Ken Griffin loans 10 Basquiats to Miami museum exhibition

Ken Griffin is sending 10 Jean-Michel Basquiat works to Pérez Art Museum Miami, putting one of the country’s most closely watched private collections at the center of a museum exhibition that opens June 25 and runs through June 6, 2027.

Basquiat: Figures, Signs, Symbols will bring together nine paintings and one sculpture from the Kenneth C. Griffin Collection. PAMM says the show is the largest presentation of Basquiat’s work to date in Florida, and it arrives as Miami prepares for an influx of visitors tied to the FIFA World Cup. Griffin Catalyst, Griffin’s civic engagement initiative, is supporting the exhibition.

The museum has built the show around works that helped define Basquiat’s public image and market standing. Among the highlighted pieces are Untitled (1982), the skull canvas that sold at Sotheby’s in May 2017 for $110.5 million to Yusaku Maezawa, and later was reported to have been sold by Maezawa to Griffin in 2024 for about $200 million. Also included are In Italian (1983), Untitled (Tenant) (1982), and Pez Dispenser (1984).

That matters because the exhibition is not just a survey of Basquiat’s imagery. It is also a reminder of how much of the artist’s most visible work now moves through private wealth before it reaches public view. In Italian has its own layered ownership history, having been owned by Peter Brant and, before that, Andy Warhol, who received it from Basquiat in a trade. PAMM says the exhibition will include a video of Basquiat speaking about his work, along with an illustrated publication.

Franklin Sirmans, PAMM’s Sandra and Tony Tamer Director, is co-curating the show with Megan Kincaid, curator of the Kenneth C. Griffin Collection. Sirmans has framed the exhibition as a chance to revisit Basquiat as a self-taught master of painting and form, not simply as a market phenomenon. The museum says the presentation focuses on portraiture and figure imagery, script and language, and Basquiat’s use of color, form and composition.

Griffin’s loan places a billionaire collector at the core of a public museum exhibition, widening access to Basquiat’s work while also underscoring how prestige, provenance and market value now travel together.