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Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing Today.

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Speaker 1: I look at the art world from two angles, from

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Speaker 1: someone in it and from someone who has observed that

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Speaker 1: world from a distance. Writer Michael Shnayerson's latest book, Boom,

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Speaker 1: gives an exhaustive history of how today's art market came

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Speaker 1: to be. Art dealer Richard Feigen spent his entire career

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Speaker 1: in that market. Will start with Michael Schneyerson. He grew

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Speaker 1: up in New York. His first writing job was as

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Speaker 1: the sports editor of the Santa Fe Reporter in New Mexico.

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Speaker 1: He made one dollars a week, but it led to

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Speaker 1: a job at Time Magazine, then Two Avenues, and finally

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Speaker 1: Vanity Fair, where he has published over feature stories. Shnayerson

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Speaker 1: writes books too. He's collaborated with Harry Belafonte, written a

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Speaker 1: portrait of Andrew Cuomo and Unpacked General Motors and the

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Speaker 1: Electric Car. For his latest book, Boom, Schneyerson interviewed more

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Speaker 1: than two hundred art dealers. Whenever he writes a book,

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Speaker 1: and Boom is his seventh, he becomes lost in the

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Speaker 1: world of his subject. One reason that I undertook those

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Speaker 1: books was to immerse myself in the different worlds. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I found Albany a fascinating world and very in its

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Speaker 1: own way, sort of exotic one. How soles about that?

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Speaker 1: This is the Cuomo biography? You know it's Yes, It's

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Speaker 1: often said that when your drive from New York to Albany,

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Speaker 1: let's say you're a representative of some kind, by the

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Speaker 1: time you get halfway there, you know you're you're within

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Speaker 1: the this realm that is completely apart from Manhattan, and

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Speaker 1: you know there's a kind of pervasive corruption in um

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Speaker 1: in Albany. It's so pervasive that there's everyone acknowledges it. Basically,

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Speaker 1: there's no there's virtually no rules or very modest ones

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Speaker 1: on campaign contributions. You can give anything through beyond cynicism. That, yeah,

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Speaker 1: let's beyond cynicism. I found that fascinating. Did I learn

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Speaker 1: more about Cuomo because of the Cuomo's a very complicated,

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Speaker 1: dark guy who's sort of haunted by his father, UM

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Speaker 1: Harry Belafonte, It occurred to me as someone who was

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Speaker 1: always haunted by his father. UM. Now with with Andrew Cuomo,

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Speaker 1: who I don't know well, I've met him many times,

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Speaker 1: and of course, like anybody who participates on any level,

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Speaker 1: especially a level that can involve check writing. Uh, you

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Speaker 1: you have Cuomo lieutenants reaching out to you. But um,

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Speaker 1: he's a guy who was always kind of uh fascinated

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Speaker 1: somewhat by that relationship with his father because he's so

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Speaker 1: much more of a retail politician than his dad. You know.

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Speaker 1: But and and their mother was this wonderful woe. She

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Speaker 1: was this dynamic and daughter, Matilda Cuomo was always how's

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Speaker 1: your mom and how's your mom's breast cancer? Thinger? She

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Speaker 1: she knew that game inside and out and she did

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Speaker 1: it sincerely. She was a very warm woman. And Como

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Speaker 1: would be standing there at Cuomo Senior and it was

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Speaker 1: like he had a hair shirt on. He just couldn't

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Speaker 1: wait for everybody to get the hell away from him

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Speaker 1: and he can go home. Well, it's very perceptive. I mean,

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Speaker 1: he was seen as written as being this avuncular, warm, empathetic,

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Speaker 1: you know, true democrat. Um. In fact, he was a

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Speaker 1: very tough father on on Andrew. Um. Um. You know,

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Speaker 1: maybe one thing to be gleaned here is that almost

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Speaker 1: everybody's got a father problem, this dynamic between fathers and sons. Um.

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Speaker 1: What was Belafonte's luck in terms of because because when

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Speaker 1: I met him, he was a pretty no nonsense guy.

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Speaker 1: To tough guys, beget tough sons or can What was

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Speaker 1: what was Belafonte's relationship with his father? Like they grew

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Speaker 1: up partly in Jamaica. His father was a sailor UM

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Speaker 1: in some sort of marine, in a military marine situation.

