 |
| This full page advertisement for Christie's planned auction of works by Jean-Michel Basquiat appeared in the March 2014 issue of Interview magazine. |
Text | Patricia Cohen for the New
York Times
Published | March 9, 2014
Christie’s
auction house postponed an online auction of Jean-Michel Basquiat works owned by a former roommate of
his after Basquiat’s sisters filed a federal lawsuit in early March
2014, arguing that some of the items may not be authentic. After
initially saying that the auction would proceed, Christie’s quietly reversed
itself, posting a notice on its website: “Our goal is to allow time for all
parties involved to reach an equivalent level of confidence in the validity of
these items, so that the sale may resume at a later date.”
Alexis
Adler, the owner of the auction items, said in an emailed statement that she
was disappointed by the decision and that she “looks forward to bringing the
Basquiat Estate to the same level of confidence that she and Christie’s share
in the unassailable authenticity of these early and seminal works which she
acquired from Jean-Michel.”
A
number of the items for sale were mentioned in a 1998 biography of the artist, “Basquiat:
A Quick Killing in Art,” by Phoebe Hoban, who visited the apartment that Ms.
Adler shared with Basquiat in the early 1990s. Malu Halasi, a friend of Ms.
Adler’s, said there were photographs from 1983 documenting his writings, the
notebooks and the scripts that were being offered for auction.
Basquiat
died in 1988 at 27 from a heroin overdose. His sisters, Jeanine Basquiat
Heriveaux and Lisane Basquiat, argued in their complaint, filed in Federal
District Court in Manhattan, that Christie’s did not consult with the estate on
the authenticity of the items. The estate, however, disbanded its authenticity committee
in 2012.
No comments:
Post a Comment