A still from my upcoming NFT collaboration with Dakis Joannou, to be released on NiftyGateway July 7th! Take advance of the market crash, they’re cheap! Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.I feel like a cockroach. Not exactly the bug (though that too), but rather like Kafka’s...
Adam Lindeman as Chromie Squiggle Remember last month when I wrote that I was done writing for a while? Well, I lied (if you can’t contradict yourself…). You didn’t think I’d actually give up this platform, did you? If you hadn’t heard, I returned to Miami Basel this...
Kenny Schachter in the process of shedding his skin as a journalist. Photo: www.KennySchachter.artThis is a twist on Arthur Miller, where the salesman in fact comes to terms with his new identity and the concomitant change effectuated by it. In other words, dear...
Some of the Salvator Mundi NFTs from Wolfgang Baltracchi's new NFT collection "The Greats."In January 2021, a long-germinating NFT project titled Hashmasks officially launched. The series of 16,384 unique collectible NFTs was the first meaningful follow-up...
Creative destruction: blowing up the bridge between old and new—the traditional art world and the world of NFTism.The art world knows one word, above all others, and that is “no.” No, you can’t buy this (the illusive waiting list); no, you can’t do that, or say… just...
It’s raining men, and money in Frida’s case.Before I resume with more of the crypto content you’ve come to expect from me of late (apologies in advance), here’s some juicy meatspace fodder to chew on. Author Luis-Martín Lozano spent 30 years ferreting out all 152...
No rain here, just healthy living in S-chanf, Switzerland. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.The painter Lucien Smith, born in April 1989, crashed out of the gate in a hurry—only to suffer an equally swift, though less desirable crash of an altogether different variety. In...
The elusive Joe Hage. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.I was at a gallery the other day when someone cast a glance in my direction and said to a friend, “Isn’t that the NFT guy?” Yes, I may very well be that—but it doesn’t mean I’m not still privy to meatspace scoops every...
NFTs have made Kenny Schachter's life... interesting. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.Joshua Decter is a “writer, curator, theorist, educator, and editor” who really, really loathes NFTs, so much so he has been engaged in a months-long, cross-platform attack against me on...
That’ll be Professor Nifty to you. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.I am urgently trying to scratch together enough fiat money—you know, old-fashion paper currency made legal tender by government decree—to buy my house, which is weighed down by an antediluvian hoard...
Bubble, bubble, toil and no trouble (on the horizon). Some will go up, many will go down, but NFTs are here to stay! Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.It took the world centuries to stop talking (and thinking) about the artiness of art and denigrate the discussion to the...
It all makes sense, trust me. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.For all you luddites (including me, only a few months ago) who are new to the world of crypto art, here is a partial glossary of NFT terms—one that will undoubted need updating before this is even posted....
My second drop on Nifty Gateway—woohoo, I reinvented myself in late middle age. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.While writing this, I’m on WhatsApp chatting to a friend, listening to (yet another) Clubhouse talk drone on, and participating in a group discussion on...
Can I help you find something? Kenny Schachter presiding over his Sotheby's sale. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.How can you make a small fortune in art? Start with a big one. I’m paraphrasing Victor Gauntlett, a onetime owner of the perennially cash-strapped sports car...
The time is now! For the auction houses to have a more representative staff. Until then, maybe Anthea Hamilton will lend some of her mannequins. Illustration courtesy of Kenny Schachter.I hope this article finds you and your family safe in these strange and...
There's no accounting for dumb. Illustration courtesy of Kenny Schachter. *This story has been updated with a correction. Please see the full correction appended at the end. As the beaches swell with sardined sun worshippers and pathetic partygoers, and as COVID...
I can’t say I’m happy about this, but it doesn’t mean I can’t have a laugh—I did get Inigo’d don’t forget. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter. We sure live in some fucked up times. Take New York City alone, in which the mayor, Bill de Blasio, is overplaying his hand in...
Give it away, give it away, give it away: this should be the name of my column, Richard Prince’s publication of Ted Kaczynski’s “Truth Versus Lies.” One per customer, it’s only morally right to generous Richard. Photo courtesy Kenny Schachter. Below is a special guest...
