture. How did you balance these overlapping narratives without reducing his work to explanatory references?

All of those elements are in the paintings on view. That’s another thing about working within the frame of the gallery and of the collection is that we knew we could address some things and not be constrained to try and present everything. That’s impossible here. It’s four years of work that came out on absolute fire… in 1982, Basquiat had two major solo exhibitions in New York, one in Los Angeles and one in Switzerland and participated, as the youngest artist ever invited, in the Documenta exhibition of international contemporary art. The paintings tell you that it is ok to juxtapose a pagoda with a skyscraper; the upward-thrusting arms of a figure inspired by African sculpture with an angel figure; and that we should question the words “In God We Trust” when it appears on our currency.

The exhibition includes one of Basquiat’s sculptures alongside paintings, offering a broader view of his artistic practice. What does this inclusion reveal about his thinking across different mediums, and how does it reshape our understanding of his visual language?

It’s an important nod to early works made between 1980 and 1981 that were often made on whatever support was at hand… A door; a window; a refrigerator’s white surface; a football helmet; and often pieces of wood. A constant that runs throughout the entire career seems to be a desire to say that there is beauty in the everyday, the used, discarded and the found. There’s a nice through line between Arte Povera, Christo and David Hammons to Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Basquiat’s paintings continue to resonate with contemporary debates around race, power, history and representation. How can you invite audiences to engage with these themes without allowing present-day interpretations to eclipse the historical moment in which the works were created?

Basquiat’s art is still discussed so much and by so many because it does what all great art does… It becomes timeless. It is a product of its beginning in the moment of creation but retains power and resonance across time.

What do you hope audiences, especially those viewing Basquiat through African and Caribbean perspectives, will take away from ‘Figures, Signs, Symbols’ about the enduring relevance of his work today?

A new way of seeing that paint and support can be the ideal way to convey meaning and important information while entertaining.

This exhibition is on view at Pérez Art Museum Miami until 6 June 2026.