Buyer of Basquiat and $80m in Works Revealed

Katya Kazakina has added the name of Christie’s big Japanese buyer :

Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese businessman, snapped up Basquiat’s 1982 canvas depicting a horned devil’s head with streams of red, green and black paint, according a person familiar.

Maezawa, bidding through Christie’s specialist Koji Inoue, also snapped up a sculpture by Jeff Koons, a painting by Richard Prince, an Alexander Calder mobile and a light piece spelling “Eat War” by Bruce Nauman for more than $80 million. “Runaway Nurse,” Prince’s 2007 work, went for $9.7 million, a record for the artist.

The founder of the online retail website, Zozotown, Maezawa’s purchases of more than $80 million accounted for one-quarter of the evening’s tally.

Asian Buyers Boost Christie’s as Basquiat Soars to $57 Million (Bloomberg)