Sweet dreams. Illustration courtesy of Kenny Schachter. With the art world as we knew it receding into memory, Artnet News columnist Kenny Schachter wrote a children’s bedtime story to remember how the industry evolved as it did—and to imagine were, hopefully, it can...
Shackled: Jeff Koons's (blue) ball and chain gang. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.The live Instagram Stories that are proliferating under lockdown are the equivalent of anything-goes public-access television—an unprofessional stream of blather with horrible video and...
Um, let’s not and say we did. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter. “Corona, Corona, Corona, baby!” That’s the new rallying cry that on-the-run art dealer Inigo Philbrick—aka “Inigo! Inigo! Inigo!” as his now-infamous daily shower rant goes—wrote to me the other day. He...
Stay back! I’m going in! With my Andre Cadare- and John McCracken-armed art suit. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter. We seem to be in the midst of some otherworldly, Kafkaesque, biblically scaled reassessment of modern life. Every day is now Sunday with new...
With so many art dealers, my emotional support pig sure came in handy. Only in LA folks! Courtesy of Kenny Schachter. Los Angeles is its own spiritual, quartz-laden universe, and it takes a little getting used to for a consummate East Coast outsider like my...
Monopoly: Art-Market Edition. Video still courtesy of Kenny Schachter. Another year has gone by, and with it another holiday spent in the mecca of money (and art), St. Moritz, where my in-laws, avid skiers all, have been vacationing for decades. Due to the of fear of...
"Where's Inigo," a new puzzle for the whole family. Artwork courtesy of Kenny Schachter. The only thing more scrutinized than the whereabouts of the Salvator Mundi—which I happened to locate on a certain boat in the Middle East—is the art world’s new game of “Where’s...
What’s next, an art-world whistleblower? Photo illustration by Kenny Schachter. On November 8th I gave a keynote talk for the Art Appraisers Association of America at Cardozo School of Law, which I coincidentally attended in a previous life. Initially, I was...
A Koons memorial that would have been better if it was designed by a kommittee. Photo illustration by Kenny Schachter. Before I launch into a brief fair recap, some thoughts on the upcoming auctions and state of art collecting, as insignificant as it all sounds in...
KAWS's market just keeps going. Artwork by Kenny Schachter. Whether we actually live in the wackiest, rockiest economic, social, and political time in history remains to be seen, but there’s no denying it certainly feels that way. Unprecedented art world...
Sotheby’s Easy Art Credit may cause nausea, vomiting, and bankruptcy. Use only as directed. If you can’t afford the pill, this medication is not for you! Photo illustration courtesy of Kenny Schachter. On the first day back to school last week, I had lunch with dealer...
Money was the medium, as in Damien’s diamonds; now it’s BBB (Bed Bath & Beyond-ism), with products as paint and process. Photo illustration courtesy of Kenny Schachter. For the first 24 hours after I post on artnet News, I shut down all communication...
The forced march we all love to bemoan, but always end up repeating. Art Basel is now 50 years old, though fair brass are waiting 'til 2020 to celebrate. (You get better marketing conditions by rounding off the numbers and calling it 1970-2020 in copy.) Image collage...
You got your Salvator in my Kusama: What private museum is worth its weight in oil without a mirror room? Photo collage courtesy of Kenny Schachter. It’s a miracle! When I received intel from a source with deep Middle Eastern ties as to the possible whereabouts of...
Steve Cohen was the belle of the auction ball after buying a certain rabbit. Animation still courtesy of Kenny Schachter. Remember Fatal Attraction’s famous bunny-burner? Well, I definitively know the identity of the bunny-buyer, and now you do too: Steve Cohen....
Street Fightin’ Man: Sean Scully as Muybridge study in motion. Collage courtesy of Kenny Schachter. This is a review of the April 2019 BBC film Unstoppable: Sean Scully and the Art of Everything. Last fall I reviewed The Price of Everything. What’s next, The...
