Too much ink has been spilled, and continues to be, about the present temperature of the art market, including the alleged Trump bump, even though consignments for the last spate of auctions were set well before votes were counted. You may as well be talking about the weather. Art prices go up and down, they zig and they zag; invariably, the sun keeps rising and the rain keeps falling. When it comes to the human capacity to hoard, there’s neither global warming, nor cooling; sure, the tides shift and new items, like sneakers and soiled jerseys, become collectibles, but (dinosaur) bones, Brancusis, or Birkens—it makes little difference—humans will always buy stuff, lots of it.
Soaking up the Florida sunshine—sort of—from a writing/art-making residency (of my own devising) in the Engadin valley in Switzerland. I am nothing short of thrilled to miss Miami for the second year running. Image courtesy of Kenny Schachter
Soaking up the Florida sunshine—sort of—from a writing/art-making residency (of my own devising) in the Engadin valley in Switzerland, I’m nothing short of thrilled to miss Basel Miami for the second year running. With 283 participants from 38 countries and territories, there’s no shortage of exciting art old and new, and, as usual, there will be a bell curve of performance results among the galleries. Some will flourish and others suffer, but when has that not been the case? It’s never easy dealing art, or anything else for that matter.
Why is it that nobody pays the slightest lip service to the fact that artists struggle irrespective of the economic climate, which I rambled on about in my Kenny’s Uncut rant-cast for the Italian art platform Spaghetti Boost? Regarding the gallery side of things, beleaguered Clearing, with spaces in New York and Los Angeles, has splintered from its Belgium location and lost its backing partner, artist Harold Ancart, and director Rielly Davidson, who confirmed her recent departure but refused further comment. Others are said to be following suit, both artists and staff, but owner Olivier Babin is talented and resilient, and I gather, or rather, hope, that he will land on his feet.
Back to the auctions. Altice, the holding company of French-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi, Sotheby’s majority owner, is facing decreasing earnings and mounting difficulties across the spectrum of his telecommunications empire and had better get his shit together fast, with a mountain of debt ($50 billion-plus) coming due between now and the end of the decade. It’s a shame Sotheby’s is being emasculated in the process of Drahi’s cost shavings, trying to shake cash from a tree at the expense of employees and consigners. Though Altice co-founder Armando Pereira has been released from house arrest, the company itself still faces corruption probes in France and Portugal.
To staunch the bleeding, Sotheby’s unilaterally raised the commissions that sellers must pay, which was, more often than not (even for me), zero! Now, especially in relation to Christie’s and Phillips, it is at a tremendous disadvantage. Oh, the good ol’ days of the 2002 price-fixing scandal that implicated the chairmen of Christie’s and Sotheby’s; back then, with a few swift calls between execs, this dilemma could have been avoided by both houses simultaneously elevating fees. I know of several of Sotheby’s most established executives who have discussed an exit strategy as a result of all the turmoil and instability.
Then there are the ill effects of nepotism. Since the ripe age of 26, Nathan Drahi, now all of 29, has been head of Sotheby’s Asia. For the record, yes, I have curated multiple exhibitions involving my wildly talented artist kids, Adrian, Kai (since passed), Gabriel, and Sage, but they no longer permit me to post their works, let alone buy any of it. Nathan recently commandeered the phone lines from a top contemporary Asian specialist demanding to handle his biggest clients, which didn’t go particularly well, little surprise in a region that cherishes personal relations. Not only did the clients walk before the sale, thus failing to lodge a single bid, but so did the specialist (who’s already working at a rival house).
I can exclusively reveal that, after shutting down Christie’s for a private viewing with his girlfriend during public viewing times, Jeff Bezos (who could easily afford to buy the entire art market in any given year) was the purchaser of the $68 million Ed Ruscha. Image courtesy of Christie’s
According to my research, action on the highest-profile New York lots was deep and primarily from Americans, as reflected by three bidders each for the Ruscha, Magritte, and Nymphéas by Monet, whom Paul Thek (unaffectionately) referred to as “Mo-ney” in his diaries, which are excerpted in Paul Thek: The Wonderful World That Almost Was (1995), by Ann Wilson, Harald Szeemann et. al.
