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The Headlines
TRUMPED UP AND ‘CHEAP.’ Artnet News reports about how a “cheap” Donald Trump, per Andy Warhol ’s description of the former president in 1981, failed to pay for paintings he commissioned from the artist to decorate Trump Tower. Warhol’s candidly entertaining diary entries describe how Trump visited The Factory and disapproved of Warhol’s color choice for a series of paintings depicting Trump’s new skyscraper, which he had asked the artist to make. Instead, Trump’s team reasoned they would have to show the artist swatches of pink and orange materials from the building entrance so Warhol could match them to the paintings. In the end, Trump gave Warhol the cold shoulder and never paid him, which is now the ex-president’s loss. Warhol never forgot. “I still hate the Trumps because they never bought the paintings I did of the Trump Tower,” he wrote in his diary in 1984. Now, estimated at $500,000 to $700,000, New York Skyscrapers will be offered for sale by Phillips on November 19. The article does not mention how much Trump had promised to pay Warhol, and only that “nothing was settled,” but we can satisfyingly conclude it was very likely a lot less than what they are worth today.
TOMB RAIDING ACCOMPLICE. The Manhattan district attorney’s antiquities trafficking unit, led by Matthew Bogdanos, has obtained the warrant for the arrest of Italy-based dealer Edoardo Almagià on charges of conspiracy in a scheme to defraud and possess stolen property rightfully owned by Italy, reports The New York Times . The high-profile, Princeton-educated antiquities dealer is implicated in trafficking thousands of artifacts valued at several millions of dollars, per the report. It is not clear whether Interpol has issued a “red notice” for Almagià’s arrest and eventual extradition since the story broke, but that’s apparently the next step in the legal proceedings. In the meantime, an 80-page warrant “describes a debonair figure who sold and donated prized artifacts to important museums and collectors, but who also operated under a cloud,” particularly when authorities began to suspect him of working with tomb raiders.
The Digest
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK) said it wants to return more artworks to the indigenous Kogi people in Columbia. Germany’s culture minister Claudia Roth said in a statement that the aim is to “officially transfer ownership as soon as possible” three ritual objects of sacred significance, including a headpiece, a staff, and a basket, currently on loan to Colombia, and originally from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in the northern part of the country. [ Monopol Magazine and dpa]
ART X Lagos has opened in Nigeria from October 31 to November 3, featuring Andrew Dosunmu’s first solo exhibition in Africa, and 10 “curated galleries,” including Afriart Gallery (Uganada), Galerie MAM (Cameroon) and Gallery 1957 (Ghana). The fair also includes discussion forums and immersive art experiences. [ART X Lagos website]
“Hideous” or an artwork locals have “warmed to”? Whatever the public thinks of the controversial sculpture titled Quasi (2016) by artist Ronnie van Hout, it will now be removed from the roof of New Zealand’s City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi. The giant depiction of a hand, with the artist’s face embedded in it has divided opinion since its installation in 2019. [ArtAsiaPacific]
The GermannAuctionhouse in Zurich is preparing to sell three artworks authenticated by AI next month. The Swiss company Art Recognition has used AI to help certify the authenticity of the art in question, made by Louise Bourgeois, Marianne von Werefkin and Mimmo Paladino. [The Art Newspaper]
The Kicker
KAWS CONVERSION. Brian Donnelly, aka KAWS, is something of a pop sensation, but he also has his haters. His cartoon-inspired artworks are “super-smooth, expensive, but also available as mass-produced objects and gewgaws,” seen by many as “the crass end point of a commercialized system,” writes art critic Jerry Saltz. Not necessarily counting himself among those who share that view, Saltz says he’s “been ambivalent about [KAWS’] art.” Until now. The critic appears to have taken an about-turn, per his latest, glowing review for New York Magazine’s Vulture section, about a current Drawing Center exhibit featuring KAWS art collection, that is “so exceptional that I now see his own art quite differently, as part of a much broader project inseparable from the whole,” Saltz writes. The works in “The Way I See It: Selections From the KAWS Collection” is a revelation of unexpected interests ranging from outsider and underdog visionaries, including Hilma af Klint, Martín Ramírez, R. Crumb, and Nicole Appel, plus standouts by graffiti artists like Lee Quinones, DONDI, DAZE , and others. Left momentarily speechless, Saltz weaves together what connection he sees between these disparate works, and their unlikely owner. “KAWS gets us to understand that, though 95 percent of art may be generic or derivative, there are always artists who jump the tracks of style and change it. He himself was long shunned by the art world before his work started to sell, and his show suggests that maybe the traditional gatekeepers are not always the best arbiters of what is good and what’s not.”