This rabbit has a poem for you. Animation still courtesy of Kenny Schachter. I used to be a toyAnd meant to bring you joyNot sure what I should call myselfAm I a girl or a boy? Are you tempted to plant a kiss?Looking for ever-lasting bliss?It’s physical, it’s...
People seemed to really enjoy Frieze LA. Wonder why? Video still courtesy of Kenny Schachter. I cannot tell a lie (as many know firsthand—sorry): Although I was in LA at the time, I didn’t go to Art Los Angeles Contemporary (ALAC), Spring Break, or even Felix, really,...
The Hauser & Wirth Hospice. Artwork courtesy of Kenny Schachter. The Top of the World! At an altitude of 5,466 feet, the tagline of St. Moritz makes perfect sense, but it may soon be better known as the Top of the Art World. There are around 30 international...
Kenny meets Mike. Photo illustration by Kenny Schachter. In his Aesthetics (1835), the philosopher G. W. F. Hegel published a compilation of university lectures on fine art, stating: “For us art counts no longer as the highest mode in which...
Take it or leave it, it’s our art world- Adverting Art. Photo courtesy of Kenny Schachter. Last week, in just six days of Impressionist, Modern, and contemporary auctions in New York, around two billion dollars of art was sold—with even more sales taking place...
Art and money have had sex for centuries but rarely share a bed. Photo illustration courtesy of Kenny Schachter. The Price of Everything, the new HBO documentary from My Architect filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn, is meant to pull back the curtains on the connection...
All aboard the Eurostar Fair to nowhere, fast…no need to check-in, unpack or disembark! A new form of train robbery? Photo illustration courtesy of Kenny Schachter. The last round of London contemporary art auctions were down nearly 10 percent, but you can’t really...
Surprised onlookers react as Banksy's Girl With a Balloon self-destructs at Sotheby's. Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even...
Jenny Saville at Sotheby's contemporary art evening auction in London.Before things even got cooking in London last week for the 16th iteration of the Frieze Art Fair and the concomitant auctions, there was the monster Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition hosted by...
Death be not proud (it's bound to happen sooner or later). Video still courtesy of Kenny Schachter.In the waning days of summer, just when you might expect the art world to be napping beachside in the Mediterranean, guess what? There’s no rest for the weary, because...
Seventeen-time Le Mans entrant, and driver of my car, Nic Minassian. Photo courtesy of Kenny Schachter.As an isolated, overweight child growing up in Long Island with zero exposure to culture, cars were my gateway drug to art. It was the industrial design that...
You’re only as good as your last sale. Amy was on top this time, but don’t count out Loïc for long.... Illustration courtesy of Kenny Schachter.I have noticed a surge in the level of homelessness in London, which was confirmed by a recent article in the Guardian that...
See you at Art Basel Pyongyang 2019. Photo illustration courtesy of Kenny Schachter.Switzerland is the land of three-cheek kisses (along with Slovenia, Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro, the Netherlands, and Egypt), seven presidents (a collective of co-equally powered...
It's time for someone to bone up on art-handling. Photo illustration by Kenny Schachter. The latest spate of New York auctions that transpired over the past two weeks saw nearly $3 billion worth of art trading hands, a mind-boggling sum. But beware: Springtime in...
The TEFAF Fast Art Shoe. Illustration courtesy of Kenny Schachter.If Frieze New York were more conveniently located—with all the Ubers in New York, you still couldn’t get a car out of Randall’s Island during last week’s fair—with better, broader art in a (way) more...
The art world loves spontaneity... but spontaneous combustion? Video still courtesy of Kenny Schachter. While I was checking into my hotel for Frieze New York, a fellow guest made a comment about how much she liked my writing—at the precise moment my credit card got...
Who knew? Everyone who wins a Pulitzer gets a free horse. Photo illustration by Kenny Schachter. Like Paul Revere riding into town in the dead of night to warn the colonials of the impending British invasion, Jerry Saltz rolled into the art world’s inboxes and social...
Did someone say "open bar"? Kenny Schachter gets rambunctious at London's annual Art Quiz. Photo by Luke Fullalove. In the brief respite between miart and Art Cologne, I was invited to join some art-world-style extracurricular activities closer to home: a charity quiz...
