Seeing Loud: Basquiat and Music

Each room had its own musical identity, ranging from New York New Wave to hip-hop to the jazz of Charlie Parker, as well as reggae and the African griot tradition. Sound environments, projections and theatrical sets inspired by the 1970s and 1980s immersed visitors in the music and visual language that found their way into Basquiat’s works.

As the experience designer, GSM Project had the pleasure of collaborating with Marie-Dailey Desmarais, chief curator of the MMFA; Dieter Buchhart, guest curator; and Vincent Bessières, guest curator for the Musée de la Musique – Philharmonie de Paris, to develop the storyline, artistic direction, scenography and multimedia components of this standout exhibition.

Our scenographic approach was based on a collage of experiences. The start of the journey featured several “empty” exhibit walls consisting of wooden frames. As visitors moved through the space and discovered the multiple layers of Basquiat’s life and oeuvre, the walls were gradually filled.

Another design feature was asymmetry—the walls were positioned at odd angles, offering new perspectives and creating a destabilizing effect and spatial rhythm, in sync with the artist’s life and musical world.

Like a musical score, the colour scheme was designed to be rhythmic—a monochrome gradient of grey punctuated in certain areas by bursts of deep red. In other spaces, posters were layered on top of each other, evoking the flyposting that was key to the start of the underground movement and Basquiat’s graffiti practice.

The MMFA teamed up with studio Dpt. to develop an augmented reality app Basquiat et la musique as a complement to the exhibition. By immersing themselves in this virtual re-creation of Basquiat’s world, visitors could appreciate even more the effervescence of his work.