Peter Brant to Sell Basquiat’s ‘Now’s the Time’ at Sotheby’s for $30 Million

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work will make headlines again during the marquee spring auctions in New York as a second major painting by the late artist comes to market.

Now’s the Time, 1985, Basquiat’s ode to jazz and saxophonist Charlie Parker, will be offered Thursday, May 18, at Sotheby’s contemporary evening sale on behalf of the businessman and collector Peter Brant. The 7-foot diameter painting is expected to realise more than US$30 million and is being sold without a third-party guarantee.

On Wednesday, Christie’s announced it would sell Basquiat’s triptych, El Gran Espectaculo (The Nile), 1983, for an estimate in the range of US$45 million, at its 21st Century evening sale on Monday, May 15 .

Brant, who held a 70-work Basquiat exhibition at his foundation’s Manhattan gallery space in 2019, has owned Now’s the Time for “several decades,” Sotheby’s said in a news release, noting that this is the first time the sparely wrought piece is being brought to auction. The work pictures a simply rendered vinyl record painted in matte black on rough plywood with the words “Now’s the Time” PRKR in white lettering.

According to Sotheby’s, the painting “encapsulates the importance of music on his technique and style as a painter.” The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts featured the work on a catalog of a multidisciplinary exhibition held at the institution last year that explored Basquiat’s connection to music. The show was organised in collaboration with the Musée de la musique – Philharmonie de Paris.

“His oeuvre is replete with depictions of musical instruments alongside references to opera, classical music, jazz, bebop, hip-hop, and rap,” the museum said of Basquiat in a synopsis of the 100-work exhibition titled “Seeing Loud: Basquiat and Music.”

Now’s the Time is a reference to Parker’s jazz composition from 1945, and “is the ultimate expression of Basquiat’s passion for music and the way it fundamentally impacted his practice,” Sotheby’s said. It also immortalizes Parker, an idol of the artist, whose revolutionary style “represented the spirit of freedom and improvisation” that defined Basquiat.

The painting will be exhibited at the auction house’s Los Angeles galleries Thursday through Monday, April 24, before it comes to New York on May 6, ahead of the sale.

Alibaba Group co-founder Jack Ma said competition will make the company stronger and the e-commerce giant needs to trust in the power of market forces and innovation, according to an internal memo to commemorate the company’s 25th anniversary.

“Many of Alibaba’s business face challenges and the possibility of being surpassed, but that’s to be expected as no single company can stay at the top forever in any industry,” Ma said in a letter sent to employees late Tuesday, seen by The Wall Street Journal.

Once a darling of Wall Street and the dominant player in China’s e-commerce industry, the tech giant’s growth has slowed amid a weakening Chinese economy and subdued consumer sentiment. Intensifying competition from homegrown upstarts such as PDD Holdings ’ Pinduoduo e-commerce platform and ByteDance’s short-video app Douyin has also pressured Alibaba’s growth momentum.

“Only with competition can we become stronger and allow the industry to remain healthy,” Ma said.

The letter came after Alibaba recently completed a three-year regulatory process in China.

Chinese regulators said in late August that they have completed their monitoring and evaluation of Alibaba after the company was penalized over monopolistic practices in 2021. Over the past three years, the company has been required to submit self-evaluation compliance reports to market regulators.

Ma reiterated Alibaba’s ambition of being a company that can last 102 years. He urged Alibaba’s employees to not flounder in the midst of challenges and competition.

“The reason we’re Alibaba is because we have idealistic beliefs, we trust the future, believe in the market. We believe that only a company that can create real value for society can keep operating for 102 years,” he said.

Ma himself has kept a low profile since late 2020 when financial affiliate Ant Group called off initial public offerings in Hong Kong and Shanghai that had been on track to raise more than $34 billion.

In a separate internal letter in April, he praised Alibaba’s leadership and its restructuring efforts after the company split the group into six independently run companies.

Alibaba recently completed the conversion of its Hong Kong secondary listing into a primary listing, and on Tuesday was added to a scheme allowing investors in mainland China to trade Hong Kong-listed shares.

Alibaba shares fell 1.2% to 80.60 Hong Kong dollars, or equivalent of US$10.34, by midday Wednesday, after rising 4.2% on Tuesday following the Stock Connect inclusion. The company’s shares are up 6.9% so far this year.