Image: Barbican Centre, London
'Basquiat & Cage: Late Night with NikNak' is scheduled for Saturday 24 October 2026 at 22:00 in Rehearsal Room 3, Milton Court. The late-night performance will use turntables to reunite Jean-Michel Basquiat and John Cage in a format resembling an improvised conversation.
The performance originated in a 2024 invitation from Elaine Mitchener for NikNak to respond to the idea of an imagined conversation between Basquiat and Cage. That meeting was set in Edinburgh’s Fruitmarket Gallery, where Cage exhibited works on paper in the upstairs gallery while Basquiat displayed paintings downstairs.
The historical event is reimagined as a cultural intervention that reshapes and reimagines future possibilities. NikNak, described as a musical polymath, is known for distinctive turntablism, immersive compositions and improvised performances.
The event forms part of the first UK edition of George Lewis’s Afrodiasporic Incubator project, curated by vocalist and composer Elaine Mitchener and presented by the Barbican and Guildhall School of Music and Drama. The project uses performances, talks and installations to spotlight experimental music from composers who have been tightly policed as to which genres they could occupy and excluded, both imaginatively and literally, from the contemporary music space.
