アーティ・パワープレイ：画家アンナ・ウェイアント (27) とラリー・ガゴシアン (77) の「交際中」 Arty Power-Play: Painter Anna Weyant (27) "is dating" Larry Gagosian (77)
Cross-check:
世界一のアートディーラー、New York City ラリー・ガゴシアンを巡って
World’s No.1 Art Dealer, Larry Gagosian from New York City
https://art-culture.world/articles/larry-gagosian/
東京の半年前。
「アナ・ウェイヤント「Splinter」
BLUM & POE 東京
2022.01.29 – 03.12
BLUM & POE 東京では、ニューヨークを拠点とする作家、アナ・ウェイヤントの個展「Splinter」を開催する。
アナ・ウェイヤントは、1995年カルガリー、カナダ⽣まれ。ロードアイランド・スクール・オブ・デザイン（ロードアイランド州プロビデンス）にてBFAを修了。これまで「Loose Screw」（Blum & Poe、ロサンゼルス、2021）、「Welcome to the Dollhouse」（56 Henry、ニューヨーク、2019）といった個展を開催してきた。
ウェイヤントは、本展で紹介する作品群において、アメリカの女性向けケーブルチャンネル「ライフタイム」局の映画や、90年代のセレブ文化といった視覚的な引用を用い、ポップカルチャーというテーマを掘り下げる。女性を侮蔑や性の対象として扱い、同時にステレオタイプに描いてきたテレビ向け映画に関心を持ったウェイヤントは、このジャンルのテレビ向け映画にありがちな誇張的にアメリカ郊外の闇を描くようなストーリーテリングを作品上で模倣している。」
https://bijutsutecho.com/exhibitions/9368
で、現在グローバル・アートシーンの中、一番ゴシップされているアナ・ウェイヤント。
笑うか、泣くか、無視するか、我々次第。
今日のアートニュースを通じて、ご自分で判断してみてください。
Op-Ed: The Anna Weyant Media Circus Is a Window Into Art World Sexism and Power
BY MIEKE MARPLE, August 10, 2022
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/anna-weyant-art-world-sexism-power-larry-gagosian-1234636156/
ー〜ー
Meet Anna Weyant, the ‘millennial Botticelli’ making millions: the Canadian-born artist rose to fame on Instagram and was signed by Gagosian – but is she really dating a 77-year-old gallery founder?
The New York-based artist made a lucrative sale of her painting Falling Woman for US$1.6 million at a Sotheby’s auction – her works also sold through Christie’s and Phillips
She made history as Gagosian’s youngest artist, joining veterans like Currin, Theaster Gates and Michael Heizer, but there are rumours she’s dating the founder
Umesh Bhagchandani, 24 Jul, 2022
https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/celebrity/article/3186180/meet-anna-weyant-millennial-botticelli-making-millions
WSJ NEWS EXCLUSIVE
Three Years Ago, Her Art Sold for $400 at the Beach. Now It Fetches Up To $1.6 Million at Auction
Anna Weyant, a new art star whose work evokes a millennial Botticelli, was discovered on Instagram. She’s also dating her dealer, Larry Gagosian.
Wall Street Journal, Kelly Crow, June 18, 2022
On the night artist Anna Weyant’s work debuted at Christie’s, the 27-year-old painter was too nervous to attend or even watch the livestream. Instead, Ms. Weyant holed up in her small Manhattan apartment and listened to a calming app on her cellphone until a friend texted with news.
“Summertime,” Ms. Weyant’s portrait of a woman with long, flowing hair that the artist had sold for around $12,000 two years before, resold for $1.5 million, five times its high estimate.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/anna-weyant-paintings-larry-gagosian-11655482365
The Making of Anna Weyant, Art’s Hot New Superstar
BABY, REMEMBER MY NAME
At 27, Anna Weyant’s paintings are already fetching over $1 million, but it was the news that Weyant was dating 76-year-old Larry Gagosian that really set arty tongues wagging.
