Kenny Schachter

Collectors v. Dealers: Mutual Antagonism, Growing Mistrust

September 17, 2014 by Kenny Schachter

Phillips Auction Catalogue Collector, curator and art world gadfly, Kenny Schachter just published on his Facebook page a telling email exchange between a young collector and a dealer. Schachter is put off by the dealer’s arrogance. The title of the post could have been: “Dealer to Collector: Your Art Sucks.”

But the correspondence is worth reading for more than that. The emotions, the turns of phrase, the insults emanating from each side seem to capture the growing sense of confrontation, mistrust and resentment on both sides of the primary art market equation:

Collector: HI

I am a xxxx based collector and co-founder of the xxxx collection a newly establish initiative who promotes emerging artists. We really like the work of xxxx and we would like to acquire a piece for the collection. Please let me know if you have something available. We have not officially launched our website but you can look at the beta version it will give you the spirit and philosophy of what we do and what we collect.

Dealer: Thanks for the e-mail and the interest in the works by xxxx. Unfortunately we have no works to offer at this point, but promise to keep your interest in mind.

Collector: Thank you very much for taking the time to reply. I would be very happy to discuss further on the phone or meet in person when you visit xxxx art fair. We are very much interested in the work of another of your artists xxxx so please keep us in mind for her upcoming show.

Dealer: I am afraid that presents itself without a sense of purpose and that we will not be able to make the collection a priority. In all fairness, I am an eager supporter of not wasting my time or the time of others, and having looked at the online presentation I find that the decisions you’ve made so far provide a context that is not the right one for these artists.

It may be that the collection is not set up as an investment fund or to give it the appearance of a Philips auction catalogue, but it tells a fairly sad story of what is generally sold today and what will hopefully sell for more tomorrow. Best of luck with building whatever collection you want, but we will unfortunately be unable to contribute to that.

All the best,

Collector: Thanks for being open and blunt. Unfortunately my collection reflects my inexperience. I started collecting 2 years ago, I never used advisors, and I never studied art. I see this enterprise as a generational push, I buy works from artists that I can relate to because we share a common history hence my focus on the emerging scene, I am myself early 30’s. I have never sold anything and I am not intending to do so, I have never participated in an auction.

In your email you are talking about the choice that I have made, the art world is very difficult to break in for non-insiders; pretentious gallerists like you refuse to sell to persons like me because “we do not provide an appropriate context”. Well, you are participating in the system that you are criticizing pushing me to buy the works that I can access easily and making the volatility of the prices a sell-fulfilling prophecy.

On my side, I will still try to support the younger generation, hoping that one day your world of privilege will come to an end.

Nothing But Time, Paul Thek Revisited, 1964-1987

September 10, 2013 by Kenny Schachter

Kenny Schachter is a private dealer and curator living in London. His latest curatorial project is a show of Paul Thek’s work at Pace Gallery that will be on view from September 25th to November 9th at 6 Burlington Gardens. The show, Nothing But Time, Paul Thek Revisited, 1964-1987, brings together works from all the media Thek used and reunites the artist with Pace Gallery which held a show for Thek in the Spring of 1966 in New York. Schachter’s catalogue essay is below:

Paul Thek newspaper 71

We are all accorded an allotment in life; if you reside in the West and manage to fully live out your lifespan expectancy of eighty-two years, you will have clocked 4,264 weeks in the process. Just shy of his 55th birthday when he needlessly passed away from AIDS related illness, Paul Thek managed only 2,844 weeks. A pittance in relation to all he might have achieved and offered, but as a mightily self-actualized and fulfilled person whose legacy we all share, Thek made the most and managed to express a good chunk during what limited time he had.

Throughout his life, Thek trained himself by relentlessly pursuing and pushing traditional technical skills in draftsmanship, sculpture and installation. Nose, hand and feet studies in sketchbooks akin to the processes utilized by masters from centuries long past are imbued with finesse, individuality and acute attention to detail.

A collection of drawings in one notepad are dated December 31, 1969, as well as the 1st of January 1970, a time many of his peers might have been out celebrating; but for Thek, productivity and production were ultimately ends in themselves. So much so to the extent that striving was the only goal that mattered. That was the key to Thek’s notion of time: it’s all (very) short so best to make do, spread your seed and be as prolific as possible. Including New Year’s Eve and Day at the end of the sixties in Europe when things must have been agitated, anxious and fun simultaneously.

