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Inigo Philbrick, the disgraced art dealer who committed the largest art fraud in American history, may have been released from prison but his crimes still resonate. On Tuesday, a US magistrate judge said that a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting that was used by Philbrick in his illegal scheme belongs to a collector he misled—and not the high-profile art lender he also duped.

The collector, Alexander “Sasha” Pesko, has been locking horns with the art lender. Athena Art Finance, for over five years in court filings that outline complex and conflicting transactions by Philbrick. He was released from federal prison earlier this year after pleading guilty to wire fraud in 2021.

In 2016, Philbrick purchased the Basquiat, titled Humidity (1982), for $12.5 million from Phillips auction house. He then sold shares in it to Pesko and another collector called Damien Delahunty, telling them that they were buying the shares from a company in Pennsylvania—SKH Management Corp. The firm, however, didn’t exist. Pesko and Delahunty are allies in the litigation, but the judge’s writing only mentions the former.

Pesko purchased a 66 percent stake in Humidity for $12 million through his company Satfinance, while Delahunty bought a 12.5 percent stake, forking out $2.75 million.

When the cash landed in his bank account, Philbrick resold the Basquiat in its entirety to an offshore company called Boxwood that he had set up on the island of Jersey in the English Channel. After this, he included the painting in a series of works that he used as collateral to get his hands on a $10 million loan from Athena. Athena then locked the painting in a New York storage facility in 2017.

Two years later, Athena sent Boxwood and Philbrick a default notice. At the same time, he was also hit with his first serious fraud lawsuit. Not long after, Philbrick fled the US. A judge in New York then ruled that he owed Athena $14.3 million, and the art lender moved to take ownership of the Basquiat.

Pesko and Delahunty protested the decision, and the parties have been battling over Humidity ever since.

Valerie Figueredo, the US magistrate dealing with the case, said Philbrick’s transfer to Boxwood through his company Inigo Philbrick Ltd was “a fraudulent conveyance.” She added that Boxwood “had no rights in the painting and thus could not convey a security interest to Athena.”

Figueredo’s decision is a recommendation to the case’s presiding judge, U.S. District Court Judge George B. Daniels, who will end up making the final call.

For its part, Athena said it will appeal the decision. Jonathan Shapiro, one of the art lender’s attorneys, told Artnet News, “Our client utilizes an industry leading, well-trodden approach to asset-backed lending. Ultimately, we expect that the court will rule—as other courts have in the past—that the secured lender is entitled to enforce its rights against Philbrick and, in this case, his ‘silent partners.’”

Artnet news also spoke to Gregory Clarick, an attorney for Delahunty, who said, “We are pleased that the court correctly and sensibly found that Inigo Philbrick could not transfer the painting to Athena after he sold interests to Satfinance and to our client Delahunty Ltd.”

At the opening of the inaugural Atlanta Art Fair (AAF) this week, there was discussion of what the fair—the first of its stature in Atlanta—is not. A numbers contest; a commercial thoroughfare; a crash landing into some locale’s front yard, complete with cleanup for the locals. The ambition is site-specificity: come, buy, stay, but this labor is foremost for the love of Atlanta.

“All of the people here are so passionate about finding funding, championing their artists. Every dollar has to be fought for, there is so much work to amplify each voice. People need to be paying attention to Atlanta, but there hasn’t been a mechanism for that,” Kelly Freeman, the fair’s director, told ARTnews. (Atlanta, it’s worth noting, ranks 49th in the US in terms of public art funding.) Freeman added that regional artists don’t lack quality or quantity, but rather a gathering place.

The Atlanta Art Fair, open to the public Friday through October 6 at Pullman Yards—jam-packed at the preview—is the presumed remedy.

Five years in the making, the fair was organized by New York’s Art Market Productions (AMP), which Freeman also leads, and Intersect Art and Design, which runs the popular summer fair in Aspen. Nato Thompson, curator and self-described “cultural infrastructure builder,” was tapped as artistic director for AAF.

In the lead-up to the fair, the AAF team said to expect a “unique microcosm of the American South,” with strong representation by regional galleries and a smattering of New York, Los Angeles, and international outfits. I don’t know about the whole South, but the fair was a neat introduction to the outfits that fuel Atlanta art; its cultural partners include the High Museum of Art, the National Black Arts Festival, and Flux Projects. Hopefully the exhibitor list in subsequent editions will expand to include more galleries and partners across the South.

On Thursday, the culture ministers of France and Madagascar announced a joint effort to begin the process of repatriating human remains seized while the African nation was under French colonial rule.

Officials from both countries revealed the appointment of a joint scientific committee to conduct a review Madagascar’s claim to the legal title of the skull of King Toera, a Sakalava king who was beheaded by French troops in the late 19th century. The decapitation happened during a military campaign to suppress a rebellion in the tribal region of Menabe. France officially colonized Madagascar in 1896, and Madagascar gained independence in 1960.