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Speaker 1: He um when he came home, he was um. He

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Speaker 1: was really abusive to his son, I mean physical, physical violence.

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Speaker 1: I remember Harry describing a moment when his father, Uh, well,

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Speaker 1: he had done something. Harry had done something wrong, and

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Speaker 1: his father said, we're going to take care of this.

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Speaker 1: And he made Harry fill the bathtub with absolutely scalding

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Speaker 1: water and then he told him to come out of

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Speaker 1: the bathtub and put his foot in, and just as

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Speaker 1: he was about to put his foot in, the father

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Speaker 1: sort of pushed him away. And that wasn't the only

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Speaker 1: time he did something like that. At one one time,

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Speaker 1: I remember Harry saying that his father took a a

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Speaker 1: lit cigarette and put it to his leg um. So

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Speaker 1: that was pretty extreme UM and I think it made

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Speaker 1: Harry a very tough character. Indeed, UM very tough. But

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Speaker 1: at the same time. When I met him, Yeah, he

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Speaker 1: did not suffer fools. When I met him, he really

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Speaker 1: really seemed like somebody who he had a chip on

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Speaker 1: his shoulder. Can I tell you a little story because

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Speaker 1: it's just one of the great stories from that book. Um. Uh,

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Speaker 1: I hope it's okay if we venture a little bit

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Speaker 1: away from from art um. Uh. So, Harry had served

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Speaker 1: in the military in the Army. Um, of course, in

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Speaker 1: a black regiment outside of Chicago. If you were black,

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Speaker 1: you were in a black regiment. Um. There was no integration.

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Speaker 1: And he came back. He didn't know what to do,

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Speaker 1: so he worked as a janitor in Harlem. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: one day one of his uh customers, not customers, the

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Speaker 1: people in the building said, Harry, could you help fix

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Speaker 1: my broiler or something? So he fixed the broiler and

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Speaker 1: she said, well, I want to pay you by giving

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Speaker 1: you these two theater tickets, and uh, it's for free.

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Speaker 1: It's something called the you know, the America, The American

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Speaker 1: Negro Theater was I think the name. So Harry had

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Speaker 1: never seen a play and he went down alone to

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Speaker 1: see this play and he was absolutely gobsmacked. It involved

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Speaker 1: is there contemporary involved black soldiers? Coming back from the

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Speaker 1: war trying to readjust so he goes up to the

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Speaker 1: founders afterwards, the directors of this theory, sis, I want

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Speaker 1: to help, only do anything I can, and they say, really, okay, well,

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Speaker 1: if you want to move the props around, come on back.

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Speaker 1: So he comes back. He starts moving the props around,

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Speaker 1: and he's below that area of the of the stage,

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Speaker 1: you know, whatever you call it where the orchestra's pit

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Speaker 1: is or whatever, is moving things around, and this very

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Speaker 1: surly guy uh is moving them around too, and and

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Speaker 1: Harry find says, you're not talking much. Is that because

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Speaker 1: you were just in jail? And the guy freaks out.

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Speaker 1: He says, why would you think that, um? And Harry says,

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Speaker 1: you know, just because that's sort of like I had

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Speaker 1: a sense when people are in jail have been. He says, well,

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Speaker 1: I can't talk about that, uh. And he says, well,

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Speaker 1: what's your name? And he says, Sydney Partier. And this

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Speaker 1: is how Harry and Sydney Potier met and it was

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Speaker 1: the beginning of their like seventy year friendship which continues

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Speaker 1: to this day. Were there white artists, writers, thinkers that

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Speaker 1: he trusted that he thought really cared about the movement,

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Speaker 1: you know, um, something that he respected I offhand, UM,

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Speaker 1: I don't have that recollection. What I have is actually

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Speaker 1: the opposite sort of recollection, which is a a white

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Speaker 1: guy whom he trusted explicitly because the guy was his therapist.