It's not easy getting out of bed during an art-fair week. An artwork by Eva Kot'atkova at the 2018 opening of miart in Milan. (Photo by Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images) I’m like a sacrificial lamb trudging across the world to art fairs so you don’t have to. Yes, I can...
The death of an art collector. Photo illustration by Kenny Schachter. Wandering around Art Basel Hong Kong last week, I wondered what Andy would make of all this—fairs, Instagram, and the unstoppable beast the art market has become. For some perspective, his lifetime...
Protect me… from the art world. Photo illustration by Kenny Schachter. A few months ago, I got a direct message from an Instagram account entitled Frenchiepickles that appeared to be dedicated to a French Bulldog. Odder still than receiving a missive from a...
A hobo encamped at a Lower East Side gallery, surely a casualty of the Great Depression. Photo collage by Kenny Schachter. Just before coming to New York for last week’s art fairs, someone tried to sell me a Louise Lawler that had been marked “Lost Property” by an...
Be sure and catch Kenny's new instructional YouTube video. Photo illustration courtesy of Kenny Schachter. Where in the world have I been? It’s been a while since my last dispatch—I hope you enjoyed the break. My absence was largely down to the fact I avoided the...
The architect Norman Foster surveys the town of St. Moritz. Photo courtesy of Kenny Schachter. I’m no fan of Christmas, New Year’s is even worse—all the contrived peace, love, and joy is frankly too much, not to mention the practice of holiday emails that amount to...
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...
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...
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...
,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...
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...
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 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 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...
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,...
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:...
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...
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),...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
My bedroom with Joe Bradley and Mel Bochner paintings. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter. Thursday evening, January 5, two bottles into a business dinner, my wife Ilona phoned to say that our London house was on fire. She assured me that everyone was fine (our four sons,...
The Sky Over Nine Columns by Heinz Mack, with illustration by Kenny Schachter. Writing in St. Moritz, Switzerland lands me on a slippery slope in more ways than one, besides accidentally smashing onto the pavement on occasion. After an article I wrote last year, I was...
Collage by Kenny Schachter. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter. This story first appeared in the January 2017 issue of British GQ. The world has changed in the last five months since I wrote this. Much of Jerry Saltz’s medieval (over sexualized) mischievousness has been...
Collage by Kenny Schachter. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter. Loving and Learning Like starlings changing course mid-flight in a well-ordered flock, many trudged to Art Basel Miami, season fifteen (there should be a boxed set). Come to think of it I’ve been to every fair,...
Collage by Kenny Schachter. Courtesy Kenny Schachter. THE ART MARKET PLAYS ITS TRUMP CARD New York is a city enveloped in an otherworldly atmosphere lined by an endless horizon of police cordons and seemingly spontaneous, raucous, pop-up protests that resemble school...
Collage of Mao beside artwork by Joe Bradley a Gagosian's booth at Art021. Courtesy Kenny Schachter This may be the craziest, most pathetic thing I’ve written but consider this an appeal to action—or inaction—in light of recent political events, the relevance and...
Courtesy of Kenny Schachter. This is an interim report between the West Bund and Art 021 art fairs in Shanghai next week, followed by the pivotal New York November auctions kicking off on the 14th, and the final Basel iteration before year end in Miami. The 11th...
“Dark Shadows” was an epic American gothic soap opera involving a bloodsucking vampire. Though it aired weekdays from 1966–71 (I’m dating myself), it’s what the art market has come to resemble.
“Dark Shadows” was an epic American gothic soap opera involving a bloodsucking vampire. Though it aired weekdays from 1966–71 (I’m dating myself), it’s what the art market has come to resemble.
“Dark Shadows” was an epic American gothic soap opera involving a bloodsucking vampire. Though it aired weekdays from 1966–71 (I’m dating myself), it’s what the art market has come to resemble.
“Dark Shadows” was an epic American gothic soap opera involving a bloodsucking vampire. Though it aired weekdays from 1966–71 (I’m dating myself), it’s what the art market has come to resemble.