Jeff Bezos (who could absorb any given year’s art-trading volume in its entirety), along with his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, shut down public-viewing access at Christie’s in the middle of the last Sunday before the sales for a private tour, and Sánchez posted the Ruscha painting that sold for $68 million in an Instagram story in the days leading up to the sale. Apparently, unceremoniously shutting out even the well-heeled public is the norm at auction houses (or any other retail business), and Sotheby’s confirmed they’d likewise do it for Bezos or any similarly situated highflier. Call it art market-style hierarchical egalitarianism. I can now reveal, as confirmed by two independent sources who would know, that indeed it was Bezos who bought the Ruscha, which amounts to nothing more than Egg McMuffin money for the mogul. (Bezos was first mentioned as the possible buyer last week in these pages by Adam Lindemann.)
Was it singed or not? Chances are that the Kloudy Koons, recently sold at Christie’s, was nearly roasted in a SoHo fire back in 2006 in the office building Peter Brant owns on Prince and Broadway, previously home to a satellite Guggenheim museum and Brant Publishing headquarters. Image courtesy of Kenny Schachter
Jeff Koons’s double-decker vacuum cleaners from 1981–86 (for Koons, whose fabrication processes can last years, a mere five is a flash) fetched $5.13 million on an estimate of $3.5 million to $5.5 million, also at Christie’s and sold by Peter Brant. I heard Brant previously unloaded the Koons for $6 million, but the buyer reneged; and, that that wasn’t the only drama associated with the work. I also heard that the Koons had been damaged in a fire and rebuilt (in less than five years I’d assume) prior to sale.
When I queried Peter, he replied: “Hi Kenny no the work was not damaged. Jeff changed the cover because the Plexiglass was getting cloudy. This work came from Charles Saatchi. The collector who Sotheby’s sold it to online never paid for the 3 lots that he bought and they returned the piece to me which their contract says they can do if the buyer does not pay.” Some digging revealed there had been a fire in 2006 at 575 Broadway, owned by Brant (and recently refinanced by him for $127 million), which at the time housed Brant Publications and a Guggenheim outpost.
From the days when I first graced Artnet’s electronic pages, helmed by artist-writer-editor Walter Robinson: “The fate of the vacuum-cleaner sculpture by Jeff Koons that had long occupied the ground-floor lobby by the elevator is less certain (after the fire), however, and has no doubt been spirited off to the restorers for a checkup.” Might they be one and the same?
Oddly enough, another Koons sculpture was nearly incinerated by a faulty Christmas decoration in Hong Kong, as reported (again!) by Artnet last week. What is it about Koons’s works and the threat of spontaneous combustion? His art is more hazardous than lithium batteries, giving new meaning to the auction term “being burnt.” Sorry, that was too easy.
I can’t eat a banana since the Sotheby’s auction and it pains me to mention the endlessly flogged (in the press) fruit. Nevertheless, I can report on the pair that sold it, who are both pals of disgraced dealer Inigo Philbrick (out of prison and plotting his art world comeback): Andre Sakhai and Andrea Luca Mina-Séguin, son of heart-valve inventor Jacques Séguin, who previously appeared in my column back in 2019 for consigning a Christopher Wool that went unsold, (Wool’s market is still in the dumps, despite a widely acclaimed pop-up in New York’s Financial District earlier this year.)
Sekhai ignored repeated text inquiries about his participation in the Cattelan deal, though my fellow columnist Katya Kazakina reported that he orchestrated the consignment. And Mina-Séguin denied his involvement, to which I replied: “You’d be we’ll advised to keep the crypto proceeds from the sale of the 🍌 you claim you didn’t sell ;).”
Crain’s New York Business‘s “NYC Deals of the Day” reported last week that Gagosian refinanced his West 24th Street Chelsea gallery. The dealer rebuffed my attempts to sell him a painting and would not entertain hiring me, slamming the phone down before I could finish my appeal for a job. Images courtesy of Kenny Schachter and Crain’s New York Business
A blurb in Crain’s New York Business recently popped up in my Google Alerts stating that Larry Gagosian refinanced his West 24th Street gallery in Chelsea to the tune of $40 million. I texted Larry G, querying him as to whether he’d like to redirect some of those spoils to a painting deal we discussed over the summer. Gagosian called, said hello, then proceeded to ask me who I was, though we’d just been texting moments before. After I identified myself, he menacingly snarled, “Why do you care! Why don’t you get a job!” and hung up before I could finish asking for a position.
