Gallery Experience: Basquiat × Banksy: Musical Soundscapes from Hip Hop to Trip Hop

The Hirshhorn’s Basquiat x Banksy exhibition gets a soundtrack of its own with this gallery experience, pairing the visual work with a live musical response that traces connections between hip-hop, trip-hop and the art on the walls. Rather than treating the exhibition as something to quietly walk through, the program asks how rhythm, sampling and beat-making can change the way you read an image. The result should be especially appealing if you have already seen the show and want a reason to return with fresh ears. The musical program moves across styles associated with the artists’ cultural landscape, giving the experience a distinctly sound-driven focus without turning the galleries into a conventional concert space. For anyone interested in the overlap between street art and music, this is a chance to consider Basquiat and Banksy through a different medium, with the museum itself becoming part of the experiment.