Daily Beast, Helen Holmes May. 22, 2022
Quotes:
On Thursday evening, a flurry of glamorous spectators clutching programs and flutes of champagne settled into their seats on the seventh floor of Sotheby’s, waiting for the show to begin.
…
But Falling Woman (2020), a painting by a 27-year-old artist named Anna Weyant, was first on the docket. As soon as the clock struck 6, bids at $300,000, then $500,000 leapt out of the gate like thoroughbreds as Sotheby’s bidders shouted over one another, scrambling to claim the prize for their mysterious clients. When the dust settled, Weyant’s work had been won by an online bidder for $1.6 million, setting a new auction record for the painter.
…
When Weyant linked up with Gagosian earlier this month, her new gallery made no mention of her shows with either 56 Henry or Blum & Poe in in their acquisition announcement, sparking rumors of a behind-the-scenes dustup.
…
One insider at Sotheby’s on Thursday compared Weyant to Taylor Swift: Both are prodigies, as well as the targets of misogynistic gossip and heavy scrutiny of their dating lives.
“When someone becomes successful, people kind of forget that that’s a human being,” Rines said. “She’s a 27-year-old woman, and I think it’s really wild that men, mostly middle-aged men, are spreading all these rumors about her. I think it’s so pathetic.”
With a murderer’s row of wins under her belt, all eyes are on Weyant’s precociously charmed career, for better or for worse. What happens next?
full text:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-making-of-anna-weyant-arts-hot-new-superstar
ー〜〜〜ー
Rising star artist Anna Weyant opens up about falling out with dealer
quote:
Gagosian, who visited her spring 2021 show, invited the artist to have dinner at his Beverly Hills mansion, recalling that he was struck when she asked if he had any gin, which is one of his favorite drinks.
The couple were soon dating and vacationing together in exotic locales such as Paris and Saint-Tropez.
quote:
Weyant’s relationship with Gagosian has also set tongues wagging in the art world.
Prior to dating Weyant, Gagosian and his longtime girlfriend, Chrissie Erpf, a senior director at the gallery, split in 2019, according to Page Six.
Gagosian also briefly dated Holly Bawden, his 35-year-old former personal assistant, later in 2019, the outlet reported.
full text @
https://e-greennara.com/rising-star-artist-anna-weyant-opens-up-about-falling-out-with-dealer/
The Women of Larry Gagosian Get the Vogue Treatment
09/23/2011
The October issue of Vogue has a big piece about the “Gagosiennes,” dealer Larry Gagosian’s “fleet of high-powered women directors.” The article has not been posted online, but it is available on newsstands now.
To begin with, there is a two page photo of these women standing in Gagosian’s mammoth 24th Street branch beneath a large Calder mobile (this is somewhat misleading. Gagosian has done shows of Calder’s work, but he is not represented by the gallery; Calder is a part of the stable of Gagosian’s major competitor, The Pace Gallery). They are all wearing gowns by the likes of Oscar de la Renta, Yves Saint Laurent and Valentino. Some of them are smiling.
So, you ask, what is a Gagosienne? According to the article:
“To be a Gagosienne, you have to be ambitious, intelligent, well connected, socially adept, highly discreet, reachable at all times, stress-resistant, and mad about art. It also helps to speak several languages and to dress well…and it doesn’t hurt to be beautiful and come from an aristocratic family.”
Some other things we learned here: Mr. Gagosian claims to have been totally unaware of the fact that his female employees outnumber the men almost two to one.
“‘I’m not even aware of it,’ he says. ‘I guess you’re right. But there have always been a lot of talented women in the art world, women who run galleries and museums. Look at Peggy Guggenheim, Ileana Sonnabend, Paula Cooper. It’s never been a boys’ club, like most corporations.’”
We’ll gloss over Mr. Gagosian referring to the art world as a “corporation” in favor of directing you to Ms. Cooper’s words to The Observer on the subject of the scene’s social geography as a boys’ club.
