2023-04-20 14:30:40
A large canvas by Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), from the collection of the designer Valentino Garavani, will be auctioned at Christie’s on May 15 in New York with a starting price of over 45 million dollars. The estimate places the work entitled “El Gran Espectaculo (The Nile)” from 1983 among the most expensive pieces by the young African-American artist considered the father of graffiti.
Proceeds from the sale will in part benefit the Valentino Academy, founded in 2013 to promote excellence, strengthen corporate culture and give support and inspiration to young talents in their growth and development paths within the Maison.
The painting, also known under the title “Untitled (History of the Black People)”, depicts skulls and floating figures against a background filled with scrawled phrases alluding to pharaohs and ancient Egyptian sites. In the center of the painting, consisting of three joint parts, a yellow boat is driven by the god Osiris along the Nile River.
The work remained in Valentino Garavani’s personal collection for 18 years and appeared in a 2010 issue of “Vanity Fair” magazine in which the Italian fashion icon was photographed sitting in front of the large 3.6-metre painting . Four years earlier, Valentino had paid homage to the artist with a collection of graffiti-printed dresses that used images licensed from the archive of Basquiat’s heirs.
In May 2021, the co-founder of the Maison Valentino, Giancarlo Giammetti, sold a 1983 Basquiat painting for $93.1 million.
The painting “El Gran Espectaculo (The Nile)” was featured in a 2005 Basquiat traveling exhibition that kicked off at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. It was presumably loaned to the same exhibition by Garavani after he bought it that same year at a Sotheby’s auction in New York, where it sold for $5.2 million.
In a statement, Christie’s president Alex Rotter said that when Basquiat completed the work at age 22, “the unpacking of the historical constructs of race” was at the fore in these early years of his practice. The Spanish title of the work, which translates to “The Great Show”, has also been referred to as “The Nile”, a phrase written on the back of the canvas.
While the African-American artist has never lacked a following in the marketplace, his works have fetched some of the highest sums at auctions in recent years, and his name has become a trademark in mainstream contemporary art. The imminent sale is yet another sign that, 35 years after his death in 1988, Basquiat has also become synonymous with luxury.
(by Paolo Martini)
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