“Dark Shadows” was an epic American gothic soap opera involving a bloodsucking vampire. Though it aired weekdays from 1966–71 (I’m dating myself), it’s what the art market has come to resemble.
“Dark Shadows” was an epic American gothic soap opera involving a bloodsucking vampire. Though it aired weekdays from 1966–71 (I’m dating myself), it’s what the art market has come to resemble.
“Dark Shadows” was an epic American gothic soap opera involving a bloodsucking vampire. Though it aired weekdays from 1966–71 (I’m dating myself), it’s what the art market has come to resemble.
The 15th Biennial of Architecture in Venice opened last week with an impromptu retrospective of architect Zaha Hadid, hastily organized since Hadid's untimely death a few short months ago on March 31. What was meant to be an exploration of the research methodologies...
Loic Gouzer and Amy Cappellazzo wrestle. Photo collage by Kenny Schachter Captain Cappellazzo, the Auctions and the Onward March of May Markets like psyches have their natural, cyclical biorhythms; no one is happy 100 percent of the time and nothing goes up forever...
Christie's Global President and auctioneer Jussi Pylkkanen gestures during the bidding of Pablo Picasso's Women of Algiers (Version O), which sold for nearly $179.4 million, making it set a world record for artwork at auction during a sale at Christie's Rockefeller...
Stand: Ropac, Halle 11.2 Tony Matelli at Marlborough. Image: Courtesy of Kenny Schachter. If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Cologne If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium was a rollicking 1969 comedy (with Suzanne Pleshette), featuring a busload of Americans touring...
Welcome to Hong Kong, where the bills are stamped with HSBC—one of three commercial banks authorized by the government to issue currency (how annoying is that?)—which is hosting the latest Basel iteration. Soon there will only be Basel fairs, along with Art Central,...
Collage by Kenny Schachter. Image: Courtesy of Kenny Schachter Collage by Kenny Schachter. Image: Courtesy of Kenny Schachter Dark Shadows “Dark Shadows” was an epic American gothic soap opera involving a bloodsucking vampire. Though it aired weekdays from...
Collage by Kenny Schachter. Image: Courtesy of Kenny Schachter James Franco, Bird 13 (2015). Image: Courtesy of Siegfried Contemporary Hello Magazine, Art World Edition After my recent article on the art and art scene in St. Moritz, returning with a piece on...
Collage by Kenny Schachter. Image: Courtesy of Kenny Schachter The Sky is Falling—Or Is it? Breaking news: stocks take a historic plunge amid a global rout and oil slumps to a 13-year low. Even more shocking is that the art market squeaked by during the latest spate...
Joe Bradley, Untitled (2015). Image: Courtesy of Kenny Schachter Though neither of us could recall the exact circumstances under which we met (endemic to the times), I’ve known Joe Bradley since roughly 2001. I was immediately taken by the artist...
At 1,822 meters in altitude, St. Moritz, in the Swiss Engadine Valley, is among the highest peaks in the Alps and a sporting mecca, having hosted the Winter Olympic Games in 1928 and 1948, one of only three cities to do so twice (besides Innsbruck, Austria and...
Covering Art Basel Miami Beach since its inception 14 years ago I frankly didn’t think there would be any stories left to tell, yet there’s inevitable change and flux afoot though not entirely for the better. Miami is one of the few, if not only, places the art...
Jim Shaw, Dream Sculpture (2006), Image: Courtesy of Phillips I covered the fall New York art auctions—focusing more than usual on the art itself for a change—for another art publication, and the editors there knew full well in advance that my writing voice verges...
Postwar and contemporary art auction at Christies. Image courtesy of Kenny Schachter. The Auctions Vice Media dropped into my house in London a short while ago to shoot for an upcoming series on the art market that they’re in the midst of producing for HBO; I was...
Kamel Menour at his booth at Frieze London 2015, with works by Camille Henrot. Photo: Linda Nylind. Courtesy of Linda Nylind/FriezePhilip Roth with portrait by Kitaj. Image: Courtesy of Stephen Ongpin Gallery The Good, Bad and (Very) Ugly of Frieze Week Picking up...
