Gagosian Gallery is hosting a selection of Basquiat’s paintings for the first time in Hong Kong. The artist was born in 1960 to a Haitian father and Puerto Rican mother and left his Brooklyn, New York, home at the age of 15. Taking to the streets, he began a tragically short career that started with graffiti scrawled on downtown Manhattan walls —under the name of SAMO — and culminated in solo shows in galleries around the world. Basquiat’s work, meanwhile, earned praise and critical acclaim for its fusion of drawing, painting, poetry and its ability to balance aesthetics with acerbic commentary on the harsh realities of race, culture, and society. Here’s a look at the Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition at Gagosian Hong Kong, until August 10.