OLD NEWS

BASQUIAT SOLD (SORT OF) FOR FORTUNE, MANY ARTISTS STUCK IN A HOLE: KENNY SCHACHTER REPORTS
<https://tinyurl.com/5ebju56n>
The most unnerving and demoralizing essay that I’ve read so far on the proliferation of A.I. is “The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis,” by James van Geelen and Alap Shah, in the Citrini Report on Substack. The piece, written as if it is the year 2028, envisions mass unemployment across every strata of the economy and a structural realignment affecting all walks of life. With over 20 million readers as of last week, it delivers the equivalent of a gut-wrenching whack whose incalculable aftereffects we are only beginning to comprehend—and feel.
The report’s focus is on white-collar professionals (a significant chunk of art buyers), who, as a result of A.I. displacement, will be spending radically less across the board. “People borrowed against a future they can no longer believe in,” the report states, with most “working twice as hard (with the help of A.I.) just to not get fired (from the repercussions of AI)…” It goes on:
In this cycle, the job losses have been concentrated in the upper deciles of the income distribution. They are a relatively small share of total employment, but they drive a wildly disproportionate share of consumer spending. The top 10% of earners account for more than 50% of all consumer spending in the United States. The top 20% account for roughly 65%. These are the people who buy the houses, the cars, the vacations, the restaurant meals, the private school tuition, the home renovations. They are the demand base for the entire consumer discretionary economy.
Last week, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, CEO of Block (a financial services technology company), slashed his workforce by 40 percent, axing more than 4,000 employees, a decision he explicitly linked to the transformative consequences of A.I., rather than financial woes. The scorched earth of the 2020s is spreading from the ever-expanding battlefields of global wars (a topic too raw for these pages) to the very fabric of civilization at an alarming rate. I forgot to mention the unprecedented forms of lethal weaponry that alone are enough reason not to get out of bed tomorrow.
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Our erstwhile pre-A.I. existence is a thing of the past, soon to be altogether forgotten by Gen Alphas, the generation after Z, born between 2013 and 2025. Granted, I’m too old to be writing about this. There are few tasks left that only humans can do. A.I. blogger and podcaster Zack Kass has coined the term “The Tragedy of Unmetered Knowledge” for the idea of intelligence being equated to a pay-per-use resource like electricity, gas, and the internet, rather than being valued as a scarcity. What price genius? Twenty bucks a month ought to buy it. The only thing left that still doesn’t come easily is making money, unless you’re a tech overlord, along with—tragically—peace, equality, and health.
Art is among the few things left that only humans can do (for the time being) that needs to be thoughtfully and carefully nurtured and supported more so than ever. But we’d be naïve, at best, to think the A.I. shit-show won’t have knock-on impacts on artists, galleries, museums, auction houses, and logistics companies. Sadly, it’s all but a fait accompli that our micro universe will wither even further. With the near-future employment landscape so bleak, who on earth will be in a position to buy emerging and mid-market artworks? Don’t answer.
Although my column is regularly classified as “opinion,” I’m staunchly resolute in my reporting when my personal and financial fates are on the line, as I’m liable for the veracity of every word I write, as is my editor. (Err, sorry about that.) The painstaking research involved (though it may not appear as such), is about as bulletproof as you can get: I’ve never been sued in 35 years of writing. There have been instances of fisticuffs thrown, lawsuits threatened, and graver still, death threats, but no formal legal proceedings have ever been undertaken. And I’m still alive… so far.
Granted, everyone makes mistakes. Besides I’m merely a man(-child), not machine—though we’re destined to be transformed into our best robotic selves. I confounded a sale factually in my last article that I have just about resolved, and I’d like to clarify matters. It appears that billionaire car dealer and former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles (football club) Norman Braman did indeed sell Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1982 Philistines, but rather than an outright sale, he apparently retained a lifetime interest, enabling him to retain possession until his death, despite offloading the painting some years ago.
