What started in December 2015 as an anonymous Instagram account devoted to often gorgeous photographs of Lake Michigan and the skies above it recently turned into a venue for opinionated analysis of the trial of Scottish-born painter Peter Doig.
In the trial, the plaintiffs, former corrections officer Robert Fletcher and Chicago art dealer Peter Bartlow, claim that Doig painted a canvas now in Fletcher’s possession while incarcerated as a teen. Doig disavows the work, which an art expert at the trial estimated would now be worth $6 million–$8 million if genuine.
Loyola Condenser, so named for an apparatus that appears on a rooftop in the foreground and presumably for its creator’s institutional affiliation, attended the trial most days and offered some tart commentary.
Among the art-world figures now following the account are Wall Street Journal reporter Kelly Crow, White Columns director Matthew Higgs, and Hammer Museum director Ann Philbin.
See some examples of the trial coverage below, as we attempt to figure out who is this mystery character, and what guides her or him to create such an account. It’s a great moment of summer reading, regardless.