This agreement between the two countries follows the passing of a French law in December 2023 mandating the state to facilitate the restitution of human remains held in its public collections. It’s a legal move meant to target objects in France’s archeological collections linked to violence in formerly colonized territories.

French Culture Minister Rachida Dati described the announcement as a significant one in an ongoing move to rectify parts of the country’s colonial past. Volamiranty Donna Mara, a representative of Madagascar’s role in the joint plan, said the return of the royal remains is a significant step for the Malagasy people, while Christophe Marion, a member of France’s parliament, described it as “an act of reconciliation.”

The French government will make decision on the repatriation after the reviewing committee handling Madagascar’s request makes an official recommendation about the status of King Toera’s skull and the remains of two Sakalava chiefs being held in the Museum of Natural History in Paris.

Last week, Phillips held two back-to-to back sales of contemporary art at its New York headquarters, generating $7 million in total sales with fees. These auctions may not be as closely watched as the November evening sales by Phillips and its competitors, but they provide a window onto trends that may be seen next month on the block.

Phillips specialists initially expected the more than 200 lots auction last week to bring in up to $9 million. But almost 50 lots went unsold, and total hammer prices ended up adding up to just over $5 million. This may not bode well for the November sales.

Many recent reports have suggested that sales at the market is slumping, with auction houses’ sales declining by more than 20 percent since 2023, according to one survey. The day sales, which often mirror what is taking place elsewhere in the market, could be further proof of the downturn feared by many.

Yet the Phillips day sales also brought some positive news, showing that lesser-known names could still stand out, even when some collectors have scaled back their buying.

At the top end, work by famous figures like Richard Prince and George Condo still sold well. Prince had two works in the sales, with Untitled (de Kooning) realizing $279,400, while Condo saw three works cross the auction block, with Stepmonk’s Diary selling for $279,400. Each work by Prince and Condo hammered above its low estimate.

Carrie Mae Weems, George Condo, Jenny Holzer, and Hank Willis Thomas are just a few of the artists that have donated work to Artists for Kamala, a benefit in support of Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.

Works range in price from $250 for prints to as much $300,000 for household names like Jeff Koons and Amy Sherald. There were 164 works donated in total, around 50 of the which will be auctioned online through Artsy, starting on September 30 and closing on October 8. The remaining works come with fixed prices and are available on the Artists for Kamala website.

According to Artsy, the online auction alone is expected to raise over $1 million. Proceeds will go toward the Harris Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee that raises money for Harris for President, the Democratic National Committee, and state Democratic parties. 

Last week, ARTnews celebrated the 35th edition of its annual Top 200 Collectors list with a cocktail party in New York at Central Park Tower, the tallest residential building in the world.

The evening’s cohosts were Top 200 Collectors Pamela J. Joyner, who has ranked on the list since 2016, and Allison Berg, who joins the list for the first time this year. ARTnews, Central Park Tower, and HUB International welcomed guests with a 360-degree view of Manhattan from the 121st floor.

Notable attendees included fellow Top 200 Collectors Estrellita Brodsky, Lonti Ebers, Kent Kelley, Suzanne McFayden, Sonya Yu, and Ryan Zurrer, as well as artists Lorna Simpson, Thelonious Stokes, and Dustin Yellin. Mary Schmidt Campbell, whose essay on Abby Aldrich Rockefeller is excepted in the issue, and Joel Wachs, who is profiled in the issue, also attended, as did numerous art dealers and advisers.

Both cohosts spoke about art collecting and topics that are near and dear to their heart. Joyner recognized and welcomed the new diversity in the room—and on the Top 200 list. Berg welcomed the support of everyone when speaking about the A&L Berg Foundation, whose goal is to support the next generation of those in art world professionals.

The Van Gogh Museum has identified three works attributed to Van Gogh in private collections that are fake, including a painting of a peasant women that sold through Christie’s for nearly $1 million in 2011 and was even previously authenticated by the Amsterdam institution.

Three Van Gogh Museum specialists—Teio Meedendorp, Louis van Tilborgh and Saskia van Oudheusden—shared their findings in the October issue of the Burlington Magazine. The works in question had previously been accepted as authentic in the 1970 catalogue raisonné by Jacob-Baart de la Faille.

For decades, Interior of a Restaurant was considered a second version of an authentic van Gogh, Interior of the Grand Bouillon-Restaurant le Chalet, Paris (1887), which is held in a private collection. This was not particularly unusual for the artist, who often made different iterations of his paintings, either as gifts or to experiment.

Interior of a Restaurant appeared in the 1950s, but specialists determined that the brushwork didn’t resemble the original style and that the colors were not a match with the artist’s palette from this time, which includes a Manganese blue synthetic pigment patented in 1935.