At the ripe age of 93 (and a half), having lasted so long since the consummation of the deal, I’d gather that the buyers (rumored to be the Qataris) are none too amused with the terms of the transaction. The only definitive source for the confirmation of this deal, besides Braman, and the sort-of-new-owners, is Jeffrey Deitch, his dealer/advisor forever, who has not responded to my repeated inquiries on the specifics of this issue.
There’s a stinking rich brand of asset accumulators who assemble what I used to call encyclopedia art collections, then Wikipedia and now ChatGPT art collections. With these collectors, wherever you might turn for reference on a canonized artist, you’ll find their signature work depicted. And that is the only type of artwork these buyers collect. Cf. the hoardings of Steve Cohen, Leon Black, Ken Griffin, Eli Broad, Sheikh Mohammed bin Ali Al Thani, David Geffen, et al. And, add recent converts to the ilk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg.
On the topic, I’ve been apprised that one of the biggest Modern art collections is heading to the auction block at Sotheby’s or Christie’s, potentially belonging to the estate of deceased Italian industrialist and former principal owner of Fiat, Giovanni Angelli (1921–2003).
<https://tinyurl.com/2cdvc7vk>
I like the Hole gallery’s proprietor, Kathy Grayson, and her beloved dog, Bertie (R.I.P.)—or I did, anyway, before fielding calls from a handful of disgruntled artists about her allegedly continuing to owe a number of them proceeds from consummated and paid-for sales, at best trickle-paying them in insultingly (as described by the recipients) minuscule and irregular anemic drips. They claim she has a history of ghosting emails for months on end and going years without any payments whatsoever, in some cases. The dog—better treated than many of her artists—became a cash cow for Grayson as a well-paid social media influencer.
In response to my texts, Kathy replied:
Hey Kenny! Dang I’m sorry, the business has been improving and catching up on payments, been making good progress recently. Def busting ass to get back to normal! As far as I know I am in touch with everyone, and responding and making payments towards all. Sigh…. Thanks for the heads up I’ll try to figure out who I have not been in touch with and resolve with them! I’m gonna make sure everyone is caught up. We report sales when clients pay, since so many the last few years disappear. We get 99% but for sure I’ve missed some, esp w giant group shows. Anyhoo I’m on it thank you so much for the text. If you’re in LA come see this crazy Barry McGee show (which she co-organized with Deitch projects)!
A few have continued showing with Grayson, in spite of her payment practices (or lack of them). I spoke to an artist who was promised an escrow account would be set up to prevent what she had previously endured, only for it to be flouted, and now she is back in the precarious position of futilely beseeching the gallery for delinquent funds. Another in a similar predicament is in the current McGee exhibition. He told me he couldn’t resist the career exposure of a Deitch-sanctioned show. He wasn’t alone in that regard, either.
<https://tinyurl.com/yvssjujs>
What deplorable circumstances when opportunities are so scarce on the ground that some artists have no recourse other than to be owed outstanding monies and be compelled to continue toxic relationships. In the present environment, artists have become an increasingly desperate lot. And they (we) are invariably the first to get screwed since the stuff came off cave walls. Forget buyer beware, in today’s treacherous art world of dwindling opportunities, it’s oftentimes ARTISTS BEWARE (OF UNSCRUPULOUS DEALERS). And gallery employees, too, for that matter: I spoke to long past employees also stuck in same predicament.
I had an exhibition, and even after it was rescheduled to a less desirable slot, I was asked to pay for shipping just prior to its start—both to and from the space. Nevertheless, I wanted the imprimatur of the gallery, which is a strategy that I can no longer afford (nor can most others similarly situated).
This whole yeoman-like enterprise of recounting the machinations of the art market continues to weigh on me. Yes, I’ve written it before, but I’m frankly questioning why I bother. I may just revert to making, teaching, and writing about art.
<https://tinyurl.com/5n9bzby3> _Kenny Schachter_artnet

