Hot New Artist Laments That His Work Is Being Flipped for Profit
Amoako Boafo finished ‘The Lemon Bathing Suit’ just last year.
(Bloomberg) -- Emerging artist Amoako Boafo has known for some time that his paintings would end up at auction one day.
“I just didn’t think it would be any time soon,” said the 35-year-old Ghana native.
Just eight months after Boafo completed “The Lemon Bathing Suit” -- a portrait of his friend’s mother floating in a swimming pool -- the Los Angeles-based entrepreneur who bought the canvas is reselling it Thursday at Phillips in London.
“Now he wants to make profit from it,” Boafo said of the seller, Stefan Simchowitz. “It’s only sad. The painting is so recent.”
The work will be offered as the first lot of the evening sale of 20th century and contemporary art, an auction debut for the Vienna-based artist whose star is rising rapidly. It is estimated at 30,000 pounds to 50,000 pounds ($65,000).
Simchowitz scoffed at the notion that his selling the work so soon will hurt Boafo’s career.
The work’s placement as the opening lot “will be nothing but beneficial to the artist and his entire collector base and his future,” Simchowitz said in a phone interview. “I will use the proceeds of the sale to continue to support artists who are emerging, who have little to no support in the marketplace, thin gallery representation, whose livelihood depends on my financial support.”
A Phillips spokeswoman declined to comment.
Boafo, whose portraits of friends and family mix painting and collage, is riding a broader wave of demand for works by black artists. Long overlooked and undervalued, they now occupy one of the hottest corners of the market as collectors, foundations and museums seek to add diversity to their holdings. Boafo was featured during the opening of the Rubell Museum in Miami last year.
Simchowitz is known for buying works by young artists in bulk and then unloading some when prices climb on the secondary market. Last year at Phillips he sold three paintings by another popular black artist, Tschabalala Self, including her first work at auction in March.
Boafo’s portraits were snapped up within seconds in December at Art Basel Miami Beach, where hundreds of collectors put their names on a waiting list, with prices ranging from $25,000 to $50,000. His dealers are thinking of raising prices to $75,000 for large-scale works, said Bennett Roberts, whose L.A.-based Roberts Projects gave Boafo his first solo exhibition in the U.S. last year.
Unabomber’s Cabin
Several months later, the dealer arranged for Boafo to do a residency program set up by L.A. collector Danny First and culminating with an exhibition at “The Cabin,” a space in his backyard modeled on Unabomber Ted Kaczynski’s Montana hideaway. “The Lemon Bathing Suit” was painted during that time, Boafo said.
Roberts consigned the painting along with four others by Boafo to Deitch Gallery, which featured the artist in its summer group show. Four works were acquired by patrons of institutions, including trustees of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, according to gallery owner Jeffrey Deitch.
Simchowitz bought the fifth.
While Deitch declined to comment on the identity of the buyer of “The Lemon Bathing Suit,” he said that the person promised that “it would be part of the important collection of contemporary African art that he is building.” He added that the upcoming Phillips sale is a “regrettable situation and I am very embarrassed and very sorry that this happened.”
Roberts said he “begged” Simchowitz not to resell the work publicly. “He doesn’t care.”
Art Bubble
Simchowitz was at the epicenter of the last emerging-art bubble seven years ago, when the abstract style dubbed “Zombie Formalism” was all the rage. In 2015, a year before prices collapsed, Simchowitz had already turned his attention to what would become the next big trend. He bought three Self works, following her residency with First and the show at “The Cabin,” paying $6,000 for each.
He sold all three at Phillips last year. Like “The Lemon Bathing Suit,” two Self canvases were placed as opening lots at their respective evening auctions, generating a flurry of bids. “Lilith,” which fetched $163,762, more than double its high estimate, marked Self’s auction debut. It was followed by “Leda” ($301,090) in June and “Florida” ($338,586) in October.
“The Lemon Bathing Suit” was priced at $25,000 in June when Simchowitz bought it with a 10% discount, Boafo said.
Simchowitz previously had tried to buy Boafo’s works directly from the artist, but was rebuffed.
“I want to have longevity,” Boafo said of that decision. “I am not so much focused on the money. If I get museum placement and shows, I am guaranteed longevity.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Katya Kazakina in New York at kkazakina@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Peter Eichenbaum, Steven Crabill
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