Jay-Z, Baby

July 12, 2013 by Kenny Schachter

Pace is the place for art’s
celebrity arms race

Turning up today is Jay-Z and band
with plenty of fawning art stars in hand

like self absorbed kids
playing in sand

No matter your chops
nothing will stop

the gallery from showing you
the art world from blowing you

There is Franco the blank-o
entrenched in the stable
Isn’t it sad he’s not really able

But who cares he’s cute and well known
So in the gallery there’s always a home

Here’s a nod to worshipping false gods
Adultery, idolatry let’s go on a spending spree

Whose next I can only guess
Kanye, Kim, Mary-Kate and Ashley

We are the collective fantastic sycophantic
Transatlantic, pedantic full of shit and antic

But here is a warning that is needed to be heeded
Let us not forget, who remembers Famous Amos

You can’t have your cake and your cookies too
Can’t we rate artists that are good at what they do

This response to Jay-Z’s Picasso, Baby performance is brought to you by the art market’s resident satirist, Kenny Schachter.

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It’s Ground Hog Day at Art Basel, Pt. 2

June 17, 2013 by Kenny Schachter

The inimitable Kenny Schachter went to ArtBasel and wrote about it for ArtSpace twice. Here’s the second installment:
Kenny Schachter's Basel Diary, Part 2

Lucio Fontana canvases at Helly Nahmad’s Art Basel booth.

I admit to possibly forgetting that I had kids one night at about 3 a.m. at the Three Kings Hotel, where everyone congregates each night after dinners where they seat you dealer-to-dealer, so that there’s always a pair of shoulder blades pressing from behind—a kind of wall-to-wall art-world orgy. Others come directly from the parties, and it’s funny to see well-heeled, middle-aged people with stamps on their hands from the clubs. I may even have the faint remainder of one still, days later.

Back to the raucous bar scene. In walks a prominent U.K.- and U.S.-based contemporary dealer, chest puffed like a reverse peacock, who nearly bowls me over like a pin—of course without coming close to uttering “excuse me.” Minutes later the very same Grizzly Adams-esque man knocks into me again, and says a “hello” in my direction, followed by the lovely comment, “I wasn’t saying hello to you, Kenny.” Sometimes the art world can be really touching (literally).

But it’s always fun to eavesdrop on your neighbors at parties and events—you will never be left disappointed, as I can attest after hearing some doozies. For instance, “My friends said I would meet such interesting people in Basel, but I’ve found none, just a bunch of schmoozers.” And even more biting, a Gagosian employee dropped this little bomb about an artist who recently flew the coop, “Ha. Does anyone still represent him?”

photo hadid_zps536bf3bf.png

There was a dinner for Dame Zaha Hadid and her sublime and magical firehouse at the Vitra campus, now 2o years old and looking fresher and better than ever. The building was supplemented for the occasion by a new sculptural furniture element with edges so acute it looked like it could take off, or, more likely, kill someone. All I could think of seated at the dinner in the sleek main hall, where the trucks used to park, was plopping my bed down in the middle of the floor and moving in.

Ok, now on to the art, more or less. The fair is broken down between two floors with the ground level filled with the most established works (I refer to it as obvious things by obvious people), while more contemporary fare is situated upstairs. It’s a good idea to head out with a pocket full of candy, as what’s worse than an art dealer or collector with bad breath? Getting past the entrance to the fair can be a contact sport if you get in the way of a starved collector: “I’m sorry, the line starts behind me!” And with my notorious sense of direction, leave it to me to get lost at just about every turn.

Long gone are the days when artists appeared to be more physically involved in the process of making art, rather than farming out the manufacturing of goods—even paintings—to underlings and machines. Artists sometimes seem to be after the creation of formulae rather than individual works with heartfelt meaning.

Traipsing the aisles, you can’t help but make human observations—like that the art world is often more colorful than the art, as in the case of a dealer in a tight dress with a body so contorted as to resemble a John Currin character. Or that other dealer twitching so much I couldn’t tell if he had a tic or swallowed a jar of MDMA.

Another tendency observed repeatedly at fairs are the mega-valued artworks, often at prices matching the GDP of mid-sized countries, enough to warrant their own individual security guards. And then there’s the celebrity count, the art-world equivalent of counting wartime casualties. What’s a fair, after all, without some Jay-Z and Kanye (who, after a brief Basel appearance, declared himself once again bigger than both God and Steve Jobs, who, looking at the glut of Apple products in dealers’ booth, may hold more sway here than the former)?

photo leogrrr_zpsebc62ce1.jpg

And, of course, a fair would not be complete without tiger-loving LDC(Leonardo DiCaprio) on the prowl. GRRR! Forget the Mugrabis and MoMA, today it’s the celebs who are responsible for market inflation and reputation manipulation. I actually made an artwork about LDC, who hosted the recent $40 million charity sale at Christie’s to save endangered species. I then proceeded (for some reason) to send the image to Larry Gagosian, the purchaser of the $6.5 million Mark Grotjahn (money well spent), the star lot and background for my digital collage. If that wasn’t enough, I had to stop Gagosian, after a few, on the stairs of the Three Kings and remind him.