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STRONG
<https://tinyurl.com/2yhbd5uc> _DavidShrigley

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PAINTING THAT MADE TURNER’S NAME GETS SECOND PUBLIC SHOWING SINCE 1799
<https://tinyurl.com/befzjxsx>
The painting which kick-started JMW Turner’s career is to be shown publicly for the first time since the end of the 18th century.
Abergavenny Bridge (1798) was displayed just once at the Royal Academy in 1799 before being bought by a private individual. Over the next two centuries it was owned by a handful of other British collectors.
The watercolour is especially significant because it is the one which helped Turner to be elected, at 24 years old, as the youngest associate royal academician. He became a full RA three years later.
<https://tinyurl.com/vvjysx78>
In the summer of 1798 Turner spent six weeks sketching in Wales, starting from Bristol where he had stayed a few days with the Narraway family, who were friends of his father.
Boyd has read a letter, written by John Narraway’s niece, Ann Dart, stating: “Turner went from my uncle’s house on a sketching tour of Wales. My uncle gave him a pony and lent him a saddle, bridle and cloak. But these he never returned.” Turner’s excuse might have been that he was then impecunious.
<https://tinyurl.com/5n72racz> _TimesUK

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THE MOUNT WASHINGTON POST
<https://tinyurl.com/4hk6spsc> _LisaAnneAuerbach

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OBSCURED GAUGUIN NUDE SCULPTURE MAY BE REVEALED IN ITS ENTIRETY by Martin Bailey
https://tinyurl.com/yra54u94
An erotic sculpture by Paul Gauguin, partly painted over in order to import it into the US in the 1950s, is now likely to be transformed again through conservation work. This would involve removal of later overpaint on the figure of a naked woman, to expose the artist’s original image and colour palette. The polychromed wood panel, inscribed in Tahitian Te Fare Amu, is a promised donation to the Brooklyn Museum in New York.
The crouching woman was carved in relief on the left side of the panel. Gauguin painted her body green, but coloured the genitals red. When the American collector Henry Pearlman bought Te Fare Amu in Paris in 1954, he disguised the oversized genital area with green overpaint to avoid the work being seized by US customs as obscene. In his published reminiscences he wrote that he believed the Gauguin sculpture was “quite sensual” and would need to pass through US customs, “which could have refused admission on account of its indecency”.
The sculpted relief of the panel is so shallow that Lynda Zycherman, a conservator at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, once suggested that it could be “thought of as a painting on wood rather than a relief sculpture”. This makes it even more of an issue that some of the artist’s original vermilion paint has been hidden. She criticised the overpainting as a “serious editorial suppression of Gauguin’s original concept”.
The inscription Te Fare Amu is generally translated as “the house of eating”, although Pearlman insisted on naming the sculpture The House of Joy. As he explained, the sculpture included the “image of a prostitute, with her genitals exposed and red buttons running up her spine denoting passion”. These were the thoughts of the collector, not necessarily those of the artist.
<https://tinyurl.com/af6ztpvy>
Up until then the sculpture, owned by a French private collector, had been considered quite acceptable. It was shown in Paris, at the Orangerie, in the prestigious 1949 exhibition that celebrated the centenary of Gauguin’s birth.
In 2017, when the sculpture had been lent to the exhibition Gauguin: Artist as Alchemist at the Art Institute of Chicago, it was examined by that institution’s conservators. Daniel Edelman, a grandson of Pearlman, tells: “The original red paint underneath had adhered to the added layer and removal wasn’t possible with currently available techniques. I am sure that this will be re-examined in the near future.”
Gauguin carved and polychromed Te Fare Amu to place it above the entrance to his hut in Polynesia. Its date has been subject to discussion, with most specialists now believing that it was done in either 1895 or 1897, when the artist lived on the island of Tahiti. Some think that it dates from 1901 or 1902, following Gauguin’s move to Hiva Oa, in the Marquesas Islands. They cite Gauguin’s comment in his Hiva Oa manuscript Noa Noa that “close to my hut there was another: the “fare amu (house for eating)”. Hopefully the curators and conservators at the Brooklyn Museum will soon be able to research the dating.
Carved in a rough style on sequoia wood, and nearly 1.5m wide, the text “TE FARE AMU” is followed by “PGO”, an abbreviation for Paul Gauguin. The artist enjoyed the fact that in French these letters would be pronounced “pego”, a slang word for penis.
As with so much of Gauguin’s art, the message of the sculpture is ambiguous, with layers of meaning and no simple interpretation. Gauguin has been widely criticised for his attitude towards women and Polynesian people and culture. Even so, his art is complex and open to varying interpretations. Beneath the text “TE FARE AMU”, Henry Pearlman thought there was a foetus, which “grows into a serpent and then a tadpole”. He saw the white animal as representing “perfidy”. Next to it is a male face with long red hair (signifying a European) who might represent the artist, although with some Polynesian features.
<https://tinyurl.com/2zhacpcr>
As for the colouration, Pearlman recalled a visit to New York by the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz. Discussing Te Fare Amu together, the two men felt that Gauguin had added red genitals to balance the red lips of the Polynesian woman on the far right of the carving.
In its content, Te Fare Amu seems to have more to do with lust than food, which raises questions about the title. It has much in common with Gauguin’s decorative wood panels for his Maison du Jouir (house of joy), which he carved in 1901-02 for his hut on Hiva Oa. These other panels are now at the Musée d’Orsay, which translates Gauguin’s “jouir” as “sensual pleasure”. _ArtNewspaper