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Speaker 1: And actually the guy's last name was Kennedy. I've forgotten

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Speaker 1: his first name wasn't anything to do with the Kennedy family,

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Speaker 1: and um uh, as it turned out, the guy was

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Speaker 1: a spy for the FBI, and um, Janeer Hoover was

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Speaker 1: using Yeah, and and so you know, imagine the sense

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Speaker 1: of betrayal you feel if you're Harry Bellafonte and your

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Speaker 1: own therapist has been reporting on you to Jaeder Hoover, Um,

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Speaker 1: a white therapist. Just to clarify, So, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I think I think trying. I thought my opinion of

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Speaker 1: Hoover couldn't go down maybe lower. Um, I have to

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Speaker 1: say I think that that he came to trust me

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Speaker 1: and we had a very very strong friendship, which continues.

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Speaker 1: I'm wondering as I hop over to the world of

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Speaker 1: art and your current book, Boom, did writing this book

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Speaker 1: lead you to look at art differently than you had before? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think it did. I mean, I'm quick to say

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Speaker 1: on page one of this book that I am not

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Speaker 1: an art critic. Uh, neither before nor after that, you

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Speaker 1: know that. That's no. I never collected friends that were

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Speaker 1: galorous or art artists. I had a few, to be honest.

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Speaker 1: I I first got into this story because some of

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Speaker 1: the art stories, if some of the stories I did

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Speaker 1: for any Fair, were about contemporary art. Yes, you know,

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Speaker 1: the whole Older Gallery, which and Freedom, which which we

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Speaker 1: have discussed, and uh, you know I found those stories fascinating. Um.

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Speaker 1: That was the first thing. I also was intrigued always

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Speaker 1: by Larry Gagosian, Um, you know, the the top dog

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Speaker 1: of the whole contemporary art dealer world, and I wanted

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Speaker 1: to write about him, and I would always be told

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Speaker 1: forget it. It took me a while to realize that,

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Speaker 1: of course, I would never get to write about it

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Speaker 1: goes In because he was a sacred cow. Because Si

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Speaker 1: new House, the head of you know, the head of

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Speaker 1: the company was Conny had bought a lot of art

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Speaker 1: and was buying more. I mean you know, uh, go

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Speaker 1: goes Ian had sat in an auction room with Um,

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Speaker 1: with Si new House, and they had been a work

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Speaker 1: up to seventeen million dollars, So of course I wasn't

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Speaker 1: gonna be allowed to write by It was fine. Uh,

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Speaker 1: time passed, I thought, you know, this subject is too big.

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Speaker 1: I've been I've been thinking, I'm going to write about

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Speaker 1: the whole contemporary art world and how it got this

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Speaker 1: way from the late fourteas until now, and it's going

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Speaker 1: to involve collectors and curators and dealers and artists. Yes,

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Speaker 1: but I, um, but I just was. I had just

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Speaker 1: taken on too much. So how was I going to

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Speaker 1: reduce it? Well, I finally occurred to be the answer

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Speaker 1: was to Winnow it down to the dealers, because you know,

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Speaker 1: there's no art without artists, but there's actually no art

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Speaker 1: without dealers either, and they had been kind of at

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Speaker 1: the center of this story from the beginning, and they

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Speaker 1: were a very interesting group of people. So that's how

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Speaker 1: I got going. You know, I when I've met you know,

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Speaker 1: there's something about him it's so exciting and so kind

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Speaker 1: of because because he has an energy to him, like

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Speaker 1: you want to believe, there's a rakishness to him. To me. Um,

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Speaker 1: the only person that could play in a movie about

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Speaker 1: him is Daddy would be John Garfield's a is a tough,

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Speaker 1: tenacious quality, and you want to believe that began his queer.

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Speaker 1: But like hijacking a truck, someone said, listen, kid, A

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Speaker 1: bunch of people like he just is a toughness to him.

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Speaker 1: There's a kind of a there's a kind of a

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Speaker 1: veneered him. He's really kind of a tough guy and warm.

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Speaker 1: You know, so many things come to mind as you

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Speaker 1: as you speak like I mean, one thing is just

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Speaker 1: to the point about his charm. It's fascinating. If he

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Speaker 1: wants something from you and I hear this again and again,

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Speaker 1: then he's the most charming guy in the world. Um,

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Speaker 1: and he loves I mean, there are these billionaires who

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Speaker 1: are his clients. You know, he's he's what they call

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Speaker 1: collector centric versus artists centric. You know, he's realized a

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Speaker 1: long time ago that if you can get Ron Perlman

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Speaker 1: or whoever else Steve Cohen to be at your table

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Speaker 1: and come to your parties, and then by the art

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Speaker 1: you're gonna be Not long ago, I was in the

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Speaker 1: restaurant Sedimentzo, and I overheard this little snippet of conversation Asian.

