In the manner of Jean-Michel Basquiat
American, 1960–1988
Untitled (Server), 2026
Acrylic and oilstick on canvas
183 × 244 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.25.4
Nine black rectangles in a grid, each scratched with white marks, crowns and scribbles, and red arrows shooting out of them in every direction, like data, or blood. A skeletal figure stands at the left with its heart showing. In the bottom right corner one tiny crowned figure sits, head in hands. Near it: no more lies. Basquiat filed the world in grids of notes. This grid files him back.
The brief
A grid of black rectangles with scrawled white marks, a small crowned figure in the corner, red arrows pointing in every direction. Neo-expressionist painting in acrylic and oilstick, raw urgent figures with skull-like heads and exposed anatomy, scrawled crossed-out words and symbols, three-pointed crowns, arrows and lists, layered colour fields of yellow, red, blue and black on raw canvas, drips and smears, wooden stretcher bars visible at the edges. Museum photograph of the painting on rough canvas, flat even lighting, no frame, no wall, no floor, cropped to the canvas edge.
Written to the house rules. The painter's name does not appear.
Take it home
The painting on this room's wall, at its own proportions, nothing written on it.