I know this sounds like a set-up for a Richard Prince joke painting but it’s true: I went to a shrink to help cope with anxiety issues last week and when he found out what I did for a living, all he could ask about over the course of the next hour was art market...
Andy Warhol, One Dollar Bill (Silver Certificate), (1962). Courtesy Sotheby's.Sotheby’s July 1 Contemporary Evening sale. Photo: Courtesy of Kenny Schachter. The school year for the international art world stretches from Frieze London in early October to the London...
Eric Fischl. Photo: Kenny Schachter. Art Basel 2015 was a story both thrilling and catastrophic, ending with a real bang. Literally. But before I get to that, and the fair, I made a quick stop in Zurich prior to going up to Basel to see some art and art people....
Kenny Schachter as the art court jester. Image: via Kenny Schachter. I began writing diaristic pieces for artnet.com more than 20 years ago, so it’s only fitting that I return to roost in 2015, where it all began. Only now the chronicle is beginning to...
A rainbow ring in the clouds over Art Basel Miami Beach News reports leading up to the 10th iteration of Art Basel Miami Beach were more concerned with where to find the parties rather than the art. But the insurance value of the art clocked in at $2.5 billion, so...
Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild, 1992. $ 1,248,000. Sotheby’s New York, May 10, 2005. $14,082,500. Sotheby’s New York, Nov. 9, 2011. Why do so many art people seem to be hoping for an art crash? Why can’t they accept that in these uncertain, unstable times art has...
A beauty shot of Kolnmesse, site of Art Cologne 2012 In 2008 I wrote an obituary for the Cologne Art Fair, and guess what? It’s still dead. Call it fair overload. Markets are driven by a degree of psychology: when stocks go down, the good, bad and ugly all get dragged...
Ai Weiwei, Colored Vases, 2007, at Gallery Hyundai, Seoul, at the VIP Art Fair I’ll say one thing for New York art dealer James Cohan’s new internet-only VIP Art Fair, Jan. 22-30, 2011 -- it was received with great fanfare, as if no one had ever encountered or sold...
Steve Wynn and Sylvester Stallone at the Galerie Gmurzynska stand at Art Basel Miami Beach 2009. Photo by Patrick McMullan, Inc. Like a casino, void of natural light and any sense of time and with about the same odds of beating the house, so goes another iteration of...
Scott Reeder, American Dick, 2007, Oil on canvas, 101.6 x 76.2 cm At the most glamorous of the many fab parties leading up to Art 40 Basel, a museum director told how she’s gone on a day trip to the Venice Biennale, after which she went for a massage and was roused by...
The entrance to the Saatchi Gallery on Boundary Road, where it remained in residence from 1984 to 2003 First there was the austere, New York-quoting Saatchi Gallery on Boundary Road, akin to big museum halls, large and imposing with London artist Richard Wilson’s...
First there was the austere, New York-quoting Saatchi Gallery on Boundary Road, akin to big museum halls, large and imposing with London artist Richard Wilson’s unforgettable oil-filled room, 20:50, tucked into a corner. Wilson’s work looked even more terrifying in...
Tumble weeds tumbling down the corridors of the 42nd Art Cologne fair, the oldest fair, even predating Basel on the first public day of attendance. Time used to have it where life expectancies weren’t anticipated beyond the early forties and history has repeated...
Art Cologne 2008 gets ready for (no) business Yes, I have been guilty of such disingenuousness myself on more than one occasion, but let it be known, after the marathon ten-hour opening and nearly week-long Art Cologne (probably the longest fair of them all), we have...
Design Miami/Basel gets underway in the Markthalle Basel I have sold toys, insurance, neckwear and art. And now cars and furniture, the former for fun and the latter for money -- and because I seem to have trouble getting into the fine art fairs. At Art Basel in...
The current show at Kenny Schachter Rove in London, "Between a Rock and a Hard Place," curated by Danny Moynihan, with works by Jannis Kounellis (left) and Edward William Cooke Over the spring I purchased two paintings and four drawings by a prominent British painter...
To receive Kenny's latest news.