Every week, Artnet News brings you Wet Paint, a gossip column of original scoops. If you have a tip, email Annie Armstrong at aarmstrong@artnet.com.
ANOTHER BITE OF THE BANANA
Last week, Maurizio Cattelan’s notorious banana, Comedian (2019), was back in the news: it is coming to the auction block later this month at Sotheby’s with the remarkable estimate of $1 million. (In 2019, when the work put the mainstream media in a tizzy, it sold at Art Basel Miami Beach for $120,000 out of Perrotin’s booth.) The headline made me feel exhausted, which is also how the ongoing coverage of the U.S. presidential election is making me feel. So, instead of stewing in existential dread about the race, I think I’ll just project my feelings onto this auction. I welcome you to join me (after you vote).
Comedian actually feels Trumpish if you look at it from a certain perspective. It’s an attention-grabber and a troll, it’s tied up in the tale of excessive American wealth, and of course, it’s been in-and-out of court.
As you may recall, after Comedian became a sensation, an artist named Joe Morford claimed that he made a version of the work back in 2001 and took Cattelan to court for copyright infringement. Though the judge did acknowledge “substantial similarity” between the two pieces, he ruled that it was “insufficient to support a finding of legal copying.” The judge also noted that Morford had only shown the piece briefly in a 2008 YouTube video and then in a couple of Facebook posts several years later, so there was a very slim chance that Cattelan had seen his work.
I’m no judge, but I am a gossip. And from gossip I’ve heard, there is another extremely similar work that Cattelan almost certainly laid eyes on two years before he presented Comedian.
Michael Linares, Not to be titled (6), 2017. Courtesy of NADA.
In 2017, Cattelan was prowling the aisles of NADA Miami, and stopped inside the booth of Mexico City’s Galería Agustina Ferreyra, which had on view Michael Linares‘s Not to Be Titled (6), 2017, an old telephone with… a banana duct-taped to its handle.
“I don’t recall talking about the work a lot with him,” Ferreyra told me, adding, “We cracked a few jokes, he loved it.” The artist bought another piece from the booth.
Linares’s work currently lives in NADA’s office. NADA’s director, Heather Hubbs, told me, “We’ve temporarily replaced the banana with a plastic one, which requires a little less maintenance.”
Cattelan couldn’t be reached for comment.
How much will Comedian sell for later this month? Place your bets now. And remember: there are other ways to spend that money.
OH, CANADA
Christiana Ine-Kimba Boyle. Courtesy of Canada Gallery.
This deep into the ongoing “market reset,” a few trends have emerged among smaller galleries: they are sharing representation of popular artists with larger galleries, others are splitting booths at art fairs, and some are shedding far-flung locations to become more “focused” on one city. The art industry is looking a bit more collaborative, a bit more laidback, and a bit pared down.
For former Pace director Christiana Ine-Kimba Boyle, this is the future of the business. As I reported a few weeks ago, Boyle just left her position at the blue-chipper. “I was taught to always leave things better than found, and I can confidently say I did just that,” Boyle wrote in an Instagram post that got me curious about what her next step would be. Now, I can exclusively reveal that she is going back to work as a partner and co-owner at Canada, where she was a senior sales director from 2019 to 2021, before joining Pace.
“The most obvious difference between the two is scale,” Boyle told me by phone. Pace has seven galleries across three continents; Canada just two locations in Downtown Manhattan. Comparing the two outfits is a bit apples and oranges, but one has been adding senior staffers (there are now six partners in total), while the other, as I noted last week, has been shedding them.
“Galleries are operating at this moment with these unrestrained, massive expansions, which quite frankly, I don’t think the market is actually particularly tailored to,” Boyle said. “I actually think it’s the opposite, where there does need to be a slight contraction. You don’t have to have a physical footprint in every single city or territory.”
I know many dealers who would breathe a sigh of relief if the dominant “grow-or-go” mentality of the art market vanished. Canada, for its part, has long operated by a different kind of ethos. Boyle pointed out that the gallery has been able to “stay smart and nimble enough to roll with how globalized this industry is” by working with international galleries like Thaddaeus Ropac, who co-represents Joan Snyder with Canada, and working closely with Kaufmann Repetto and Xavier Hufkens.
One of Canada’s founding partners, Phil Grauer, told me that he brought on Boyle and Tif Sigfrids as partners for their experience in sales and curating, but also to keep the gallery in dialogue with emerging voices. “Ultimately, I think galleries are driven by generation, and by attachment to a younger group of artists,” he said. Canada’s original partners “are all now pushing 60, and to make connections to people who are, say, 30 or 25, it’s about keeping it dynamic and versatile.”
Boyle is set to organize two exhibitions at Canada’s galleries on Lispenard Street in January, which I very much look forward to seeing. Onwards and upwards.
WE HEAR
Courtesy a tipster.
While Darren Aronofsky was shooting his new movie in the East Village, he stopped at some area galleries. Above, he is pictured with actor Austin Butler at Andie Dinkin’s show at Half Gallery… Who else’s head nearly snapped off while turning to read who is on deck to inaugurate the new O’Flaherty’s space? In case you missed it, a show titled “The Bitch” is opening on November 7 at 165 Allen Street with work by living legends Alex Katz and Matthew Barney… Gala season is off to a swinging start, and my favorite vignette thus came from Rashid Johnson, who was being honored at Creative Time‘s fundraiser. Addressing the crowd, he admitted that he is a little worn out by all the adulation he has received of late. “To be honest, I’ve heard myself talk too much,” he said. “This isn’t the first time I’ve been honored, even this week”… My most reliable source on news about Harold Ancart’s former(?) squeeze, actor/socialite Dianna Agron, has thrown up their hands, much to my chagrin… Lower East Side dealer Marc Strauss is taking over David Lewis‘s former space in Tribeca… And lastly, let’s all pour one out for Wildair’s beloved specialty donut series, which is coming to a close. I think back fondly (and hungrily) to the special Champagne-flavored donut that the team produced for Wet Paint back in 2022…
GRIEVANCES
We’re back for some high-octane kvetching. This week, an anonymous SoHo art dealer chooses not to mince words about sloppy PDFs sent out by galleries:
It feels like about two or three years ago, everyone figured out at once that you could make .pdf pages whatever size they wanted, and so they did. And now you see these deranged previews with mismatched page sizes or orientations that switch from vertical to horizontal in the middle.
While I’m on the subject of .pdfs, it’s redundant to say “price on request.” And no shit a painting is subject to availability! Buying a sandwich is also subject to availability… that doesn’t make it useful information.
And as for framed versus unframed dimensions, in most cases, the doctor doesn’t give me a “with shoes” and “without shoes” height. Especially for drawings, which must be framed and are often knocked out of the more economical gallery frames anyway.
Clearly, I have a lot of grievances with PDFs.
What has been bothering you? Send your contribution to me at aarmstrong@artnet.com with the subject line “GRIEVANCES.”