Seoul’s Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP) is set to open Jean-Michel Basquiat: SIGNS – Connecting Past and Future on October 23, a landmark exhibition tracing the late artist’s profound visual language through more than 230 works, including 70 paintings and drawings and 155 notebook pages shown in Asia for the first time.

 Curated by Ji Yoon Lee of SUM Project, alongside Dieter Buchhart and Anna Karina Hofbauer, two of the world’s foremost Basquiat scholars, the exhibition seeks to reframe Basquiat’s art as a universal study of communication and symbolism—bridging East and West, past and present.

 “Basquiat lived an intense but brief life. In just eight years, he built a world of symbols and words that questioned identity, power, and humanity itself,” says Lee. 

“Through this exhibition, we explore how his visual language resonates with the signs and symbols that define human culture across time.” 

The show features iconic works such as New York, New York (1981), representing Basquiat’s transition from the graffiti tag SAMO© to international acclaim, as well as Flesh and Spirit (1982–83), a monumental piece juxtaposing anatomy and spirituality. 

The exhibition culminates with Exu (1988), one of his final self-portraits, invoking the Yoruba deity of thresholds—a reflection on mortality and the artist’s own boundary-defying identity. A distinctive highlight of the Seoul presentation is its dialogue with Korean cultural heritage. 

Artifacts such as the Bangudae Petroglyphs, Hunminjeongeum Manuscript, Chusa Kim Jeong-hui’s calligraphy, and Nam June Paik’s video art are displayed alongside Basquiat’s works, situating his symbolism within a broader global continuum of signs and expression. 

Basquiat, born in 1960 to a Haitian father and Puerto Rican mother, rose from the streets of Brooklyn to redefine contemporary art. 

His paintings—saturated with color, graffiti-inspired marks, and fragments of text—merge ancient mythologies with the energy of 1980s New York, confronting racism, capitalism, and cultural displacement.

 In 2017, his 1982 Untitled painting sold for $110.5 million at Sotheby’s, cementing his legacy as one of the most influential artists of the modern era. Jean-Michel Basquiat: SIGNS – Connecting Past and Future runs through January 31, 2026, at DDP Museum 1, with narration by actor Park Bo-gum available through the exhibition’s audio guide. 

The show commemorates the 60th anniversary of JoongAng Ilbo and is presented by Barunson E&A and SUM Project, with support from the U.S. Embassy in Seoul.