Andrea Crane, who specializes in Impressionist and modern art at Gagosian, had this to say about her boss:
“Larry is totally gender unspecific.”
Mr. Gagosian had this to say about the female gender:
“The problem with women is they keep getting pregnant.”
(Admittedly, this quote is attributed as being spoken in a “half-joking” tone. It doesn’t help, however, that he follows up the statement by saying, “There are all these maternity leaves, one after the other, and it does create a certain amount of tension.”)
The article stresses that Mr. Gagosian rewards his employees lavishly for their hardwork, but it also points out some of the absurdities of life on the job. Speaking of Valentina Castellani, who according to the article is “closer to Larry than anyone else on staff,” the reporter recounts:
“She had turned off her BlackBerry for the interview. When we finished and she turned it back on, Larry had called seven times. And when she got back to the office, she learned that he had called her husband to find out where she was.”
The conclusion here is: “It sounds a little like the CIA—or a posse of intellectual Bond Girls.”
If that’s true, is Mr. Gagosian James Bond or Ernst Blofeld?
New York 1986: Longtime friends, Eli Broad (BROAD MUSEUM, Los Angeles) and Larry Gagosian in front of ‘Leo Castelli Gallery’.
7 Days: Larry Gagosian, Art’s Bad Boy
He came to New York and got Charles Saatchi to sell some paintings. He wooed Leo Castelli and is getting awfully friendly with his artists. He has a “past,” a future, and a slick wardrobe. He’s Larry Gagosian, the man the art world loves to hate.
by DEBORAH GIMELSON, April 12, 2019
quote:
What does he actually do? Gagosian’s a human perpetual-motion machine. When it comes to a painting he knows he wants to sell, he demonstrates almost unyielding tenacity with both the original owner and the prospective quyer. He makes hundreds of calls a day — from his office, his home, his car. To catch up with Gagosian on his car phone when the line begins to fade is to find Gagosian talking relentlessly through the static. (“The phone is Larry’s weapon of choice,” a fellow dealer suggests.) No wonder they call him Go-Go.
Day in and day out, he hangs on the wire, offering vast amounts to collectors like Newhouse, MoMA board member Agnes Gund, and Wall Street wizard Robert Mnuchin for their pictures. Not taking no for an answer is almost a game for him.
quote:
In 1985, almost out of thin air, he managed to pry some important paintings from a number of hotly desired collections, the most notable of which was that of Burton and Emily Tremaine. The Tremaines had assembled a major group of contemporary and modern works, including Jasper Johns’ iconographic White Flag. Other dealers had been dancing around the Tremaines. Gagosian was more direct.
“I looked up their phone number from Connecticut information,” he says. “I offered them a lot of money for a Brice Marden painting. Mrs. Tremaine liked me on the phone; she thought I was funny. Or maybe she liked the money I offered for the painting.”
quote:
Castelli is still sharp — although many art aficionados think that the only sign of Leo slipping is his recent and growing association with Larry Gagosian. Castelli is well-known for helping younger dealers get started (like Deborah Sharpe and Pat Hearn), but his relationship with Gagosian includes a business partnership, which was unprecedented for Castelli.
“After Ileana [Sonnabend, Castelli’s ex-wife and a dealer herself], Larry is the closest person to me in the art world,” Castelli says. That’s the kind of statement that sends a chill into the hearts of those who find Gagosian’s methods crude and fear he may be angling to take over the Castelli stable if and when Castelli decides to retire.
Gagosian and Castelli couldn’t be less alike. Castelli is elegant, discriminating, a true connoisseur in the mold of turn-of-the-century figures like Joseph Duveen and Daniel Henry Kahnweiler. Larry Gagosian, on the other hand, is flamboyant, restless – perhaps the way all dealers will have to be in the ’90s, if the market stays as heady as it is now.
“A dealer isn’t just someone who sells pictures,” says a prominent New York dealer. “The only thing Go-Go proves is that everyone has a price. He has made no contributions of his own, but has coasted on the work of other dealers.”
