A landmark exhibition of Jean-Michel Basquiat\u2019s earliest works is heading back to the borough where it all began\u2014and for New York art obsessives, this is the kind of show that doesn\u2019t come around often.<\/p>\n
Opening during New York Art Week<\/a> this May, Our Friend, Jean: Early Works of Jean-Michel Basquiat<\/a>\u00a0will take over Brooklyn\u2019s Bishop Gallery, offering a rare look at the artist before the fame, the auctions and the mythology. The show runs May 13\u201317 and centers on a deeply personal collection that captures Basquiat in his formative years, when he was still hustling between downtown apartments and making work wherever he could.<\/p>\n If you mostly know Basquiat as the painter whose works now sell for eye-watering sums, this exhibition takes it back to the start. Well before becoming an international art star in the 1980s, Basquiat first made a name for himself in late-\u201970s New York as part of the graffiti duo SAMO, tagging cryptic phrases across Lower Manhattan.<\/p>\n Much of the work on view comes from the collection of Alexis Adler, who lived with Basquiat during a crucial stretch from 1979 to 1980. Her archive includes intimate photographs and pieces created on everything from doors to furniture, documenting the moment just before Basquiat\u2019s meteoric rise.<\/p>\n