Christie’s announced the sale of a record-setting Jean-Michel Basquiat self-portrait in London early next month. Bloomberg’s Scott Reyburn has Christis’s Basquiat big wig, Brett Gorvy, confirming that the work has a third-party guarantee. Other sources say the guarantee is between $18 & 20m. So another record for Basquiat will be set one way or another:

Undertaken in 1981 and formerly owned by the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Untitled is one of the artist’s earliest masterpieces, marrying the gritty urbanism of his street graffiti with his raw and guttural symbolism. In 2007, Untitled, sold for $14.6 million, breaking the artist’s world auction record at the time, today, the estimate is within the region of $20 million, positioning it to break Basquiat’s record again, which was achieved last May in New York at $16.3 million.

Christie’s London – Basquiat June 2012

GalleristNY adds a little reporting to Josh Baer’s news earlier this week that the Basquiat authentication committee was following the Warhol Foundation’s authentication committee into oblivion.

Gallerist spoke to Basquiat’s first dealer, Anina Nosei about the change of heart:

“We authenticated–and sometimes did not–an enormous amount of work,” she said. “I guess Gerard Basquiat [the artist's father and head of the estate] decided that he had it. I guess. I haven’t talked to him.”

The committee itself may turn out to be less important than Enrico Navarra’s catalogue raisonné:

“If there is a painting that isn’t in the Navarra catalogue, or a Basquiat that has never been shown, that could be dodgy,” said Christophe Van de Weghe, a dealer who has sold a number of Basquiats out of his Upper East Side gallery. “It would still be very easy to contact the people who showed a painting originally. The Navarra catalogue is very good. It’s not complete,” he said, “but it’s almost complete.”

Basquiat’s Authentication Committee to Disband in September 2012 (GalleristNY)

Adam Lindemann is careful not to name the members of the Basquiat cartel in the New York Observer but he doesn’t have kind words for them. Can you guess who he means?

The Basquiat “cartel,” a loose-knit network of dealers and collectors, most of whom were there for Art Basel and who own many of the works, began to trash the show immediately. The dis: It was “overhung” and didn’t properly represent the hierarchy of the great works (theirs) as compared to the not-so-great works (everybody else’s).

In the Swiss manner, the curators had precisely selected, ordered and categorized the works by year, size and medium, and had put all the works on paper together. [Read more...]

Lindsay Pollock is reporting that the Basquiat estate is doing a little housekeeping:

The notoriously private Basquiat estate, headed by the late artist’s father Gerard Basquiat, is selling several artworks this spring at Sotheby’s. While the works are said to be mostly minor examples, the sale itself is usual. The estate rarely sells artworks, according to sources. Income is mainly derived from royalties from merchandise and products.

Basquiat Estate Sells at Sotheby’s (Lindsay Pollock)