Castelli disputes this characterization. “Of two great paintings, Larry can determine what makes one greater,” he says.
Gagosian started visiting the Castelli Gallery several years ago, while still in business in California. (His West Broadway loft happened to be across the street from the Castelli Gallery.) Instantly, he began insinuating himself with the master.
“Sometimes we would lose Larry in the gallery and find him browsing in the racks,” recalls Susan Brundage, Castelli’s gallery director, who has worked for the dealer for 16 years. “One of the best things about Gagosian is that he does have a sense of humor. We’d have to say, ‘C’mon Larry, enough,’ before he’d stop going through our inventory.”
It was the Tremaine connection that had made Castelli first sit up and take notice of Gagosian. According to gallery sources, the Tremaines didn’t go to Castelli with their material — much of which was by “his” artists — because they simply weren’t fond of him, something that hurt Castelli deeply.
Gagosian and Castelli act as if they’ve always been in each other’s lives, like family. According to dealer Perry Rubenstein, who lives and works at Gagosian’s first New York premises, Gagosian always woos the person who can give him what he wants.
“With Larry, it’s always a matter of what can you do for me right now,” he continues. “Gagosian’s capable of sitting at someone’s table for dinner, getting information he needs, and leaving without even saying good-bye.”
Susan Brundage and her sister Patty, who also works at the gallery, describe the relationship between their boss and Gagosian as something like a romance. When the younger dealer was trying to ingratiate himself, he tendered endless attention and flattery. There were presents for Castelli, including a $7,500 Patek Philippe watch; long lunches at Castelli”s favorite restaurant, Da Silvano; longer dinners at Odeon and 150 Wooster; innumerable phone calls.
Leo, who likes to be courted (and truly is one of the few art people deserving of such treatment), was won over.
“You would have thought Leo was talking about a girlfriend,” Patty Brundage says of the early courtship days. “He talked about how Larry looked, the things he did, but didn’t say a word about his business acumen.”
Indeed, Castelli has been known to wax rhapsodic about Larry, talking about his “distinctive, close-cropped looks” and how “no one else does things in such a grand style.”
“Suddenly Leo was calling Elaine de Kooning, to try and get Larry the estate,” says Susan Brundage.
Contemporary master Willem de Kooning is still living but has Alzheimer’s disease. When he dies he will leave an estate rich in his work. (Elaine, an artist herself and now deceased, was the artist’s wife.) You may wonder why Castelli wouldn’t chase the de Kooning cache for himself, but he is still devoted to artwork fresh from his artists’ studios; he’s never been an aficionado of the secondary market. Furthermore, he seems to have a great time watching his young associate make deals. (Gagosian, incidentally, hasn’t yet won the de Kooning estate.)
“Not only is Larry the best dealer in the secondary market, but if he weren’t a dealer he would be a brilliant curator,” Castelli says. “The stories you hear about him seem unjustified gossip. People don’t dare offer the prices he offers when he wants to acquire something, and then they complain that he gets all the material.”
Gagosian came along at just the right time, Castelli says: “Art and money, to the degree that they are related, have turned the art world upside down. No one knows how to adequately deal with it. My great love was to detect not painters but movements; Larry’s is the secondary market. I wanted to be involved in the great flowering of the secondary market, and he gave me a way to do it.”
Asked if he thinks Gagosian can resist the allure of the primary market, Castelli grows philosophical. “He will go into it,” he says, “but he’s biding his time. He would not be satisfied with lesser artists, and good ones are difficult to find.”
Sometimes, however, even these two get their signals mixed. In a flurry of phone calls in the early fall, it seems they each sold the same Lichtenstein bronze — to an unidentified collector and to comedian Steve Martin, who had first dibs on it.
Those who first think that Castelli completely lost his marbles over Gagosian should take a second look. Castelli has the opportunity to make money with Larry with relatively little exertion on his part. Their gallery at 65 Thompson St. has almost no overhead, and Gagosian pulls together the shows. True, the gallery has been primarily showing Castelli artists — much, some say, to Gagosian’s chagrin, because the arrangement limits his field — but then the Castelli name, is as good as gold.
