FBI investigates suspected fake Basquiat paintings in Florida museum
Image: wcc.art
The art world was rattled last week when the FBI seized 25 supposed Jean-Michel Basquiat pieces from the Orlando Museum of Art’s “Heroes & Monsters” exhibition, suspecting the artworks to be fakes. Owned by a group of investors, the pieces were allegedly found in a storage unit in Los Angeles in 2012. Though their authenticity has been questioned by various actors in the art world, if the ongoing investigation finds them to be legitimate, they would collectively be worth around $100 million.
The existing evidence doesn’t appear favorable with the FBI stating that it has found “attempts to sell the paintings using false provenance, and bank records show possible solicitation of investment in artwork that is not authentic.” An additional and potentially damning piece of evidence is the presence on one of the cardboard paintings of a font that was only used several years after Basquiat’s death.
Born to a Haitian father and Puerto Rican mother in New York city, Basquiat has been hailed as one of the most influential artists of the Neo-expressionist movement of the 1980s. Following his untimely death in 1988 at the young age of 27, the artists’ work has continued its rise to infamy among art collectors. In 2017, Basquiat’s 1982 work Untitled sold to Japanese billionaire entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa for an astounding $110.5 million at auction, a record-breaking high for a US artist’s work.
Unfortunately, even prior to this most recent FBI investigation, Basquiat’s artwork has repeatedly been a target of fraud. Earlier this year, Daniel Elie Bouaziz, a Miami art dealer, was charged with multiple counts of fraud and selling inauthentic art. He is alleged to have bought a Basquiat fake online for under $500 and sold it to an undercover FBI agent for $12 million.
While the FBI continues to conduct its investigation into the Orlando Museum of Art case, the museum’s director Aaron De Groft has been fired following reports that he failed to heed suspicions from an academic art expert who was paid to assess the authenticity of the pieces.
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