BOOM x Basquiat

Join BOOM Concepts for an immersive evening of film, music, and visual art exploring the legacy of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Experience Basquiat’s paintings, drawings, sculptures, and ephemera in the museum galleries, listen to experimental Black music and enjoy a cash bar in our entrance space, attend a screening of the underground classic Downtown ’81 in our theater (registration is recommended for the screening), and create your own masterpiece in our outdoor artmaking tent. Admission to the museum is half price from 5–10 p.m. this day.

4–8 p.m. Free artmaking in The Warhol Green Space

5–6 p.m. DJ Set with ADAB: Black experimental music in The Warhol entrance space

6 p.m. Guided tour of Warhol and Basquiat in Focus with artist/educator Quaishawn Whitlock and DS Kinsel, artist and co-founder of BOOM Concepts

7 p.m. Screening of Downtown ’81 and talkback in The Warhol theater (registration is recommended)

8:30–9:30 p.m. DJ Set with ADAB: Black experimental music in The Warhol entrance space

About BOOM Concepts

BOOM is a space for field building, knowledge sharing, mentorship, and storytelling. BOOM Concepts is dedicated to the development of artists and creative entrepreneurs representing marginalized voices.

About Downtown ‘81

Starring Jean-Michel Basquiat
Director: Edo Bertoglio
Writer: Glenn O’Brien
Unrated
Runtime: 1h12min

Starring the legendary American painter, graffiti artist, poet and musician Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), Downtown ’81 is both a post-modernist fairytale and a vivid depiction of the downtown New York art and music scene in the early 1980s. The film chronicles a day in the life of a 19 year-old starving artist (Basquiat) who must raise money to reclaim the apartment from which he has been evicted. Hoping to sell a painting to earn the rent, he wanders the downtown streets, painting in hand, encountering painters, models, junkies, graffiti artists, rappers, and rockers whose lives and performances provide a slice of life from one of the most exciting periods in American culture.

• Please note: The Warhol theater will be limited to 50% capacity for this screening, and masks are recommended but not required.
• By attending an in-person event at any of the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh, you and any guests agree to voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold any presenting entities, artists, and the venue; or any of their affiliates, directors, officers, employees, agents, contractors, or volunteers liable for any illness or injury.
• Please see our health and safety guidelines.

Co-presented with BOOM Concepts