Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat; two names, two legends, who in that period of great cultural ferment that were the 80s, gave rise to a collaboration, more specifically between 1983 and 1985, with as many as 160 works which have recently been the subject of an exhibition monumental at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, followed by an exhibition at the Brant Foundation in New York.
Sotheby’s will auction a major work from those two exhibitions, Untitled (1984), acclaimed as one of the most prolific works the two created together in that period. The large-scale painting was conceived in the Surrealist technique of ‘cadavre exquis’, a collaborative drawing approach that saw both artists take turns adding layers to a work of art, with Warhol first he laid out baseball gloves, tennis rackets and various company logos, while Basquait totemic figures and scribbled fields of color.
“Among all the Warhol-Basquiat works from this brief but fertile moment, Untitled stands out as one of the supreme examples, fully displaying the range of their artistic talents,” said Lucius Elliott, head of contemporary auctions at Sotheby’s. “The painting is a masterpiece of juxtaposition and contradiction: the cold, mechanical restraint of Warhol’s imagery, overlaid with the anarchic energy and freewheeling technique of Basquiat. Warhol and Basquiat perform a back-and-forth throughout the painting, riffing on and improvising each other’s work to create a radical and harmonious symphony of color, image, and form.
Untitled is being auctioned for the first time in 15 years, as part of Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Sale and its sale figure is estimated at around $18 million, a price that would definitively eclipse the previous sums of the Warhol series. Basquiat. The work will be exhibited in Hong Kong from 2 to 6 April, in London from 11 to 12 April, in Los Angeles from 17 to 19 April and finally in New York at the beginning of May.
[📷 sothebys.com]
Tags: Andy Warhol , Jean-Michel Basquiat , Untitled , Sotheby’s
2024-03-29 09:23:33
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