On Friday, June 24, FBI agents raided the Orlando Museum of Art, removing every single painting from “Heroes and Monsters,” a show that claimed to debut 25 never-before-seen works by Jean-Michel Basquiat.
The show would’ve been a milestone—but it may have been too good to be true. And suddenly, everyone on Twitter was an art appraiser having an absolute field day.
Y’all, THESE are the fake Basquiats they had in the Orlando Museum. I’m dead. pic.twitter.com/wLmKxx9rjX
— art21savage (@PasticheLumumba) June 30, 2022
Following the raid, the museum obliterated all evidence that the show ever happened its website. When it came to light that former director Aaron De Groft had threatened an academic named Jordana Moore Saggese for acting “holier than thou” when she tried to distance herself from the works she’d been paid to verify, the museum obliterated De Groft too, removing him from his post.
Perhaps the biggest red flag, however, comes with a work that Basquiat allegedly painted on the back of a FedEx box.
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Now it’s time to take this case to the people. Below, we’ve pulled together as many images of the artworks in question we could find. What do you make of them?