Making yet another appearance at a fair was the first-floor Gerhard Richterpainting, bought at auction within the past few years (a typical occurrence), with the remnants of an over-painted candle barely visible from the bottom of the composition. This thing has been dragged to so many fairs that the paint may fall off. If the candle was still there it would be priceless in that size, but without, it’s proven to be unsellable. Maybe they should get a restorer to scrape away the abstraction and relocate the missing candle, just don’t mention it to Gerhard.

The legendary Nahmads, who I revere for their dynastic familial relationship with art (and for buying it en masse!), had a typical double-barreled, high-caliber booth filled with beautiful and significant works by Miró, Calder, and Bacon. There was even an all-white room with furniture and carpet replete with an unparalleled group of Fontana slits, the art world’s take on The White Album. They were all sold for between $2 million and $6 million, not to mention a Calder snapped up for $10 million. I guess the cloud hanging over the gallery from the recent legal troubles in New York is as white as the room.

At one point, a portion of the Nahmad booth was cordoned off to make way for a private viewing, transforming it into a Fontana Fortress to present a single work to what seemed like a very rich collector. When another equally deep-pocked patron appeared, I could not believe that the assistant failed to make the ID of this well-known oligarch and refused him entry. Not the wisest of moves, which she soon came to recognize after being not-so-subtly alerted by his bodyguard. Bet she remembers next time.

A few more notable quotes from the peanut gallery: “The artist has an notable relationship with Gumby and Felix the Cat.” And, “Look at that painting! She’s having a giant orgasm.” You can all but hear the jingling sounds of money ringing in the ears of many of the conversationalists. “What did you buy?” is a popular catchphrase encountered again and again, reminding everyone in no uncertain terms why we’re all here in the first place.

It is more than amazing to think that, literally, hundreds of millions of dollars of sales are consummated by nothing more than a handshake and a leap of faith. With $2 billion worth of art said to be on show, that’s a lot of handshakes and, with that crowd, it’s best to be equipped with a few buckets of anti-bacterial wash.

photo aston_zps61997e30.jpg

I bumped into collector, gallerist, and sometime art writer Adam Lindemann, and we engaged in a long, drawn-out discussion of the market and the many newfangled resources by which price movements and trends are monitored and tracked. That was about classic cars, of course, a shared passion.

Though I won’t divulge what (or even if) I bought at the fair—those are professional trade secrets, you see—there is an undeniable high, a chill-inducing buzz from pulling the trigger. Sure, it’s a materialistic and admittedly sad attempt to fill an emotional void of some sort or another, but a fun temporary fix nevertheless. I guess you can figure the answer to whether or not I bought something.

Here is another popular refrain in today’s art world in general: “This is unique, yes, but she may do some additional versions.” What the dealer fails to mention here is that there will actually be an infinite amount of additional works fabricated and that they will be all but indistinguishable from the very work you just purchased.

Navigating a fair, a more-than-day-long enterprise, is a constant battle against declining phone batteries. These events present incredible opportunities to learn, gather information, and see. Speaking of looking, one New York gallery run by an unnamed German had the title of the gallery printed in giant, boldfaced lettering on its wall labels while you had to squint to see the name of the artists.

The art world is composed of a succession of hierarchical concentric rings of power, in which the most elite dinner is with just four people. Even veterans like me still end up snubbed and drubbed on occasion. But the art itself is largely free to view and accessible to all. Nothing can describe or replace the experience of sucking in all the art on offer at a fair. The common retort that there’s “nothing great” at a fair is no more than disingenuous posturing.

All in all, I survived Basel, including a close brush with a tram that nearly flattened me, my nose pressed firmly against the windshield by the time it stopped. I also overcame other blows, such as when I was told that I could increase my business if I stopped talking so much, and that a work I bought was being reoffered (by whom I am still trying to find out) before I was invoiced.

In two decades, I don’t think I’ve ever stayed through a fair without changing my reservation to leave early. Who can blame me? You’d think I’d learn. And now what, after the endless spate of biennials and fairs we have just been through? The auctions, of course! I just got home to a mountain of catalogues. Ready for some more tales from the trenches?

