ART: BASQUIAT

 

This Friday, Phillips is opening up a new outpost in the Hamptons, joining other auction houses like Sotheby’s and Christie’s, as well as galleries like Hauser & Wirth, Pace and Skarstedt. Phillips has moved into a two-story, 6,000-square-foot space in Southampton, New York, which has been redesigned by studioMDA. Its inaugural show at the new space will feature 70 works, giving the public a hint of what will be included in the auction house’s upcoming sales.

A major highlight of the November evening sale of 20th-century and contemporary art is Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1982 painting Portrait of A-One A.K.A King, which is estimated to fetch between $10 million to $15 million USD. The six-by-six-foot work work serves as a tribute to the legendary New York graffiti artist A-One, who was also a close friend of Basquiat, and is an example of the artist’s “mark-making,” Robert Manley, co-head of 20th-century and contemporary art and global chairman at Phillips, told ARTnews.

Back in June, Basquiat’s Untitled (Head) (1982) achieved a new record for a work on paper by the artist at Sotheby’s, where it sold for $15.2 million, while Phillips sold a Basquiat paper on canvas work titled Victor 25448 (1987) for $9.3 million USD last month. Just two weeks ago, a Basquiat work set a record for an in-app purchase when Untitled (1982) went for $10.8 million USD on former Christie’s co-chairman Loïc Gouzer’s new app called Fair Warning.

Other works that will be included in the evening sale of 20th-century and contemporary art include pieces by Pablo Picasso, Ruth Asawa, Joan Miró, Nicolas Party, Robert Rauschenberg and many others. The sale is scheduled for November 11 to 12.

Last week, former Christie’s co-chairman Loïc Gouzer debuted his new app called Fair Warning. The artwork auction app sees a single piece of art auctioned off each week starting on Sundays at 5 p.m. EDT. Yesterday, Gouzer announced that the app sold Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (1982) for $10.8 million USD — a record for an in-app purchase of any item. Measuring four by six feet, the acrylic and oil stick Basquiat work was kept in Gouzer’s garage in Montauk, which he transformed into a climate-controlled viewing room. Interested buyers were allowed to view it in person.

The first piece that Gouzer auctioned on the app was Steven Shearer’s 2018 portrait, Synthist, which sold to a private collector in Europe for $437,000 USD. He has sold two works since then, including a body print by David Hammons that sold for approximately $1.3 million USD and a piece by Steven Parrino that fetched $977,500 USD. “It’s really an experiment,” said Gouzer. “The idea was to create a guerrilla type of auction system where you could start moving paintings by using the cloud rather than physical locations.”

For now, only those who have been invited can participate. Unlike auction houses like Sotheby’s and Christie’s that consider themselves democratic outlets, Fair Warning has limited spots. “There’s no runners, there’s no trash-taking or shopping around pictures—it’s about creating a community,” Gouzer said. “At least for now, we have a certain amount of people that we’re going to take, and the closer we get to that number the harder it’ll be to get in. The whole idea is to keep it private so people can feel comfortable.”

Back in June, Citadel founder and Chicago philanthropist Kenneth C. Griffin purchased Jean-Michel Basquiat’s massive Boy and Dog in Johnnnypump for over $100 million USD. “The vast majority of Ken’s art collection is on display at museums for the public to enjoy,” Citadel spokesman Zia Ahmed said after the sale. “He intends to share this piece as well.” This Thursday, the work will hang on the wall in the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, where it will be on view to the public when the museum reopens.

“This is from 1982, so really at the height of his career,” said Hendrik Folkerts, the museum’s Dittmer Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. “That’s why we’re so extremely thrilled to be able to reopen with this.” Measuring 14 feet wide and 8 feet high, the work depicts one of Basquiat’s almost skeletal Black male figures playing with a dog in the spray of an open fire hydrant, or “johnnypump.” “He wants to paint these figures, both dog and boy, from the inside out,” Folkerts explained, while the surrounding splashes of color evoke a “blazing hot summer landscape.”

Boy and Dog in Johnnnypump will become the museum’s only work on display by Basquiat. This new addition showcases the resonance of his works and his influence on a new generation of artists. “If I talk to young artists here in Chicago at the School (of the Art Institute) or anywhere else, Basquiat is an inspiration,” Folkerts added. “Basquiat is there for them.” Griffin is a leading donor to cultural institutions, especially in Chicago and New York, and has loaned other significant works, like Jackson Pollock’s Number 17A and Willem de Kooning’s Interchanged.

The Art Institute of Chicago is opening on July 30 and offering a week of free admission for Illinois residents.

Phillips will soon put up a monumental painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat for auction in its upcoming Contemporary Evening Sale. Measuring six by eleven feet, the sprawling work titled Victor 25448 was displayed in Basquiat’s last solo exhibition before his death in 1988 at New York’s Vrej Baghoomian gallery. The large-scale paper on canvas work features several graphics of signs found in Henry Dreyfuss’s 1972 Symbol Sourcebook, as per ARTnews.