As reported in the Norwegian tabloid Verdens Gang (“The Way of the World”), artist Bjarne Melgaard lost his bid to rescind a contract he signed, turning over a chunk of his future earnings to a pair of investors in return for a large upfront payment, based on his claim that he was so wasted when he signed it that he could not have been in control of his faculties. According to the ruling, Melgaard has to fork over $1.3 million. I’m a big fan and curated Bjarne in a 2019 L.A. exhibition—he’s an anarchistic phenom who lives on the edge of propriety and is as notorious for his frequent litigations as his tabloid coverage. He also gives Anna Delvey a run for her money with his outlandish courtroom getups.
The $30 million deal for Diddy’s Kerry James Marshall that I reported on in October fell through after funds were not anted up, but my intel reveals that another, firmer offer, albeit for less, originating from the Middle East right behind it.
Even with the looming chaos that the next four years will undoubtedly present, peace in the Middle East and Ukraine seems tantalizingly within reach. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the ongoing feud between me and art-market attorney Richard Golub. The detestation dates back a decade; but the animus is all his. I could care less, and it makes for good writing fodder. The whole episode, or more accurately, episodes, are as well documented (by me) as beyond reason. The latest of Golub’s increasingly bizarre public outbursts occurred on the rough and tumble streets of New York City’s Upper East Side.
Last month, I walked past the nearly 82-year-old Golub inserting the key into the door of his townhouse, when he caught sight of me and bellowed, “What are you doing on my street? I mean it!” I reiterated (loudly) the riposte I’ve lobbed on occasions past, “You need anger management, you’re 81 years old, act your age!” Though I’m fearless behind my keyboard, I’m pretty much a coward in most other circumstances—and even elderly, Golub is super fit. I’ve resorted to watching YouTube videos on how to defend myself and, like an art-world version of Rocky (featuring Woody Allen standing in for me instead of Stallone), training on the stairs of the Met.
On a more positive note, here are a few holiday reading suggestions I’m in the midst of myself: A Book About Ray (2024), by Ellen Levy, the first career survey of the masterful Riddler of collage art, Ray Johnson, who in reference to his practice said, “I don’t make pop art, I make chop art.” And, And He Sat Among the Ashes: A Biography of Louis M. Eilshemius (1939), by William Schack (practically my namesake). Eilshemius was an eccentric romantic American painter and writer, who, upon his death from pneumonia in 1941 at the age of 77, was described in a New York Times obituary as being “penniless, bitter and famous.” Eilshemius, after a career in near obscurity, resorted to visiting New York galleries shouting off-the-cuff criticisms and handing out pamphlets proclaiming his genius. My kind of guy, clearly.
The meanings of Doge include the historical head of state in Venice, a valueless crypto shit coin (based on a dog breed); and, scariest of all, the acronym of the new federal cost-cutting agency helmed by His Majesty of Capricious Nuttiness, Elon Musk. Image courtesy of Kenny Schachter
As much as people complain about capitalism, with Republican domination of all branches of government (and His Majesty of Capricious Nuttiness, Elon Musk, a law unto himself in the thick of things), the financial markets are the only checks and balances left standing in America today; more so after January 20, when the ghost formerly known as Biden departs (physically). Though, to be clear, Biden wasn’t too much of a biddy to pardon his son before leaving office. The art economy, and much else, is nail-bitingly hanging in the balance.
I’m grateful that there is at least some form of reality testing, economic or otherwise, that may bode well for the country and world, collectively in jitters with the reelection of Trump. In the middle of this unprecedented state of flux, my first major solo show in my hometown, New York City, is fast approaching (March 7) at the Manhattan outpost of Gabriel Kilongo’s Jupiter Gallery. Improbably, Kilongo a native of the Central African Democratic Republic of the Congo, was raised in Israel after fleeing the Congo Wars of the ’90s and early 2000s. Let’s leave it at that for the time being.
Photo courtesy Kenny Schachter