While New York surrenders once again to the genius of Jean-Michel Basquiat with an exhibition of unpublished work curated by his family, in Orlando (Florida), the city of theme parks, the signature of the artist who died at the age of 27 exhibits traces somewhat less indelible.
Or suspicious, to be more exact.
An exhibition at the Orlando Museum of Art dedicated to the former close friend of Andy Warhol, entitled
Heroes and monsters,
has cost the director of that art gallery his job, while the FBI investigates the authenticity of 25 of the paintings and the threats made by that against a specialist who was commissioned to evaluate its authorship.
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The Diocesan Museum of San Sebastián shows 16 sculptures by Oteiza that do not correspond to the Basque artist
Although the scandal began to take shape in February, when the exhibition was inaugurated, the intervention of the FBI agents took place last Friday, with the seizure of the paintings attributed to the artist of Haitian origin but on whose heading all suspicions fall.
Aaron De Groft, head of the centennial museum, has relentlessly defended that these are genuine works, emphasizing – or taking care of his health, rather – that one of the functions of a museum is not to certify the works it exhibits.
"[The paintings] came to us authenticated by the best Basquiat specialists," he told the local NBC television station in February.
De Groft has pondered these months the importance of the paintings, ensuring that they are worth millions of dollars, until the appearance of an expert, to whom the owners of the paintings commissioned an expert opinion, began to crack his version.
The director was fired on Tuesday, just two business days after agents seized the 25 suspicious works.
The museum's board of trustees met for hours that day, but not before warning the employees that anyone who dared to discuss the matter with journalists would suffer the same fate as De Groft.
Hence, it is impossible to know the version not only of the former director, but of any worker at the center.
Nor in the New York exhibition, a mixture of unpublished work and
memorabilia
of the artist for sale, release a pledge, fearful of the nominal devaluation caused by the Orlando scandal.
FBI agents, during the operation to seize the dubious Basquiat paintings at the Orlando Museum of Art on June 24.Willie J. Allen Jr. (AP)
“It is important to note that there is still nothing that makes us think that the museum has been or is the subject of an investigation,” Emilia Bourmas-Free told the local chain on behalf of the art gallery, marking distances with who was its head.
In similar terms, the museum's board of trustees has expressed itself in a statement: "The board of trustees is extremely concerned about several matters related to the exhibition
Heroes and monsters
, including the recent revelation of an inappropriate email correspondence about the authentication of some of the the works in the exhibition.
The statement refers to the rude message sent by De Groft to the specialist hired for the expert opinion, cited in the FBI investigation as "expert 2" but who has turned out to be the associate professor of art at the University of Maryland Jordana Moore Saggese.
The expert, who received $60,000 for a written report, asked the museum not to associate her name with the exhibit, according to the document in the FBI's possession.
Angered, De Groft made her behavior ugly, threatening to reveal the amount of the payment and share the details of her expert opinion with her employer, the university.
It is not known whether Sagesse has a free provision clause or, as an expert, can subcontract knowledge of it, supposedly free, to other bidders.
“Do you want us to tell you that you have taken 60,000 for writing this?”, challenges the director to the expert.
"Okay, then she shuts her mouth, takes the money and stops being so dignified."
De Groft, who by this point was still insisting that the paintings were authentic, threatened to share the details of her private assignment with the university: "Devote yourself to your academic life and stay in your beach bar."
"We have launched an official [investigative] process to address these issues, which are incompatible with the values of this institution, our business and conduct standards," the board statement announced.
The scandal was precipitated a few hours after the closing of the exhibition, this Thursday.
She was then scheduled to travel to Italy, but with the ongoing FBI investigation her immediate future is unknown.
Facade of the Orlando Museum of Art, with the promotional poster of the exhibition dedicated to Basquiat, on June 2. John Raoux (AP)
The mystery of the cardboard box
But how did the paintings get to the Orlando Museum?
To which collectors do they belong?
Where did they come from, supposedly being the work of a highly valued author by the big auction houses, and therefore well cataloged in theory?
The museum and its owners say the paintings were found in a Los Angeles warehouse in 2012.
The New York Times
, who sounded the alarm in February, says that the doubt arose from one of the paintings, made on the back of a cardboard box for postal delivery with a legend of labeling instructions whose font was not used until 1994, six years after Basquiat's death.
This is how the forensic information collects it: "The cardboard on which the painting was made contains a typeface that was created in 1994, after Basquiat's death, which casts doubt on the authenticity of at least one piece" of the exhibition .
Both De Groft and the owners of the paintings maintain that they date from 1982 and that Basquiat sold them for $5,000 to a famous television writer, now deceased, who would have deposited them in the warehouse and then forgotten about them.
The auction of the property for non-payment of rent brought the treasure to light.
Too beautiful to be true;
a bizarre story worthy of becoming a screenplay... if it weren't for the fact that the screenwriter who allegedly bought the paintings, Thad Mumford, signed in 2017, a year before he died, an affidavit in the presence of federal agents stating that "at no time in the 1980s or at any other time did I meet Jean-Michel Basquiat, and at no time did I acquire or buy any of his paintings.”
There are no further questions, Your Honor.
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