For the first time in over a decade, ‘80s art world superstar Jean-Michel Basquiat’s seminal painting Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown) will be coming before the auctioneer’s gavel as the headline attraction of Sotheby’s spring marquee Contemporary Art sales with an estimate in excess of $45 million. The masterpiece was part of a 12-canvas 1983 series that included Hollywood Africans, now a part of the Whitney Museum of American Art’s permanent collection.
Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown) is from the peak of Basquiat’s all-too-short career, when he had just become one of the youngest artists ever to participate in the Whitney Biennial. It features his signature graffiti-inspired scrawl, confronting the viewer with jarringly ordinary societal dreads such as “ASBESTOS,” “RADIUM,” and “CIGAR” alongside references to law enforcement and the ironies of high art. It has a storied exhibition past, having been featured everywhere from Gagosian to Fondation Beyeler in Riehen, to a having a central role in the landmark “Signs: Connecting Past and Future,” display at Seoul’s Dongdaemun Design Plaza Museum.