Jean-Michel Basquiat has been the poster child of the art world for over a decade. In 2021 its market superstar reached dizzying new heights, with sales of his work reaching a record $439.6 million that year.
Since then, its market has been suggested to have cooled, with Basquiat auctions falling 50% in 2022, according to clean art. This was largely due to fewer trophy works coming to the block in 2022 – five at over $5 million compared to 14 in 2021, according to data collected by Art Market Research.
However, there are some early signs that this downward trajectory could reverse with several big-ticket works offered at New York auctions last month. In the very high end, Christie’s sold El Gran Espectaculo (The Nile) (1983) for $58 million ($67.1 million with fees). At least two bidders, including US mega-dealer Larry Gagosian, pushed the price above its guaranteed estimate of $45 million. The eight-figure result represents the fourth highest price ever achieved by a work by Basquiat at auction.
Shooting Star: Prices for Basquiat’s works began to rise in the early 2000s, but really took off by the end of the decade
Photo by Alena Kravchenko
Exhibitions
Recent exhibitions, including pleasure king at Greater LA in Los Angeles (through July 31) – the first show presented by Basquiat’s family – and Basquiat x Warhol at the Luis Vuitton Foundation in Paris (until August 28), continue to shed new light on the artist, who died of a drug overdose in 1988 at the age of just 27. In eight short years, Basquiat is estimated to have created around 3,000 works, going from graffiti artist to darling of the art world.
In Basel, Basquiat: the paintings of Modena opened this week at the Fondation Beyeler (until August 27). The exhibition, which is insured for $800 million, features eight large-scale works he painted in Modena, Italy, in 1982. By Basquiat’s own account, it was a miserable experience, where he was forced to work in a warehouse – “a sick factory” as he called it – provided by gallery owner Emilio Mazzoli. A payout fallout meant the show never happened. Annina Nosei, Basquiat’s New York dealer at the time, found new buyers for the paintings, including the Swiss art dealer and collector Bruno Bischofberger, who bought four of them…Profit i, Boy and dog in a Johnnypump, Untitled [Woman with Roman Torso (Venus)] And gold teeth guilt.
Key players
Bischofberger is one of the key players in the Basquiat market, as is Tony Shafrazi in New York, as well as the Mugrabi family collectors and dealers. Although the artist’s estate is not represented by a gallery (Basquiat’s father, Gérard, manages estate sales), Larry Gagosian was instrumental in building Basquiat’s career and continues to negotiate in the private market. During the artist’s lifetime, Gagosian held three solo exhibitions, including one in Los Angeles in 1982, which sold to prominent American and European collectors. Some paintings, Gagosian recalls, were priced at just $8,000 each.
Another Swiss collector who saw Basquiat’s potential early on is Ernst Beyeler, who bought two key paintings: Philistines And self-portrait (both in 1982), from Nosei. “Beyeler organized an exhibition in 1983 titled Expressive painting after Picasso [which included four paintings by Basquiat, including the above two]. And so very early on, you had the world’s first gallery owner associating Basquiat with Picasso,” says Los Angeles dealer Jeffrey Deitch, who had a close relationship with Basquiat, traveling to Art Basel with the artist and Nosei in 1982.
At this year’s show, Deitch is offering valentine (1983-84), a portrait of Basquiat with his girlfriend Paige Powell, both depicted as feeding chimpanzees (priced at $6.5 million). Basquiat gave the painting to Powell as a Valentine’s Day gift in 1984 and it has been in his possession ever since. “I would say it’s the most romantic painting he’s ever done,” says Deitch.
Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol at Area Nightclub in New York in 1984. Photo: Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
Authentication issues
For several years, Deitch served on Basquiat’s Authentication Committee, which disbanded in 2012 because the cost of legal action against him made his job untenable. “It became impossible,” says Deitch. “But over the 20-year run, we were able to authenticate most of the work.”
The dealer says there are still parts that have not been authenticated, “but are completely genuine.” He adds, “Collectors feel confident when they see complete provenance of the purchase. And Basquiat’s hand was so distinctive; people who really know the job can tell instantly. But, as we know from the Orlando Museum of Art scandal, counterfeits are still a problem. In June 2022 a Basquiat exhibit was closed after the FBI raided the Florida museum, enter the 25 tables, which were allegedly fake.
Basquiat doesn’t have a catalog raisonné, but in 1996 the dealer and collector Enrico Navarra published a comprehensive study of his work, which was updated in 2000. “It’s considered Basquiat’s bible,” says Alessandro Diotallevi, great post-production specialist. war and contemporary art at Christie’s.
Some of Basquiat’s real earlier works were painted on pieces of cardboard and doors
Diotallevi notes that authentication is “a complex subject,” adding, “We really try to stick to works with proven provenance from early exhibitions: physical, clear evidence of their history. If we don’t have enough clear evidence, we avoid offering the works. This happens much more with works on paper than with paintings.
However, as an artist who began painting graffiti on the street, some of Basquiat’s earlier real works were painted on pieces of cardboard, doors, and other materials. His Xerox series, for example, which Basquiat sold on the street, “are completely authentic,” says Deitch.
As for his paintings, 1982 is considered the “golden year”. As the critic Peter Schjeldahl wrote of Basquiat’s paintings of that year: “You can’t learn to do this stuff. It’s about talent, served by commensurate desire, focus and joy. Eight of the ten world auction records for the artist are held by works made between 1981 and 1983.
New collectors
While the US and Europe remain the dominant centers of Basquiat sales – between 2017 and 2023, £487m in sales took place in the US and £177m in Europe, according to Art Market Research – growing interest in Asia. Over the same period, £127 million in sales took place in the region.
Basquiat’s most expensive work at auction, a 1982 skull painting that fetched $110.5 million with fees at Sotheby’s in New York in 2017, was bought by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa in a move that cemented Basquiat’s market (there was a reported private sale worth over $100 million).
“Now he is simply considered one of the greatest artists of the 20th century”
Collaborations between Basquiat’s estate and brands such as Coach and Dr Martens have brought his work to a younger generation, while rappers such as Jay-Z, Lil Nas X and Rick Ross have frequently checked the artist’s name. in their music. Jay-Z is a known collector of Basquiat’s work, as are U2 bassist Adam Clayton and actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp.
As Basquiat’s collector base has grown, so too has the conversation surrounding his work. “Every time there is a new exhibit, we learn something new about Basquiat,” says Diotallevi. “The discourse takes a more scholarly trajectory. It happened 20 or 30 years ago, when people still described him as a street artist or a black artist. Today, he is simply considered one of the greatest artists of the 20th century.
As Jeffrey Deitch simply puts it, “It’s the real deal.”