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It’s Groundhog Day at Art Basel 2013

June 12, 2013 by Kenny Schachter

The inimitable Kenny Schachter went to ArtBasel and wrote about it for ArtSpace:

Forget about you, dear reader, how will I manage not to bore myself to tears with this? Art Basel feels like round 87 in a long, drawn-out boxing match and I shudder to think that I have to put fingers to the keyboard so quickly after the last art-fair recap, so let me disclaim myself from the onset. What more could I possibly say that hasn’t already been said?

Art fairs seem to mirror the plot of the film Groundhog Day, repeating (and repeating) themselves, with many of the same people buying much of the same art in generic settings indistinguishable from one to the next. Rafael Nadal was depicted on the front page of the Times in an all-encompassing scream of ecstasy and I began the week wondering if I’d encounter anything in the aisles of the fair that would inspire such raw emotion. Probably not, but there were a few notable sightings and surprises. Read about them here, in this diary of the fair

Day 1: Saturday, June 8
But, before I get to the main Basel event, I spent a weekend filled with openings at galleries, museums, and collector’s homes in Zurich. My first stop was an early Jean-Michel Basquiat painting exhibition at Bruno Bischofberger. With the artist’s radioactive market causing much foaming at the mouth these days, there is sure to be a Basquiat show coming to a city near you sometime soon. Thanks to the recent Sotheby’s S2 selling exhibition and Gagosian’s blockbuster show, the Basquiat brand is like Starbucks art now, albeit at $50 million a cup.

The impressive refurb of the Löwenbräu building, which houses the Kunsthalle and Migros museums, exceeds much of the art that’s on view. A gallery trend I noticed in Zurich was big spaces filled with little art, much of which wasn’t very good. Like Wilhelm Sasnal’s new paintings at the Hauser & Wirth franchise—underwhelming across the board, even though some featured vehicles and race-car drivers, which I am typically a sucker for.

At Eva Presenhuber, a gallerist who intimidates me at mere sight, Ugo Rondinone had a show of crudely formed rock figures that could have been the children of his Rockefeller Center installation. Fifty-seven children, to be exact, with names like “the calm,” “the ardent,” “the jovial,” and “the provocative,” and they all managed to be cute, in a rough-hewn sort of way.

That first night, I was meant to visit a KAWS installation outside if the city in a disused factory. I admit, I’m not a fan of the artist, and I don’t particularly like Macy’s Day Parade art unless it’s by Paul McCarthy. And KAWS, from the little I know, doesn’t come close. (But apparently inflatables are the new neon!)

After 45 minutes in the car, I realized the drive was going to last considerably longer, and so did a U-turn back to town. After that misstep, I hit a collector’s house, where the footprint of the all-knowing, heavy-handed advisor was firmly present, with boxes ticked for each of today’s market darlings. At least I ended the night back in the gallery district where I got to see some good works, like the wee Elad Lassry photos at Francesca Pia gallery, which are like delectable confections.

Day 2: Sunday, June 9
Another day of Zurich galleries, a luncheon, and more blah, blah, blah. After a while, I lost any sense of criticality and couldn’t judge what was good or not. Sometimes I feel more drawn to the windows and the view out.

I attended an annual dinner on the luscious grounds of a beautiful house overlooking the lake—a residence that was stuffed with more art from the same consultant as last night, give or take pieces from a few other helpful hands. It was not a bad setting to take it all in, until a woman introduced herself and, confusing me for Hans Ulrich Obrist, described what a privilege it was to meet me.

I am amused by the concept of the omnipresent Obrist, and a fan, but the scenario was a little weird as I had only just blogged about him for Monopolmagazine that morning, adding a twist to the whole art-world Groundhog Day scenario. I didn’t quite manage to tell Obrist about it when I saw him at the neighboring table though.

On the shared bus back to the city after dinner, which is about the closest the art world comes to sharing a sense of community, one dealer tried to sell me an artwork. I asked about the prominence of the central image, and if the composition was pronounced and strong or faded and faint, to which he replied that the composition was “mysterious.” Coming from anyone else, the connotation wouldn’t be as dubious, but it was from this particular gallerist.

It’s amazing the kind of fear and dread that a powerful art-world figure can instill even in the macho, tall, and brawny. I saw a friend of mine reduced to a subservient child in the presence of a founding member of what I call the Zurich mafia. (Admittedly, she scares the wits out of me too.) But the Swiss don’t always seem to be so susceptible. On the bus, the Rubell family occupied the first few rows of seats and, despite the great protestations of Mera, the matriarch, the driver insisted on following his own route and dropped them off last.

