Schiele and Basquiat, the odd couple on display at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris

Dedicated to the unusual couple formed by Egon Schiele (Tulln an der Donau, 1890 - Vienna, 1918) and Jean-Michel Basquiat (New York, 1960 - 1988) are the two fall exhibitions scheduled at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris from October 3, 2018 to January 14, 2019. Two separate exhibitions, Schiele and Basquiat, but linked in so many ways: both artists died at the age of twenty-eight, both “saw themselves as prophets of art and were virtuous in an extravagant way” (as Suzanne Pagé, artistic director of the Foundation, points out), and both of their careers propelled them, in the space of just ten years, into art history. Connected destinies, art of great impact on history, and thus two exhibitions that emphasize these aspects, but also the specificities of their works and the contexts in which they worked.

Schiele worked in a Vienna that was about to lose its role as the capital of an empire but continued its fervent intellectual and artistic life, while Basquiat lived and worked in the New York of the 1980s, participating in the vital underground scene of the U.S. city and opening important discussions about art and identity.

The Schiele exhibition brings 110 works to Paris, mostly drawings from private collections. “The tragic and intimate dimension of Schiele’s work,” the presentation reads, "is inseparable from the spirit that reigned in Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century, and made him one of the masters of expressionism. Influenced by the older Gustav Klimt, Schiele’s work was initially marked by an ornamental style, before quickly taking a much more chaotic approach."

Basquiat’s works (135 in all), arranged over 2,500 square meters of space on four floors, cover his entire career chronologically: the exhibition includes many series that have never before been shown in Europe, as well as paintings that have rarely been exhibited since the artist’s passing. “Although Basquiat’s is an extremely vivid art,” the presentation further reads, “his work is populated by skeletons and skulls, as if he saw every human being as potentially dead. His disappearance in 1988 interrupted an enormously prolific career, accomplished within a decade, and counting over a thousand paintings and even more drawings.”

There are other reasons for interest as well. The exhibition on Egon Schiele is the first that the Fondation Louis Vuitton is dedicating to a “historical” artist, while the one on Basquiat is the largest ever dedicated by the institution to a single artist. Tickets, valid for both exhibitions: 16 euros full, 10 euros reduced for under 26, French students and teachers, 5 euros for under 18, French artists and unemployed, 32 euros family ticket (two adults plus four children). For more information, you can visit the Fondation Louis Vuitton website.

Schiele and Basquiat, the odd couple on display at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris

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