The news regarding the Lawrence Salander fraud just keeps getting worse. Today, Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau’s office arrested the Upper East Side dealer again, and added three new counts to the 100-count indictment handed up last March. Bloomberg has the news.

Morgenthau’s office upped to total of Salander’s thievery from collectors, artists and investors to more than $92 million. Salander-O’Reilly declared bankruptcy in November 2007, as did Salander, his wife, Julie, and his defunct gallery, Salander-O’Reilly, have all declared bankruptcy.  

The key sections in Bloomberg’s article:

Manacled and grimacing, the 60-year-old dealer, who at his peak counted hedge-fund managers and tennis star John McEnroe as clients, pleaded not guilty in criminal court this afternoon. Five hours earlier he surrendered to Morgenthau’s office in lower Manhattan.

And:

The new charges add three counts against Salander to the 100-count indictment presented in March — and introduced a new bold-faced name to the criminal case. Morgenthau said Salander and Morse repeatedly sold works by Robert De Niro Sr., a painter who died in 1993, without informing his son, the actor Robert DeNiro, or remitting proceeds.

Morgenthau is quoted as saying: “He was a pretty good spender. I don’t think there’s much chance of getting any money.”

 

MASS MoCA is 10 years old this summer, and in the past two weeks, WBUR has had two excellent reports on the museum and its economic and cultural impact on North Adams, its home.

A few numbers from the reports: with 150,000 sq. ft. of gallery space in a 400,000 sq. ft. complex, the museum draws 110,000 visitors annually. It pumps $14 million a year into local hotels, restaurants and shops. The state put $35 million into the project, and this year, according to director Joe Thompson, MASS MoCA moved out of the red and is finally making money. (WBUR doesn’t mention it, but as I recall from past reports, it’s real estate revenues that MASS MoCA taps to make money.)

Not everything works, and MASS MoCA has seen many bumps over the past years, but still — for a town deserted by its manufacturing companies, it’s not a bad deal.

Nonetheless, according to WBUR (its reports are here and here), the wisdom of relying on MASS MoCA is apparently fueling a political debate in North Adams among its mayoral candidates.

[Read more…] about North Adams and MASS MoCA: What’s The Next Step?

Coming soon — this fall — a movie that’s bound to infuriate the contemporary art and
contemporary music worlds, make them howl with knowing laughter, or both. It’s called (Untitled), and I went to a preview of it last week, thanks to my co-blogger Amanda Ameer (Life’s A Pitch). One of her clients, Pulitzer-prizing-winning David Lang, wrote the music.

The plot follows a contemporary-art gallerist in Chelsea who makes her money from sales of vapid paintings by a terrible artist, but seduces his brooding brother (played by Adam Goldberg, left), an unsuccessful composer who disdains his brother’s schlocky paintings but envies his success. His music is so awful that even his parents walk out of his mostly empty concerts (“40 minutes of pure tedium”).

“Ten thousand dollars a picture,” the father says of the one son, in front of the other, “he’s a genius.”

But Madeleine, the gallerist (played by Marley Shelton, below) who exhibits dreadful works (many involving taxidermy, including a monkey with a vacuum cleaner) by a crazy, boorish artist, has a solution. She invites the composer, named Adrian, into her world, to present his music at
her gallery. The story proceeds from there.

The zingers never stop. One collector is “not familiar” with Matisse. Ray, the taxidermy artist, leaves Madeleine her for a better dealer. Then she discovers a tongue-tied artist named Monroe whose works include a pushpin (which he hilariously “hangs”) and a post-it note inscribed “Do!”

What are these things about? “I think I want what I want to say to go without saying,” says Monroe. 

And there’s a chubby-fingered new collector who made his fortune in technology and doesn’t understand that money won’t necessarily buy him the hot works he wants.

All the while, Adam’s brother Josh yearns for a show of his paintings, but Madeleine hides his works in the back room, lest she be embarassed. An older, unfashionable art advisor comes in regularly to buy Josh’s paintings, which all look alike, in bulk — for hotels.

Is this a film a clef?

[Read more…] about (Untitled) The Satire: It Targets Contemporary Art and Music

Wonderful news emerged from Portland, OR., this weekend: Come October 24, the Portland Art Museum will put Raphael’s
La Velata (Woman With A Veil) on view, thanks to a deal with the Italian government via the New York-based Foundation for Italian Art & Culture. It will be a one-painting exhibition and the lady, who resides in the Palatine Gallery in Florence and has been out of Italy only once or twice before, will also travel to the Nevada Museum of Art and the Milwaukee Art Museum. 

She can handle it — much as Parmigianino’s Antea was a star at the Frick Collection last year (Antea‘s run was actually extended). Aside from the work’s beauty, there’s the question of who La Velata was — the same woman, a baker’s daughter, who was Raphael’s mistress and the subject of La Fornarina, or not? Intrigue is always good.

But there’s bad news in the announcement, too. The Portland Museum plans to charge general admission of $17 to see La Velata, according to The Oregonian. The museum will also be showing China Design Now during its run, which has a special admission charge of $15. Neither ticket comes with reciprocal admission to the other show.

It’s bad enough to have a hefty $17 charge for a one-work show — a charge that’s steep even for a multi-work blockbuster that involves a lot of scholarly research, a catalogue, extensive loan agreements, lots of shipping, lots of insurance (yes, La Velata need insurance, too — she’s worth tens of millions of dollars). But to make visitors pay for another special show — seen at the same time — is beyond the pale.

Museum director Brian Ferisso told The Oregonian that his pricing strategy is a gamble to get people to become members of the museum. Single memberships cost $55 and dual-family memberships cost $85.

I’m all for membership drives. I’m all for trying new pricing stratgies, which I wrote about here in April. But exploiting Raphael’s one-woman show this way will put her out of the range of many viewers — especially as the holiday season approaches and in this economy.

I urge the museum to reconsider, and I urge Nevada and Milwaukee not to follow Ferisso’s lead.

Update: According to the museum’s website, it will now offer a premier ticket for $20 permitting entry to both La Velata and the China design show. 

Stop the presses: A 26-year-old has publicly “confessed” that he prefers to read (and pay
for) newspapers, the real thing, rather than poach “free” content from the web.

I came across this disclosure in an article by one Alexander Ewing in Intelligent Life, a magazine published by The Economist, and was so charmed I decided to share it.

Why does he do it?

I think print is good for your health. Get away from the screen for a bit. Most of us spend too much time slumped in a backlit stare. Once freed you will find that print publications have intellectual cachet in the public sphere. A Mac laptop says little about its owner; the iPod user is indistinguishable. But the intern who arrives brandishing a distinctively salmon copy of the Financial Times is going places (if maybe a bit too keen). Emerging from the subway with a big-screen kindle tucked under one’s arm does not have the same effect as a thumbed and refolded copy of the New York Times (nor can it double as an umbrella).

And get ready to smile:

Contrary to what internet networkers say, print is a social tool too…Fighting over the front section is a healthy morning ritual, and dividing and conquering a paper is a fundamental weekend activity. In public, a newspaper makes for a great shield. Broadsheets are particularly good for avoiding people you recognise on the train. Hiding behind a laptop is difficult. Forget the blackberry.

There’s more, but I won’t spoil it, even if you have to read the article online (here).

I hope he goes forth and multiplies.