Ken Griffin loans Basquiat masterworks to Pérez Art Museum Miami

Ten Basquiat works from Ken Griffin’s private collection will go on view at Pérez Art Museum Miami when Basquiat: Figures, Signs, Symbols opens June 25, 2026, giving the public access to one of the most valuable groups of Jean-Michel Basquiat works in private hands. PAMM says the exhibition will be the largest presentation of Basquiat’s work ever mounted in Florida and will remain on view through June 6, 2027.

The show brings together nine paintings and one sculpture from the Kenneth C. Griffin Collection and was co-curated by museum director Franklin Sirmans and collector-curator Megan Kincaid. PAMM says the exhibition centers on Basquiat’s portraiture, figure, script and language, along with his use of color, form and composition. It also builds on Sirmans’ long-running engagement with Basquiat, following PAMM’s 2016 presentation of the artist’s notebooks and smaller works.

Sirmans called the project “both inevitable and vital,” and said Miami’s layered histories, diasporic communities and global outlook make it a fitting setting for Basquiat’s work. Griffin, whose fortune has helped reshape Miami’s museum scene, is backing the exhibition through his Griffin Catalyst civic engagement initiative and has tied the show to the city’s preparations for the FIFA World Cup, when Miami expects a global audience.

Among the works on view is Untitled (1982), Basquiat’s current auction record holder. The canvas sold for $110.5 million at Sotheby’s in May 2017 and was later sold by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa to Griffin in 2024 for a reported $200 million. Other pieces listed for the exhibition include Untitled (Tenant), Pez Dispenser (1984) and In Italian (1983), underscoring how a single private cache can move between museums, auction houses and billionaire collections while retaining public force only when a lender decides to open the doors.

Griffin has said he looks for artworks with a “wow” factor, and his growing presence in South Florida has been marked by both collecting and giving. In 2024, he gave PAMM a $10 million gift that helped establish the Kenneth C. Griffin Gallery, now the museum’s largest exhibition space. The gallery gives Miami a room large enough to stage a Basquiat survey of this scale, while also turning private ownership into a public display of cultural power.