PUBLICITAS Advertising Sales and Marketing Perlyn de Rouvray

Philippe Girardot, managing director philippe.girardot@publicitas.com MALAYSIA

Director Regional Sales IMV

ROBB REPORT GLOBAL

Managing Director

The image of the painting above is JeanMichel Basquiat’s Untitled, a 1982 piece which set the record price for an American artist at an auction. At the time, the painting was also an auction record for an artist, hammered down at US$110.5 million. This record was bettered six months later when Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci garnered a winning bid of US$450.3 million at Christie’s (page 25). Back to Basquiat (who appears on the cover of Robb Report Malaysia this month), his works continue to fetch tens of millions in a market where the general value (read: conservative value) of great examples doubles every seven years. This rule of thumb on art investment was shared by Barbara Guggenheim, a partner at art consultancy firm Guggenheim, Asher Associates, Inc, who has advised companies such as Coca- Cola and individuals such as Tom Cruise on their art collections.

“During the 1980s, Basquiat was one of many hot artists; but of all the artists of the period, he’s the one standout,” she tells Robb Report. “He invented his own language of communication and through symbols, texts and other codes, he described society – particularly its treatment of African-americans,” she says, adding: “Like those of Picasso and Warhol, works by Basquiat are easily recognised, and the huge supply and demand supports an orderly market.”

Art At The Start