What might be thought of as today’s graffiti could be tomorrow’s main event at a museum. News4’s Tommy McFly explains.
Paintings by two of the world’s most famous street artists are on display at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., showing how today’s graffiti could be tomorrow’s museum main event.
The Basquiat × Banksy exhibit is the first display of art by Jean-Michel Basquiat or Banksy at the Hirshhorn, and it’s a rare chance to see these influential in D.C. (and for free! There's no cost to visit the Hirshhorn).
Basquiat’s 1982 painting “Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump” anchors the exhibit. An art collector bought the painting for more than $100 million in 2020, according to Barron’s.
Basquiat was just 27 years old when he tragically died, but had an amazingly prolific art career in New York in the late 1970s and early ‘80s, curator Betsy Johnson said.
“He is one of the first artists to have really made it from starting in street art,” Johnson said.
The exhibit pairs one of Basquiat’s best-known pieces with a work that Bansky painted in response decades later, “Banksquiat. Boy and Dog in Stop and Search.” The exhibit also includes 20 small Basquiat works on paper and wood.
Basquiat × Banksy is on display through Oct. 26, 2025. It’s running concurrently with “OSGEMEOS: Endless Story,” an exhibit by twin street artists from Brazil who were inspired by New York’s street art culture. It's the largest U.S. exhibition yet of Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo's work, including sculpture, paintings, film and more. You'll need a free, timed pass to visit.
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