Wet Paint: Jordan Wolfson Hates the New Jordan Wolfson Documentary, a New York Gallery Defies Quarantine, & More Juicy Art-World Gossip

Every Thursday afternoon, Artnet News brings you Wet Paint,
a gossip column of original scoops reported and written by Nate
Freeman. If you have a tip, email Nate
at nfreeman@artnet.com.

WOLFSON AT THE DOOR

The art world’s first communal must-see stream of global
quarantine is “Spit Earth: Who is Jordan Wolfson?”
The documentary is a dishy take on an
artist who, for a variety of reasons, is hard to look away
from. In addition to the talking heads that pop up to call Wolfson
a “genius” and a “monster” and an “asshole” in the film, its
director James Crump devotes a sizable
chunk of the sub-one-hour run time simply to showing the artist’s
manic, pop-tracked videos and ominous monster machines. Unlike
large swaths of the indistinguishable stuff at virtual fairs and
online viewing rooms, Wolfson’s best-known works—Female
Figure, Raspberry Poser, Riverboat Song—have
the power to titillate and excite even when seen on a small glowing
screen.

And yet, sources say the subject is not pleased with the final
product—nor are some of the other interviewees. Earlier this year,
Artnet columnist Kenny Schachter reported that Wolfson,
who sat for hours of interviews with Crump, disavowed his
participation before the film’s release last week. Then, word got
out that the artist had gone a step further. According to the
film’s producer, Ronnie Sassoon, he had
begun reaching out to other participants in the shock doc and
asking them to withdraw statements they had made about him.

When pressed for details, Sassoon told me that, in late April,
she and Crump received an email from curator Andrianna
Campbell-LaFleur saying she was uncomfortable with
commentary that she had provided in the film. (Five days later,
Campbell-LaFleur once again emailed the filmmakers, this time
cc’ing Wolfson himself.) The curator had wanted Crump to remove
several lines in the film in which she recounts becoming so
aggravated with Wolfson when they were students at the Rhode Island
School of Design (“he seems to say he made a pass at me,” she said
in the documentary) that she punched him in the face.

When reached by Wet Paint, Campbell-LaFleur said her
relationship with the artist has been “limited to professional and
respectful interactions” since their school days and she was
surprised to see the clip included since Crump had agreed to remove
it after she feared it could be taken out of context. “There are
several people involved who believe that he has distorted their
words with the intention of promoting and funding this project,”
she said.

For her part, Sassoon resolved that she and Crump would not bend
to pressure to edit out any commentary from the film. “We stand by
everything in it,” she said. “The fact that Jordan doesn’t like it
tells us that we did a good job portraying him.”

Wolfson did not respond to a request for comment through his
gallery, David Zwirner.

COME ON IN, WE’RE DANGEROUSLY OPEN! 

New York City is the center of the coronavirus crisis, and since
mid-March, it’s been effectively shut down. Only essential
businesses are operational, and Mayor Bill de
Blasio has said that we’re
“obviously a few months away at minimum” from reopening the city.
That means that galleries are, for the most part, completely shut
down. Apart from one, that is. A tipster sent Wet
Paint a photo of Shin Gallery on the
Lower East Side that shows a woman clearly working the front desk.
“This gallery has had this poor girl come in and work every day
since the shutdown started,” the tipster said. “She’s always
sitting there when I walk by.” Gallery founder Hong Gyu
Shin—the mysterious Korean dealer perhaps best known for
bidding up to $124 million on a Francis Bacon
triptych at Christie’s before losing out to
Elaine Wynn—did not respond to an email. But
according to the website, there is a show of work by Wayne
Nowack up until Saturday. Yikes!

NO-FEELINGS FLIPPER

When the artist Matthew
Wong died by suicide in October at the age of 35, it
was a tragedy made even more heartbreaking by the fact that he left
behind a suite of gorgeously melancholy paintings in his studio—a
complete group of works that would be his last show. Wong had put
the final touches on the paintings, worked out the details for the
catalogue, and deliberated over the sequencing, finalizing the
order over the summer. The works debuted at Karma,
his New York gallery, last fall, putting on full display the
massive talent that the art world had lost. As Roberta
Smith said in her New York
Times review of the Karma show, Wong was “one of
the most talented painters of his generation.”

