Guy Hepner Contemporary Art Gallery

05/24/2026

Michael Kagan

Schumacher III

Oil and acrylic on linen

05/22/2026

Keith Haring, David Wojnarowicz, Jesse Hultberg, Max Blagg, Brian Butterick, Haoui Montaug, Carol Black, Zoe Leonard, and Peter McGough posing for mock mugshots at a Danceteria benefit at Tier 3 (TR3) on December 2, 1980.

In October 1980, police raided Danceteria, and the staff, including Keith, were arrested. Keith later recalled:

"Of course, my parents weren’t thrilled about my quitting school again, but they had to come to terms with it. ... Now there was the question of getting another job. I had quit working at Shafrazi and had taken a job being a bicycle messenger, which lasted about three days. I then got a job making sandwiches in a place on Seventh Avenue and Seventeenth Street. Later I worked as a busboy at Danceteria—the club on Thirty-seventh Street, and while I worked there, the club was busted, and all the help, including me, spent a night in jail! So then, I got more menial jobs."

As noted in the book "Fire in the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz" (2012) by Cynthia Carr:

"David also began meeting in earnest with Blagg, Brian, and Jesse Hultberg to put a band together. They were preparing for a night a few weeks away when Danceteria employees would get a chance to perform at the club. ... they settled on 3 Teens Kill 4. ...They never did play Danceteria. On Saturday, October 4, 1980, police raided the club and shut it down for selling liquor after hours without a license. Blagg, Brian, Jesse, Zoe Leonard, and Keith Haring were among the twenty-seven employees arrested. David had come downstairs to warn Blagg, who simply didn't move fast enough. Nor did Chuck Nanney, who'd been promoted to bartender. But Nanney managed to see his arrest as an absurdity. For one thing, he was so emaciated from drug use at the time that his handcuffs kept falling off. And he thought the cops were... nice... David had mingled with the customers, who'd been told to get out or face arrest. For him, one of the few employees not going to jail, the evening was horrific. ... Meanwhile, the old Danceteria staff decided to throw themselves a benefit on December 2 at a Tribeca club called Tier 3. This would be the first gig for 3 Teens Kill 4."

#1980

05/21/2026

Last night, the structure of La Caverne du Pont Neuf took shape on Paris’s oldest bridge. It’s 120 metres long and rises to its highest point at 18 metres. Following this key step of the installation, we will now work with the teams involved in the project to shape the interior of the artwork, in order to create a unique sensory experience for each of you.

From June 6 to 28, La Caverne du Pont Neuf will then be open to the public free of charge 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The artwork is funded without public funds.

05/20/2026

05/19/2026

In Julian Schnabel’s 1996 film Basquiat, he was portrayed by Jeffrey Wright in a breakthrough, critically praised performance, while David Bowie played Andy Warhol, bringing star power to the movie’s portrait of their fraught creative friendship and the downtown New York art scene.

05/19/2026

A sale as significant for the global art market as S.I. Newhouse deserves full coverage.

Multiple records were shattered at the Rockefeller Plaza tonight. A new record for Brancusi has been crowned with his Danaide. Joan Miró’s Portrait de Madame K. shattered the artist’s previous record. Pollock’s remarkable Number 7A, 1948 has set a new record for the artist, after a bidding war involving 5 bidders and more than 50 bids.

05/18/2026

Larry Madrigal

“Silent Prayer” 2025, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 in. 76 x 101.6 cm

05/17/2026

A Banksy painted over a second-hand landscape is heading to auction with a staggering $13–18 million estimate.

The work, Girl and Balloon on Found Landscape 🎈, has remained hidden in a private collection since 2012 and is now being exhibited publicly for the very first time.

It belongs to Banksy’s legendary Crude Oils series — works where the artist buys forgotten flea-market paintings and hijacks them with his own imagery, transforming discarded landscapes into contemporary icons.

And this sale comes with serious auction-world firepower behind it.

The painting is being sold by Loïc Gouzer, the dealmaker behind Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, the $450 million Christie’s sale that became the most expensive artwork ever auctioned.

After leaving Christie’s, Gouzer launched Fair Warning, his invite-only auction platform, and he’s staging this sale inside Tiffany & Co.’s Fifth Avenue flagship in New York.

Of course, this isn’t the first time *Girl with Balloon* has shocked the art market.

In 2018, a version of the image famously self-destructed moments after selling at Sotheby’s — shredding itself live in front of collectors and instantly becoming one of the most talked-about artworks of the century.

Three years later, the shredded canvas resold for $25.4 million, setting Banksy’s current auction record.

Now Gouzer is making an even bigger claim — drawing a direct comparison between Banksy and Basquiat.

His verdict:

“In twenty years, Banksy won’t just be accepted. He’ll be unavoidable.”

Twenty-four years after Girl with Balloon first appeared on a wall in London, the image is still evolving — through protests, fashion, auction theatrics, and now onto the floor of Tiffany & Co.

The only question left:

Will Girl and Balloon on Found Landscape become the most expensive Banksy ever sold?

05/13/2026

All eyes turn to New York this week. The sales are headlined by Robert Mnuchin: Collector at Heart, a dedicated Evening Auction anchored by Rothko’s monumental Brown and Blacks in Reds. The Now & Contemporary Evening Auction brings together one of Basquiat’s most significant paintings, a major de Kooning, making its auction debut, and Warhol’s glamorous and alluring portrait of Brigitte Bardot.

05/12/2026

Jean-Michel Basquiat prints are now selling for more than $1 million — a shocking rise for works that were once considered affordable entry points into the art market. In this short, we break down why Basquiat’s print market has exploded, which editions collectors are chasing, and why demand keeps growing among billionaire collectors and investors.

05/11/2026

Bruno Bischofberger—visionary Swiss art dealer, collector, and connector of artists—passed away this weekend at the age of 86.

Known for his unparalleled instincts and eye for quality, he was not one to follow market trends, but instead became a reference himself for some of the most radical art created in the second half of the 20th century.

In 1982, he famously introduced Andy Warhol to Jean-Michel Basquiat, a talented young street artist at the time who was only just emerging in the mainstream. After that meeting, Bischofberger suggested a mail-art project between the two and Italian artist Francesco Clemente, each contributing their hand to shared works.

Two years later, Warhol and Basquiat collaborated exclusively on a series of celebrated paintings—conversations on canvas. Their ‘Untitled’ from 1984 set a world record when it sold for $19.4 million at Sotheby’s New York in May 2024