”Leo has a history of dealing with people who are universally disliked,” Susan Brundage says. “He gets a kick out of them. Before Larry, it was Doug Chrismas [a rough-and-ready L.A. dealer] and Daniel Templon [a Paris dealer].
“As for Larry, he keeps the other vultures off. Everyone thought that Toiny [Leo’s late wife] would someday be in control. When she died, you wouldn’t believe the people who descended on Leo. Leo admires Larry for being a wheelerdealer, but I don’t think Leo’s so gullible that Larry can send him down the river. You have to remember there is a lot of envy in people’s talk about all this.”
quote:
He frequently repeats one of his classics: “When women meet me, they either want to fuck me or throw up on me.”
https://www.villagevoice.com/2019/04/12/7-days-larry-gagosian-arts-bad-boy/
up-date 2023/5/25
How a lawsuit over a jointly owned Anna Weyant painting is making opaque art market structures more transparent
Governments are increasingly aware of the risks involved with using shell companies and other complex dealings to trade art
As news broke last month of a lawsuit over an Anna Weyant painting owned by several parties and involving multiple companies, the risks of the market’s preference for complexity and opacity became increasingly transparent.
The dispute, brought by an unnamed collector represented by the prominent art lawyer Aaron Richard Golub, was brought against the collector Andre Sakhai, also trading under Aiden Fine Arts and The Art Collection (collectively described as AFTAC). First filed in February, the claim alleges that, while the purchase was split three ways (around $200,000 each), proceeds from its subsequent sale months later (a disappointingly low £240,000 hammer price) only headed one way—Sakhai’s.
Judd Grossman, the lawyer representing Sakhai, says: “As our response to the complaint makes clear, the parties jointly own several works, and when put in that proper context, this lawsuit can be chalked up to an unfortunate miscommunication, which hopefully will be sorted out promptly. This case is much to-do about nothing.”
Yet, the situation still raises important questions as to whether the market needs to reconsider the complexity of such transactions.
Emerging webs
At the heart of the argument is the level of transparency offered between parties. The claim outlines how the defendants “failed and/or refused to provide such a full and complete accounting so as to conceal Defendants’ wrongful acts in derogation of the Plaintiffs’ rights”.
Similarly, the defendant’s denial of allegations include the claim that the plaintiff is “withholding possession and all information about the status of two additional works”, which they argue they also jointly own.
That the companies involved are spearheaded by Andre Sakhai—whose father Ely Sakhai was jailed for selling fake art and who fell out with former friend Inigo Philbrick, the notorious dealer jailed for duping art collectors out of $86m (amid claims Philbrick sold a work by Wayde Guyton without Andre Sakhai’s knowledge) adds to the feeling that such networks have become a little, well, incestuous.
In addition to the flow of information, the claim also considers the flow of cash. It states that “[Sakhai] abused and continues to abuse the corporate form by dominating and controlling the affairs and assets of AFTAC, freely transferring funds between AFTAC and [Sakhai]”. The claim continues: “[Sakhai] used and continues to use AFTAC as, inter alia, a shell company in order to advance his personal interests and not the legitimate business interests of AFTAC”.
Of course, multiple owners and interlinked company structures are not new or illegal. However, there is a history of their appearance within criminal instances.
Indeed, the Sakhai case emerges in the same month as a financial adviser, known only as “Opel”, spoke to The Sunday Times about a “notorious” organised crime network headed up by the Irish-based Kinahan family. The unnamed source alleged that the network invested large swathes of their money in art (as well as other assets, including wine and stocks) using complex “banking schemes” and more than 200 companies. The interview included specific mention of a Banksy worth $16m and work by Yayoi Kusama, thought to be worth around $3m.
Lawyer Eric Montalvo, who is in a separate dispute with Kinahan, describes how the cartel’s “orientation was trying to be public facing, hiding in plain sight. Whether investing in art, boxing or wine, it is a very sophisticated way of becoming legitimate.”