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CENSORED GAUGUIN MAY GET MAKEOVER
Martin Bailey, writing in The Art Newspaper, reports on the history and possible future of Henry Pearlman's Gauguin relief Te Fare Amu (now on view at LACMA). It appears that Pearlman himself was the one who "censored" the female nude's genitals, in order to get the painted wood carving past U.S. Customs.
According to best practices, overpainting should be separated by a layer of varnish for reversibility. That seems not to have been done.
Gauguin's erotic subjects are still viewed with ambivalence, though the conversation centers more on colonialism and white privilege than indecency and red vaginas. At LACMA the Gauguin's lighting and placement high above a doorway make it difficult to see. The same room has two of Wilhelm Lehmbruck's idealized nudes at eye level.
<http://tiny.cc/lnuz001> _William Poundstone_LosAngelesCountyMuseumOnFire

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LUTZ BACHER, "JOKES (BRANDO)," 1987-88
<https://tinyurl.com/kfkyrdth> _MichaelLobel

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44. MUHAMMAD ALI DRAFT CARD by Rainey Knudson
<https://tinyurl.com/52a72fe7>
We’ve had four presidents who dodged the draft, and two presidential candidates, one from each party, who served honorably in that war and were not elected. But in 1967, there was even less clarity of hindsight than there is today. This was amid the injustice of a draft system about which Muhammad Ali said, “It wasn’t just Black people being drafted. The government had a system where the rich man’s son went to college, and the poor man’s son went to war.” By the end, more than 3.1 million Americans had been stationed in Vietnam, and 50,279 service members were killed, an astonishing figure today.
He was just 25 years old, the heavyweight champion of the world. He refused to sign his draft card as a conscientious objector, famously saying, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.” An all-white jury in Houston convicted him of violating Selective Service laws. He was stripped of his title, his boxing license, and sentenced to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. For three years—prime years of his boxing career—he fought the decision to the Supreme Court, which in 1971 overturned his conviction in a unanimous 8-0 ruling, with Thurgood Marshall recusing himself.
This was all before the Fight of the Century, the Rumble in the Jungle, and Ali’s later role as a globally respected elder statesman. We will never know what fights he might have had, what records he’d have set, during his three-year exile from the sport. _TheImpatientReader

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AMERICAN ABSTRACT ARTIST CHARMION VON WIEGAND WAS BORN ON THIS DATE IN 1896.
She was artistically and philosophically adventurous
(De Stijl! Theosophy! No, wait, Communism! No, wait, Buddism!)
and poured it all into her beautiful paintings. Untitled, 1946:
<https://tinyurl.com/59fey9vv> _‪PeterHuestis‬

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CHRISTO WRAPPED TOY HORSE, 1963
<https://tinyurl.com/437dmrvj>
The way Jeanne-Claude’s NYT obituary tells it, her Bulgarian refugee husband Christo was already wrapping objects when they began their collaboration in 1962: “To avoid confusing dealers and the public, and to establish an artistic brand, they used only Christo’s name. In 1994 they retroactively applied the joint name “Christo and Jeanne-Claude” to all outdoor works and large-scale temporary indoor installations. Other works were credited to Christo alone.”
So this fascinating-looking Wrapped Toy Horse from 1963, the year before the duo moved from Paris to NYC, is Christo’s, and Jeanne-Claude is fine with that._greg.org