Smith also noted that none of the works were for sale. There was
no talk of the artist’s market. But collectors with an eye toward
speculation can only be held back on moral grounds for so long. By
February, I got a text from an advisor asking where one could get a
Matthew Wong, saying, “I have a client who’s going to have a heart
attack if he doesn’t get one—he will pay, like, any price.” Now,
that collector, and others clamoring for work, will have their
chance. A flipper who is looking for a payday has consigned to
Sotheby’s a small watercolor on paper two
years after buying it at the artist’s first show at Karma in
2018—and just months after his tragic death. It’s the first time
one of Wong’s works has come to auction. Undeterred by the optics,
Sotheby’s gave the watercolor primo billing, slotting it first in
its online Contemporary Art Day Sale, which is
live for bidding until May 14. As of press time, 13 bids had
already been lodged for the watercolor (one
literally as this column was being edited), and
the price hit $19,000—$4,000 above its high estimate, with a full
week left to go.

BADER’S BETTER FAIR

When Frieze New York‘s online
edition “opened” to VIPs on
Wednesday, untold thousands logged in and fought their way
through gee-whiz gadgetry and slow-load welcome videos for the
glory of seeing a pre-sold $150,000 Avery Singer
work on paper float on a computer screen. But for those a little
exhausted by the breathless bluster that now must accompany what
are—lest we forget!—just websites with pictures on them, a welcome
reprieve has come in the form of a project called Inventory, a pared-down
model for online art sales that lets emerging artists easily
offload work that’s been collecting dust (and costing money) in
storage. The interface is clean, creating a casual way to see some
really terrific work by the 20 cool-kid artists in the initial
offering, including Anna-Sophie Berger,
Dawn Kasper, Kon Trubkovich,
Ajay Kurian, and Spencer Sweeney.
Perhaps the appealing aesthetic is due to the fact that Inventory
is the brainchild not of an art dealer or market theorist, but of
the artist Darren Bader. One could be forgiven for
thinking that “Darren Bader makes an art fair” is an elaborate
conceptual artwork, given the fact that much of his previous work
has poked fun at the absurdities of the art market. (For
Art Basel Miami Beach in 2012, the artist
gave his dealer Andrew Kreps a work to sell
called pretty face, which came with this official
description: “The work can be anyone at anytime, anywhere, as long
as s/he has a pretty face.”) But Bader assured us in an email that
Inventory is not a new spin on such Baderian satire, but rather a
real effort to help his fellow artists and their struggling
galleries. “Although sometimes known for my puckish penchants, I
believe in our community as a vital, collegial, and compassionate
one,” he said.

POP QUIZ

Congrats to our first repeat winner: Meredith
Darrow! The art advisor—and quiz master who correctly
identified the Willem de Kooning statue on
Maja Hoffmann‘s Zurich lawn waaaaay back
at the start of March—was the first to correctly identify both
the person in the photo and the work on the wall. The rock legend
is Flea, the bassist for the Red Hot Chili
Peppers, and on the wall is a work by Richard
Prince—it’s one of his “Band Paintings.” Runners-up who
emailed correct answers within a few minutes of Darrow were the
artist Edward Holland and the dynamic duo of
Annie Roff and Angela Kunicky,
who run things over at Mr. Keet—better known as the studio
operation of one Urs Fischer.

Here’s this week’s clue. This is a close up of a work. What is
the work and where, specifically, is it?

First person to email nfreeman@artnet.com with the full correct
answer gets an extremely rad shout-out in the best art gossip
column on the wild, wild internet.

WE HEAR…

Lehmann Maupin secured New York representation
of the fiercely sought-after South African artist Billie
Zangewa and debuted her new works at Frieze New York
online … the artist Coco Young has launched Cinema
Quarantine, a way to watch 15 video works by the likes of
Violet Dennison, Rachel Rose,
Korakrit Arunanondchai, and others …
Fotofolio has launched a new website where you can purchase its
delightful editions of artist-made postcards, complete with stamps,
to send from your isolation pods—just in time to save the
U.S. Postal Service … curator Brooke
Wise got Jamian Juliano-Villani,
Brian Calvin, Julie Curtiss,
Robin F. Williams, Raymond
Pettibon, and Chloe Wise to contribute
drawings to “The Fine Art Quarantine Coloring Book,” which is
available to print out—and
give to your kid to keep them entertained for hours!—with a
suggested donation to Meals on Wheels.

SPOTTED

*** Senator Kamala Harris video-chatting in
front of a Banksy print *** Patrons finally back
outside Clandestino, the beloved art hang in
Dimes Square, which is now open for takeout ***
artist Eliza Douglas in another of those
weird, captionless Balenciaga Instagrams
*** Helen Marden posting about how she and
her husband, artist Brice Marden, really
enjoyed the Harmony Korine stoner comedy The
Beach Bum *** …And that’s it! Everyone stay home! Even
you, Shin Gallery front desk person! ***

PARTING SHOT

The post Wet Paint: Jordan Wolfson Hates the New Jordan
Wolfson Documentary, a New York Gallery Defies Quarantine, & More
Juicy Art-World Gossip appeared first on artnet
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