I love the intrepid Rubells, even though we’d never do business together in a million years. I’ve known them for decades and they put me through an inquisition back in the day and still didn’t buy anything. But hats off: she and Charles Saatchi should have a baby; it would be world’s first art superhero—100 studio visits before it could walk.

On my way back to the hotel room for the night, another dealer got off on the same floor and proposed an i-deal to me on her device in the hallway. When the elevator opened to a contemporary art-hating industrialist that I know, it felt more illicit than getting caught in a heated embrace.

The new Herzog & de Meuron-designed building at Art Basel

Day 3: Monday, June 10
Off to Basel, where the hotels are known for a kind of highway robbery during high-profile events, charging guests rates so disproportionate to their value as to be extortionate. The rooms are so small you must walk sideways around the bed and keep the bathroom door open to capture an extra sliver of light.

One learns to economize with the little space. So the bathroom morphs into an impromptu junior suite and I end up working on the toilet, chasing anything resembling natural light. I end up subsisting on minibar Pringles, which get me every time, even though their ingredients read like a chemistry experiment.

I headed out for the opening of the design fair, Liste (the emerging-art fair), and the Art Basel Statements and Unlimited projects, wondering who I might meet on the train and if I should troll the aisles collector collecting. Would I encounter a situation like last year, when a super high-profile London dealer tried to use his VIP pass to get a reduced rate on the train fare? It’s strange to attend an Art Basel fair actually in Basel.

The Liste building is located in an old brewery (why is art attracted to these old booze-soaked halls?) made up of fractured architectural nooks and crannies that resembles a rabbit warren. It piques my Woody Allen-esque neurosis and fear of getting lost — which definitely happened.

With so much emerging art on offer, it’s harder to rely on easy name recognition, and one has to instead look at art for art’s sake, rather than playing name that tune. It turns out that there is a lot of cheap young art today that looks exactly like a lot of expensive young art today. The paintings of Liam Everett are dead ringers for Tauba Auerbach, and the disembodied hoodies by Keith Farquhar? Call them the poor man’s David Hammonds. Oscar Murillo, a current market darling in the making, is either taking the piss out of Julian Schnabel in the most unconvincing way or is not even aware of his lousy pastiche. These paintings are no more than a car crash between Joe Bradley and Josh Smith—a messy accident with the casualty being good art.

Admittedly, even someone like me who needs a GPS to get to the newsstand, one falls into a rhythm looking at art in a fair context—a thrilling meander. An artist I like is David Ostrowsky who shows with Javier Perez, and whose minimal, though sloppy, flourishes seem so haphazard, quick, and effortless. Yet there are never any works available. I asked the director why the artist couldn’t bang out a few more canvases, as they certainly couldn’t take long to make. He replied that he just got back from the studio, where he had tried to do just that, but to no avail. I never liked artists all that much.

The new Herzog & de Meuron building at the main fair is elegant and ginormous. Upon entering the vast site, I was faced with millions of people I didn’t recognize, which struck me as a healthy sign of the market. More than one work required waiting in a lengthy line, while other installations have been made even bigger. Theoretically, these are meant to be non-commercial in nature, but as one player in the trenches succinctly put it: “Everybody here just wants to make money.” There you have the ethos writ (extra) large.

A few works by He An and Alfredo Jaar employed bright, Blitzkrieg lighting, rendering spectators all but blind—a good, neighborly strategy to ensure that viewers only have eyes for you.

When it comes to videos, my attention span is like a mosquito. I don’t think I have ever watched an art film from start to finish, never. Nor do I foresee doing so.

As for the design fair, in which I used actively participate, it doesn’t seem to matter how good it looks in its new setting (and it does): I can’t escape the feeling that I’m at a more expensive version of Bloomingdale’s.

We are all so busy tapping away our lives away on our phones that we sometimes forget to actually live them. So tomorrow I will have to remind myself to look a little more closely tomorrow, especially now that I’ve turned in this article, “Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device.” I am frequently told that I always have a smile on my face, which, despite the occasional darkness belying it, is actually true. I love art, and even a few of the people involved.

Resembling a planet orbiting around a star, Meschac Gaba's Citoyen du Monde: balloon (2013) partly eclipses one of the exhibition center's industrial lights. — Resembling a planet orbiting around a star, Meschac Gaba’s Citoyen du Monde: balloon (2013) partly eclipses one of the exhibition center’s industrial lights.

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Collectors v. Dealers: Mutual Antagonism, Growing Mistrust

Nothing But Time, Paul Thek Revisited, 1964-1987

Jay-Z, Baby

It’s Ground Hog Day at Art Basel, Pt. 2

It’s Groundhog Day at Art Basel 2013

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