Money Talks: How Basquiat's Art Became a Good Investment
Slate Money
Slate Podcasts
4.1 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 30 September 2025
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this Money Talks: Felix Salmon is joined by Doug Woodham, author of the upcoming biography Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Making of an Icon, to discuss Basquiat’s path to becoming a darling of the art market. They discuss the idiosyncrasies of the art market and why Basquiat – the “Jimi Hendrix” of the art world – was initially undervalued but later became part of the modern day art canon.
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Podcast production by Jessamine Molli and Cheyna Roth.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello! Welcome to Money Talks, the episode of Slate Money, where we talk to the most interesting people in the world about the most interesting subjects in the world. |
| 0:24.7 | I'm Felix Salmon and I am joined in the Slate Studios in Brooklyn today by Mr. Doug Woodham to talk about a Brooklyn boy. |
| 0:37.4 | Doug, introduce yourself. Who are you? Well, Felix, thank you for having me on the show. to talk about a Brooklyn boy. |
| 0:39.3 | Doug, introduce yourself. Who are you? |
| 0:43.4 | Well, Felix, thank you for having me on the show. I'm so glad to be here. |
| 0:47.6 | So I guess relative to this Brooklyn boy that we're going to talk about, |
| 0:49.9 | who's a famous artist. |
| 0:53.5 | Sort of three things about my background that amplify the book. |
| 0:58.1 | One is I used to be the president of the Americas for Christies, and I have a financial advisory business in New York now that works with the big collectors. |
| 1:01.9 | Before that, my professional life was really one of being a partner with McKinsey |
| 1:06.0 | and company. |
| 1:06.6 | You escaped McKinsey to go into us. |
| 1:10.6 | Yeah, I mean, there's a detour too long in the way, but yeah. |
| 1:13.5 | So I sort of have a business and strategy mind. |
| 1:18.5 | That's actually perfect. |
| 1:19.4 | But the reason you're on the show, to get to the point, is you have written a book, |
| 1:23.8 | and the name of the book is Jean-Michel Baskiat, the making of an icon. |
| 1:28.3 | We are going to talk about your book. We're going to talk about Jean-Michel Baskia, his unique skills, his set of both artistic skills and social skills, but also about what happened to him after he died and what happened to his market after he died and the people |
| 1:45.2 | who really made that who made money who capitalized on it the role of joe low the Malaysian |
| 1:51.3 | fugitive there's a lot to cover it's all coming up on money talks why are businesses like HelloVet choosing Apple products and services? |
| 2:06.6 | So we started the business two years ago. |
| 2:09.6 | We had a few people who were used to PCs and this was their first foray into Macs. |
... |
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