The gang's all here—again—in Miami. Artwork by Kenny Schachter.Before heading off to Miami Beach for the sixteenth edition of the Art Basel there, I bumped into a prominent art-world public-relations exec who exaggeratedly fist-pumped in exaltation at not having to go...
Kenny Schachter Solves the Mystery of the $450 Million da Vinci Buyer—or Does He?
A tortoise and the hare for our age. All images courtesy of Kenny Schachter.What does $450,312,500, the sum paid at Christie’s last week for Leonardo da Vinci’s circa-1500 painting Salvator Mundi (the “Savior of the World”), look like? How about 55,000 Bitcoins at...
Kenny Schachter Found the Future at a Shanghai Art Fair (Even If His Kids Got Censored)
A work by Ilona Rich being installed by Adrian, Kai, and Kenny at the Art021 fair in Shanghai. Photo courtesy of Kenny Schachter.Last week there were two simultaneous international art fairs in Shanghai, one being Art021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair—the...
Kenny Schachter on Bad Behavior at FIAC and the Swindle Behind da Vinci’s ‘Salvator Mundi’
,h3> A very special episode of "Antiques Roadshow." Image courtesy of Kenny Schachter.Having just returned from Paris and the 44th edition of the Foire internationale d’art contemporain, otherwise known as FIAC, I’m left with two distinct impressions. The first is...
Sculduggery, Weak Bladders, and the Wrath of the Schnabel: Kenny Schachter on Frieze London 2017
Step right up. Image courtesy of Kenny Schachter. When I began my career, art fairs were still in the Paleolithic Age. The marquee events were Chicago (really), Cologne (really), and Basel (can you recall when there was but one?). That’s it. In a given year, attending...
In a Post-Truth Art World, Kenny Schachter Holes Up in Trump Tower, Spills the Beans on Mark Grotjahn, and Gets Arrested
An anonymous auction-dominating art dynasty. Image courtesy of Kenny Schachter. It doesn’t take much to get me out of the house, but what choice have I? Opportunities in the art world are scarce, and these days you need to chase them more than ever. The especially...
Kenny Schachter Goes for a Swim in the Summertime Art Market and Gets Stung
Kenny Schachter discovers the hard way that jellyfish and art dealers are of the same genus. Video still by Kenny Schachter. As much as global warming has disrupted the traditional cycling of the seasons, the 24/7 maelstrom that is the art market has also had an...
Kenny Schachter on Learning to Love the LA Art Scene (Except Those Wacky Private Museums)
Kenny Schachter Plank III (pace Charle Ray Plank II). Image courtesy of Kenny Schachter. I am all but Los Angeles illiterate—I have only been to the city twice, for a handful of days. I don’t go to movies, or even watch them on laptops or planes. As an...
Has London’s Auction Market Lost Its Mojo? Kenny Schachter Finds the Onetime Art Capital Down on Its Luck
Basquiat is the latest wild card in the high-stakes art casino. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter. London is known for gin and tonic, Bacon and Freud, Gilbert and George, and Damien and Tracey. When I moved to the UK in 2004, London also boasted a burgeoning auction market,...
Nothing Fishy Here! Kenny Schachter Squeezes His Way Into the Thick of Things at Yet Another Art Basel
Art Sardines: The close quarters of Basel hotel living. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.Two years ago, when I was driving home from Art Basel, I suffered facial injuries in a car accident. This year, I rolled back into the art-industry town with an automotive vengeance:...
Scandal! Innuendo! Flipping! Kenny Schachter’s Inside Scoop on the May Art Auctions
Kenny Schachter flipping his two artist sons, Kai and Adrian, for love and profit. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter. I probably shouldn’t give it away, but New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport is by far the easiest point of ingress and egress for New York...
To Escape the Numbing Art World, Kenny Schachter Hits the Road (and Drives Everyone Crazy)
On the road in Sicily in a 1970 Fiat Abarth Rally car. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter. After Damien Hirst’s undersea extravaganza in Venice left me feeling like a splashed-on tourist at SeaWorld (albeit one with much nicer aquariums, and a different kind of whales),...
Is This Show Worth a Billion Dollars? A Few Thoughts on Damien Hirst’s New Venture in Venice
Damien and his figurehead. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter. Buckets of (digital) ink have already been spilled on the subject, but I’ll add more. I have pretty much seen every artwork that Damien Hirst has made, read his book On the Way to...
Poisoned Tongues and Chicken Feet: My Sojourn to China’s Rising Kingdom of Contemporary Art
The Poison Pen of Kenny Schachter (Courtesy Kenny Schachter, with Adrian Schachter) As an art lifer, I’ve begun to measure the remainder of my days by how many Art Basel fairs I’ve left to attend. The fifth iteration of Art Basel Hong Kong (or 10th if you...
The $14 Million Flip, and What the London Day Sales Foretell for the Near Future
Art musical chairs. Courtesy Kenny Schachter Imagine Janet Yellin—or the head of your respective Federal Reserve—calling to say that you’ve been granted free rein of a currency-printing press, with the lone caveat that it be enjoyed at your discretion. That has...
Kenny Schachter Gets Roasted During Armory Week… and Lives to Tell the Tale
Image courtesy Kenny Schachter Roving the art world for business and pleasure, I was en route to New York for the Armory Show and its attendant fairs and goings-on when I had a near miss with a sneering Tracey Emin, and struck a possible deal with Harry...
How I Found Sigmar Polke Alive and Well in a German Spa Town
At the Kurhaus Casino Baden-Baden with Anne Polke (second from left). Courtesy of Kenny Schachter The Museum Frieder Burda was opened by the eponymous publisher in 2004 in a Richard Meier building in the German spa town of Baden-Baden (literally “Bath-Bath”) known for...
Kenny Schachter Says It’s the End of the World and Everybody Wants Classic Contemporary
Image courtesy of Kenny Schachter. The Unquenchable Appetite for Classic Contemporary I’ve never lived through such a tumultuous period, one that compels us to tune into the news 24/7 to stay abreast of the rapidly changing global condition; the USA is giving the...
Why Jerry Saltz is the provocative art critic you need to follow
A bat's private parts, naked Ancient Greek girls and boys, enemas being administered, sex from every entry point imaginable, tits, penises, balls, vaginas and arses in every shape and form. Let's not forget gorilla sex, too. And this is just a one month recap of Jerry...
Kenny Schachter on Richard Prince and the Magic of Art Market Metaphysics
Illustration by Kenny Schachter. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter. Prince v. Trump Without getting too much into the minutiae of Immanuel Kant’s concept of the “thing-in-itself,” as posited in his “Critique of Pure Reason” (1781), in which he wrestles with the differences...