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JOHN KOCH MAN PUTTING ON HIS SHIRT, N.D.
<https://tinyurl.com/dtvmphkf> _RabihAlameddine

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MAGS AND JAMES FRANCO by The art daddy
And then there was the duo. There were daily morning runs up the Hollywood Hills IG content. Magnus Resch and James Franco were essentially Velcroed to one another all week. The Hole. Deitch’s 99-cent fever dream. Felix. Frieze. If there was a room with collectors, cameras, or even mild oxygen, they appeared together.
It had the energy of a freshly debuted art bromance. Strategic. Sunlit. Slightly overexposed.
It genuinely read as though James was the mother gliding ahead with practiced ease while Magnus trailed just behind on a soft cotton leash. Not dragged. Not restrained. Just tethered. Enough slack to signal autonomy. Close enough to signal alliance. A curated intimacy.
Magnus’s brand has always been professional objectivity with a side of selective proximity. Economist composure. Studio-visit murmur. A fascination with talent that conveniently aligns with youth, beauty, and market promise. Neutral on paper. Charged in person.
Fasten that to Franco whose public controversies and subsequent cultural recalibrations are part of the record and the optics take on texture. After very public reckonings, visibility is never casual. Who you stand beside becomes narrative architecture. They moved like mutual wingmen. Or mutual rebranding consultants
<https://tinyurl.com/es2emt2h>
A small orbit of others followed, completing the tableau. Not chaotic. Not immaculate. Just faintly loaded. The kind of energy that feels choreographed but denies rehearsal.
Was it solidarity? Strategy? An art bromance forged in shared scrutiny? Hard to say.
But Art Week is theater. Reinvention loves a warm crowd. Redemption prefers good lighting. And nothing says contemporary culture quite like two men in sunglasses performing proximity under a California sun.
Felix Podcast
And then the Felix podcast on opening day. A rotating lineup took the mic, including Jeff Magid, who delivered what can only be described as campaign-slogan abstraction. On the record, the thesis hovered somewhere around “great art for everyone.”
It sounded inspirational. It also sounded like it belonged on a tote bag.
What is “great”? Who is “everyone”? Great according to whom? At what price point?
Taste is subjective. Markets are not. The host, Janelle Zara whom Daddy respects, nodded along. And respectfully: no, Janelle. We do not automatically agree with Jeff.
Jeff positions himself as anti-elitist. Anti-gatekeeping. Anti-exclusion. It’s a seductive posture. But there’s something almost theatrical about denouncing elitism while simultaneously cosplaying Melinda French Gates opening a school for orphaned girls in Malawi.
Let’s be clear. You did not open a humanitarian foundation. You opened an Airbnb for your private art collection in Mexico City. That is not the same genre.
And that’s fine. Own the lifestyle project. Own the hospitality-as-art-extension model. Own the curated fantasy of accessibility. But don’t wrap it in the moral glow of universal good without defining what that actually means.
Because “great art for everyone” at an art fair where booths are clearing seven figures is not anti-elitism. It’s branding. And Daddy prefers clarity to campaign slogans
LA Art Week runs on heat, liquidity, and men in linen pretending they are not auditioning. I flirted. I filed. I observed. I watched seven-figure confidence move quietly while corrections moved even quieter. Women abstractionists anchored booths. Textiles cleared. Mexico City programs held steady. Meanwhile alliances debuted in sunlight, art bromances toured the circuit, and slogans floated just above the champagne line. And men from my past decided this was the moment to message me. Under California light, everything looks cinematic. That does not mean everything holds.
The hangars will empty. The hotel rooms will revert to beds. The pool will be just a pool again. What remains is structure who transacts, who builds, who sustains once the lighting softens. I came west, did the work, took the temperature, and left with clarity, copy filed, and at least three international hypotheticals still circling. Spectacle is loud and power is quiet. And I pay attention to both. _Theartdaddy