Curatorial Fiasco by Francesco Bonami. Prince, Murakami, Stingel, Cattelan, Fischer @ Dead Gago Art Basel ’25 キュレーターフランチェスコ・ボナミの大失敗。プリンス、村上、スティンゲル、カテラン、フィッシャー @ 死んだガゴ・アート・バーゼル ’25

Mario A’s masterpiece @ Gago AB 25 — Mario A's Masterpiece

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Curator Francesco Bonami contextualising the Death of Gago in 2025 — Curator Francesco Bonami contextualising the “Death of Gago” and the “New York Art Scene” in 2025

https://www.instagram.com/p/DLA8AUFogCZ/

Curator Francesco Bonami in Prison (archive photo)

Gagosian up–date — Anna Weyant and Larry Gagosian

Richard Prince’s appropriation of Patrick Cariou’s photos — Richard Prince’s appropriation of Patrick Cariou’s photographs

Gagosian Booth @ Art Basel 2025. Curation by Francesco Bonami. Center in the back: Richard Prince’s appropriation of Patrick Cariou’s photographs

A disgraceful curatorial practice by Francesco Bonami, member of Gagosian Board of Directors, during Art Basel 2025.
Bonami approves of Richard Prince’s appropriation of Patrick Cariou’s photographs. This work by Prince has been hidden on Gagosian’s official websites across every conceivable medium: Instagram, Facebook, X, the Art Basel website, and the GAGOSIAN website. Bonami also does not feature Prince’s work on his Instagram account.
There were no explanatory texts or information about Prince’s work at the booth.

Gagosian Booth, curated by Francesco Bonami

Rudolf Stingel “Untitled” 2012 (Back) — (back) Rudolf Stingel “Untitled” 2012

Self-referential, 4-years-older-than-me, Francesco Bonami’s oxymoron parallax laid bare by YOSHIMOTO Banana 吉本ばばな.

Quote:
Kenny catapulted into the ultimate stratosphere of global art world gossip when he publicised his companionable relationship with Inigo Philbrick, aka Eleve of White Cube art dealer Jay Jopling, in the New York Magazine Vulture, an American entertainment news website, March 2020. Art Flipper Philbrick bet big on Rudolf Stingel, with a “support purchase” at a major auction house, and also because Kenny “probably”, nota bene: just my guess!, whispered the planned solo show of Stingel at Swiss Fondation Beyeler in the village of Riehen (close to the German boarder at the Dreiländereck) in his ear.

Rudolf Stingel Untitled 2012, oil on canvas, 241.3 x 193 cm — Fondation Beyeler Catalogue “Rudolf Stingel” 2019. The famous “Picasso” in question. Rudolf Stingel “Untitled” 2012, oil on canvas, 241.3 x 193 cm

I had positioned myself on the opposite side.
Knowing Rudolf personally, I had of course seen his “Picasso” (“Untitled” 2012) work in the Art Basel fair, contemplated at “ART LOVERS : STORIES OF ART IN THE PINAULT COLLECTION” in Monaco 2014, visited the Stingel’s solo exhibitions at the Fondation Beyeler and, by Japanese architect ANDO Tadao beautifully restored, ‘Palazzo Grassi’, which belongs to collector François Pinault, owner of Christie’s Auction House.

Stingel’s art market crash was foreseeable.
The rest is history and wanna-be-deep-pocket-Indigo ended up in prison.

For my dear ART+CULTURE readers may I filter out the following quote, as it explains in detail how “flipping” art works is being practiced.

Quote:
“Philbrick had a close-knit group of friends and supporters he regularly traded with who were steadily driving up prices from one deal to the next. Often it was “secondary market” works (what car dealerships might call “pre-owned”), since galleries in various ways make it difficult to buy works of coveted “primary market” art (art that has not been previously sold, sometimes hot off the easel) by giving early access to their established collectors. These are people trusted not to flip the art and instead play along to the subtle and incremental holding game lest its value shoot up unsustainably quickly and then deflate. In practice, this often means that only insiders can reliably make money in an art market.
Sometimes you’d have to do clever things to get access. Philbrick would use a network of art advisers and proxies — even actual actors playing an art-interested version of their recognizable selves to starstruck gallerists — to buy works that might not be for sale directly to him, only to flip them.”

Full text @
MAR. 16, 2020. The Art World’s Mini-Madoff and Me Boozy nights and high-stakes art trades with Inigo Philbrick.
By Kenny Schachter

screenshot Kenny Schachter — Screenshot from The New York Magazine / Vulture / website. Caption: “lnigo Philbrick, left, and the writer, in St. Moritz on New Year’s Eve in 2015. Photo: Courtesy Schachter” ここに載せた写真は、すべて「好意によりクリエーティブ・コモン・センス」の文脈で、日本美術史の記録の為に発表致します。
Creative Commons Attribution　Noncommercial-NoDerivative Works
photos: cccs courtesy creative common sense

https://www.vulture.com/2020/03/inigo-philbrick-art-dealer.html

Check：
https://art-culture.world/articles/kenny-schachter/
https://art-culture.world/people/stingel-rudolf/

From left Nan Goldin “Veiled woman” 2024, Maurizio Cattelan “Lie” 2025, Christo “Wrapped Bottle” 1958 — (From left) Nan Goldin “Veiled woman” 2024, Maurizio Cattelan “Lie” 2025, Christo “Wrapped Bottle” 1958

村上隆 MURAKAMI Takashi “The 53 Stations of the Tokaido, Hakone” 2025. Acrylic, ca. 60 (H) x 100 (W) x 3 (D) cm. @ GAGOSIAN Booth Art Basel 2025. Price: 225.000 US Dollar / 33.000.000 Japanese Yen （3千300万円）+ Tax.

村上隆 MURAKAMI Takashi “The 53 studies of the Tokaido, Hakone”, detail — 村上隆 MURAKAMI Takashi “The 53 Studies of the Tokaido, Hakone” 2025. Acrylic, ca. 60 (H) x 100 (W) x 3 (D) cm, detail @ GAGOSIAN Booth Art Basel 2025. Price: 225.000 US Dollar / 33.000.000 Japanese Yen （3千300万円）+ Tax.

Instagram screenshot Bello Bonami — Instagram screenshot “Bello Bonami”

1. Francesco Bonami’s rudeness: Treats the fair visitors as cognitive bias ignorants.
2. Francesco Bonami’s curatorial practice: Full of empty, lazy re-re-appropriation, digipics and trompe-l’œil art.
3. Francesco Bonami’s arrogance: Purposely displays neither any curatorial explanations on the wall of the booth nor any data (name, title, year, material, price) about the works.
4. Shameful Francesco Bonami’s cacophony ignores the essence of contemporary curatorial practice: Where are video installations, or social commentaries on current wars like those in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip?

J’accuse!
How dare you promote mediocre, irrelevant (third-rate Picassos), Larry-couldn’t-sell-in-NY garbage to European collectors!