To Buy This Basquiat, Swipe Right

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Robin Pogrebin

An untitled acrylic and oil stick on paper by Jean Michel Basquiat (1982). Credit: via Fair Warning LLC

Testing the notion that blue-chip art can be sold with a swipe, the former Christie’s executive Loic Gouzer on Monday will use his new app as the auction block for a large drawing by Jean-Michel Basquiat that is estimated to sell for $8 million to $12 million. The app, called Fair Warning, started as a lark, Mr. Gouzer said, a way to keep busy under lockdown and to see whether the art world could pivot to online sales in a meaningful way. (Auction houses have since held their first — successful — completely online sales). The first piece that he auctioned on the app, Steven Shearer’s 2018 portrait, “Synthist,” sold to a private collector in Europe for $437,000 — an auction high for the artist — on an estimate of $180,000 to $250,000. [More]