Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation Exhibit Extended

Due to popular demand, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), has extended the exhibition â€œWriting the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation” through July 25. 

Timed-entry exhibition tickets, which include general Museum admission, remain required in advance for all visitors—members and nonmembers alike—due to limited capacity. May tickets for the exhibition, originally scheduled to close on May 16, are now on sale for members and April 21 for nonmembers.

“Writing the Future” brings together more than 120 works by Jean-Michel Basquiat and 11 of his peers—A-One, ERO, Fab 5 Freddy, Futura, Keith Haring, Kool Koor, LA2, Lady Pink, Lee Quiñones, Rammellzee and Toxic—all artists whose techniques share a conceptual approach rooted in early hip-hop practices. Their subversive abstractions generated a new style all their own, giving rise to the insurgent “post-graffiti” movement in American art and catalyzing the rise of hip-hop and street art as globally dominant phenomena. The exhibition illuminates this unprecedented fusion of creative energies and its defiance of longstanding class and racial divisions in 1980s New York City as these artists demanded—and commanded—the attention not only of the art establishment, but of the world at large.

During this year’s April Vacation Week (April 21–24), the MFA is partnering with Boston Public Schools (BPS) to offer 160 free tickets for students, parents and educators from over 15 high schools to see â€œWriting the Future.” 

In conjunction with the exhibition, the Museum is also hosting a Sound Bites: Nancy Lee Clark Concert Series that explores how different generations expand on and redefine early hip-hop, carving out a space for unique contributions to this global cultural movement. The concerts—filmed inside the exhibition and available for rent on the Museum’s recently launched on-demand video platform, MFA Selects—continue with Edo G and Brady Watt, premiering on April 29, and Slick Vick with Cake Swagg and Bernadine, premiering on June 3.

“Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation” is sponsored by Bank of America. Additional support is provided by the Robert and Jane Burke Fund for Exhibitions, the Darwin Cordoba Fund, the Amy and Jonathan Poorvu Fund for the Exhibition of Contemporary Art and Sculpture, and the Museum Council Special Exhibition Fund.