Thursday, March 6, 2014

Jean-Michel Basquiat estate sues Christie’s over Alexis Adler auction

Two sisters of the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat filed a $1 million lawsuit against Christie’s on Tuesday, accusing the auction house of trying to sell possibly fake Basquiats and falsely suggesting that they had been authenticated by his estate.

The more than three dozen items being auctioned online and at the house belong to Alexis Adler, a former roommate of the artist who lived with him in the East Village between 1979 and 1980. The lot includes scribbled poems on scraps of paper, painted sweat shirts and a lab uniform, a sketchbook, prints and collages.

Six of the items were authenticated by the estate’s authentication committee in 2007, the suit says. But one was rejected because the committee did not consider it a work of art, said James Cinque, the sisters’ lawyer. The rest were never submitted, the suit says.

No comments:

Post a Comment