FUN GALLERY

In November and December 1982, Basquiat exhibited works characterized by untamed rawness at the Fun Gallery in New York. With this show and its purposely disorderly hanging, Basquiat proved to American critics that his art had lost none of its originality and idiosyncracy despite international success and high market value. On view were canvases, such as Cassius Clay, that were affixed irregularly to wooden shipping palettes or stretched over wooden slats lashed to each other at the corners, in part painted, and left visible – a technique that would later resurface in Basquiat’s work again and again.