The publication of the Pandora Papers by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists last year revealed that more than 1,600 works of art were traded using shell companies and tax havens, including accounts used in the sale of looted artefacts by the late dealer Douglas Latchford, who was subsequently indicted (although always maintained his innocence).
Change on the horizon?
Governments are paying attention to the use of shell companies and limited transparency within the art trade. The 2020 US senate report into money laundering within the art market considered claims that $18m worth of art was purchased through shell companies linked to Arkady and Boris Rotenburg, a pair of Russian nationals who were sanctioned in 2014 (those transactions were not deemed illegal). Meanwhile, a Financial Action Task Force report into the art and antiquities market for organised criminals, which came out earlier this year, made specific mention of the risk posed by shell companies.
Nevertheless, the art lawyer Nicholas O’Donnell of Sullivan & Worcester is clear that, while capital-holding structures could be used to hide illicit money, “I do not see high-value art as a terribly smart way to try to launder money—which of course I discourage! Any payments will flow through a bank, which will have know-your-client issues that will enquire about the ultimate beneficial owner. And in the US [this owner] now has to be disclosed to a Treasury registry that is not available to the public, but which is accessible to law enforcement. The UK and EU have similar requirements.”
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/05/24/lawsuit-shared-anna-weyant-painting-ownership-structures
Up-date 2024/2/2
Larry Gagosian and Anna Weyant Call It Quits,…
quote:
GAGOYANT IS NO LONGER
For the past two years, a sizable chunk of the art world has been obsessed with the May-December relationship between titan of industry Larry Gagosian, 78, and Anna Weyant, the painter-to-watch who is 50 years his junior. Along the way, we’ve witnessed one of the most remarkable (and exploited) market trajectories of the present era, a nasty and misogynistic pregnancy rumor (hear Weyant’s heart-rending perspective on Eileen Kelly’s podcast Going Mental here), a snapshot of their dynamic in Patrick Radden Keefe’s blockbuster New Yorker profile of the dealer, and periodic rumors that the two had broken up.
Their relationship has lasted about as long as my tenure writing Wet Paint, which is why it rattles me to report that I have it on good authority that the two have ended their romantic relationship.
Wet Paint reached out to both parties and did not receive word back. But several in-the-know sources independently tipped off your dear scribe off to the news.
This has been much more than just a romantic relationship, of course. Gagosian has been representing the artist and hosted two solo shows of her moody figurative paintings. The most recent closed last month in Paris.
While Weyant’s auction prices may have cooled off a bit since they hit seven figures (her record is $1.62 million, according to the Artnet Price Database), her works still regularly sell in the mid six figures. Two years before they met, when Gagosian was just collecting her work, Weyant’s drawings were selling for $400 (on a picnic blanket) via the scrappy, taste-making Manhattan gallery 56 Henry.
Within those two years, Weyant’s star began to soar, and she picked up representation from what was then known as Blum & Poe (now Blum). But that arrangement ended acrimoniously, with Tim Blum selling her Falling Woman (2020) at auction (where it set her record), after buying it a year prior for $15,000, and the artist joining Gagosian’s lineup.
On that note, there is no indication whatsoever that the breakup will impact Weyant’s relationship with the gallery, and according to sources, Weyant was seated and smiling at Gagosian’s dinner with Dior in Paris to celebrate Richard Avedon earlier this week. Her name remains firmly on the gallery’s online roster.
I’d like to propose a toast to a future for Weyant in which her artwork is discussed without mention of her personal life, while acknowledging that this column has not helped that initiative. Onwards.
more @
https://news.artnet.com/market/larry-gagosian-anna-weyant-wet-paint-2422951
Cross-check:
世界一のアートディーラー、New York City ラリー・ガゴシアンを巡って
World’s No.1 Art Dealer, Larry Gagosian from New York City
https://art-culture.world/articles/larry-gagosian/