There were additional discrepancies among the flowers, with the first depicting autumn begonias and the second painting yellow sunflowers, which would have been past their season when the paintings were made in the late autumn.

As New York City Mayor Eric Adams continues to face fallout after being indicted on charges of bribery, campaign finance, and more, a new report alleges that his administration sought a Brooklyn Museum show at the behest of one aide in charge of Chinese American community relations.

That aide, Winnie Greco, is herself under investigation, although she has not been accused of wrongdoing. She was brought on by the organization as a volunteer liaison and reportedly claimed in her 2021 taxes not to have received income, though a report published by the City on Thursday raised questions about her actual status with the administration, noting that though she was unpaid, she had an official email address.

The City report highlighted the various programs organized by Greco and seemed to compare her role to that of Linda Sun, the former aide to Governor Kathy Hochul who has been accused of being a Chinese agent. Sun has pleaded not guilty.

In 2016, Greco reportedly reached out to the Brooklyn Museum about the prospect of a China-themed show. According to the City, Greco was working with the Overseas Chinese History Museum of China, and she wanted an exhibition on Sun Yat-sen, a key leader in modern Chinese history whom Greco described as the “leader of China’s republican revolution.”

Greco had reportedly sought to hold the show in the Brooklyn Museum’s galleries for European art, but the museum said it could not do so on such short notice. Then Adams adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin reportedly stepped in, emailing the institution to “ensure that the museum was fully aware of Borough Hall’s interest in supporting the request, if it were possible.” In an email quoted by the City, Brooklyn Museum director reaffirmed that the institution could not mount an exhibition in a month.

“O was an otter / who slept in the same bed with this young man, / and there was never an odder otter.” Above this verse by Ralph Thomas Ward winds a single sinuous line, tracing two male silhouettes united in the prelude to a kiss or a tender tête-à-tête. Andy Warhol’s Two Male Heads Face to Face (1952) found early publication alongside various images of unabashedly same-sex desire, as did lithographs from the artist’s “Studies for a Boy Book,” exhibited at New York’s Bodley Gallery on Valentine’s Day in 1954.

Warhol’s homosexuality—the subject of a wide-ranging and elegant show titled “Warhol: Velvet Rage and Beauty” at Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin—proved an open secret for most of his adult life. Gathering over 300 paintings, prints, photographs, collages, films, and drawings, the exhibition (on view through October 6) hammers this home from the offerings in the first room: a series of works on paper, including his celebrated “blotted line” drawings, that feature a range of undressed young men as subjects and objects of an amorous gaze. The continuity of that vision through subsequent decades and diverse media finds confirmation in a monitor playing Blow Job (1964)—a silent cinematic homage to voyeuristic pleasure concentrated in the male face—suspended above the same gallery.

Just across from Two Male Heads hang photographs and a silkscreen painting of Jon Gould, with whom Warhol maintained an undisclosed romance until the former’s death from AIDS-related pneumonia in 1986. Sandwiched between the McCarthyite hunt for “perverts” and the depredations of the AIDS crisis, Warhol’s sexual identity hardly found auspicious circumstances in which to flourish.

Timed to coincide with Berlin’s LGBTQ Pride festivities—a giant rainbow flag ripples from one of the museum’s masts—“Velvet Rage and Beauty” vows to give Warhol the “proud coming-out” he never enjoyed in his lifetime. The artist continues to stand out not for the embodiment of a rousing erotic life but precisely the opposite: an almost magical incarnation of affectlessness and an ability to sink beneath the skin of the most familiar objects and images, including his own mask-like face. Many of the works in the show are far less familiar than his trademark Brillo Boxes or Campbell’s Soup Cans. A good portion of them were never exhibited until after Warhol’s death in 1987. Yet several—from the racy cover of the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers to the image of Joe Dallesandro’s shirtless torso (from Warhol’s film Flesh) on the Smiths’ eponymous debut album—emerge here from a long public closeting to find new queer and contemporary inflections.

It is the tension between the love of male beauty and its compulsory occlusion that the exhibition aims to stage, borrowing half its title from Alan Downs’s book The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man’s World (2005). That volume explores the pain of growing up gay in a straight world, and the strategies developed to elude its attendant shame: impulsive distractions from an inauthentically experienced existence, compulsive “decorations” of one’s life with professional success and its material masks. As the American artist Glenn Ligon notes in Netflix’s 2022 documentary series The Andy Warhol Diaries, Warhol embodied “the right kind of gay … a nice artist, acceptable.” That palatable queerness formed a piece with his redacted family name—a “Warhola” shorn of the more “ethnic” redolence of its final vowel.

September 3 – October 19, 2024

September 4 – October 5, 2024