By April MacIntyre Oct 10, 2008, 19:41 GMT
A Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, Untitled (Boxer), is for sale next month at Christie’s auction house in a risky financial move by Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, reports the New York Times.
“Of course it’s an awkward time to sell, but I’ve always been about taking chances,” Ulrich remarked to reporters.
“I have a lot of faith in the art market,” he added. “It’s perhaps the last frontier where the best of the best will not go the way of the rest of the economy.”
The 1982 painting is of a black boxer with his hands raised in victory against a background filled with Basquiat’s graffiti scrawl.
Ulrich reportedly bought the piece in Vienna. The work starred as a centerpiece in the 2005 Basquiat retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum, which moved on to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.
Christie’s is currently displaying it in its King Street galleries in London. The showing has been calculated to closely precede the Frieze Art Fair, which opens next week. The painting has also been given the cover of the sales catalog for the New York auction on Nov. 12.
Brett Gorvy, a co-head of Christie’s postwar and contemporary art department, told the AP that the painting could net upwards of $16 million.
Ulrich’s collecting has gone in a different direction, and he is reportedly investing in emerging artists.
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