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Speaker 1: I guess it was around the holidays, and uh, this

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Speaker 1: heavyset guy, older guy leaned towards someone at the next

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Speaker 1: table and said, going down to uh st Bart's for Christmas,

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Speaker 1: and the and the other guy said, oh, you know

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Speaker 1: you're gonna you're gonna see Larry. Yeah, I'm gonna gonna

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Speaker 1: see Larry. And and where are you gonna stay? And

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Speaker 1: the other guys, oh, we just always stay with Larry.

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Speaker 1: We stay with Larry. And what that meant was that

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Speaker 1: this guy has bought a lot of art from Larry

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Speaker 1: and that's why he gets invited, not because of his charm,

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Speaker 1: which he probably thought he had anyway, So you know,

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Speaker 1: go Gozian's charm is uh. It turns on and off

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Speaker 1: at as as need be. Uh. He's also described as

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Speaker 1: someone who can be um very you know, just turn

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Speaker 1: a cold shoulder on you, just look right through you, um,

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Speaker 1: depending on if you you know, are necessary to him

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Speaker 1: or not. When you look at this line from Kesstelli,

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Speaker 1: we'll say that's the line, even though there were other

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Speaker 1: people that you write about as well. And the abdex

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Speaker 1: world as you call it, um this line from Castelli

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Speaker 1: onto Coos and these people who are making a market,

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Speaker 1: these people who have convinced other people. Um, would you

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Speaker 1: say that that who was are the equivalent? Because if

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Speaker 1: I read the book correctly, what you're saying is that

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Speaker 1: that that these men and some women they got rich

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Speaker 1: people to to turn this into a currency. So who

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Speaker 1: do you think it is? It's Castellian? Who else? Well?

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Speaker 1: So to go back, you know, to the beginning of

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Speaker 1: Gogs and I find it just fascinating, Um, that he

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Speaker 1: grew up in the way he did in an Armenian

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Speaker 1: community in Fresno, California. You know his parents, I think

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Speaker 1: we're they were Americans, but his grandparents on both sides

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Speaker 1: had were immigrants from Russia. And you know, this is

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Speaker 1: very at odds with the template, if you will, for

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Speaker 1: contemporary art dealers. Contemporary art dealers tend to be, you know,

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Speaker 1: to started as rich fops. Their parents have art on

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Speaker 1: the walls, their parents know the dealer, who will give

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Speaker 1: the kid a job. I mean, this is how these

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Speaker 1: things tend to come up. So when you get a

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Speaker 1: guy like a goes In who didn't even know what

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Speaker 1: art was growing up, never a piece of art on

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Speaker 1: his apartment. And the father we talked about, the father

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Speaker 1: actually was an accountant, did Okay, but you know, as

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Speaker 1: as Larry later said, there was he never heard of

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Speaker 1: anybody who had two cars. He never heard of anyone

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Speaker 1: who went to the country for the weekend. I mean,

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Speaker 1: he was just amazed to hear that when he finally

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Speaker 1: got into the art business, and so, you know, to

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Speaker 1: hear that and then to get that wonderful story, I

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Speaker 1: mean it's just so classic. You know, he he gets

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Speaker 1: out of USC, he doesn't know what he's gonna do.

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Speaker 1: He is actually gets a job at the William Morris

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Speaker 1: Male Room, the classics starting job, except that he hates

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Speaker 1: working for people like Mike Ovits, and he just he's

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Speaker 1: either fired or he quits whatever. He's out of there.

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Speaker 1: And then he spends a few years just working like

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Speaker 1: for a record store, a grocery store. You know, doesn't

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Speaker 1: have any ambition at all, which is quite bizarre when

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Speaker 1: you think of how ambitious he really is. And then

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Speaker 1: at a certain point he gets a job that has

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Speaker 1: him working as a parking lot manager. Okay, so he's

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Speaker 1: in his parking lot, he looks down the street and

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Speaker 1: there's a guy taking framed prints out of the trunk

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Speaker 1: of his car and selling them. As it turns out

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Speaker 1: and Larry's kind of fascinated it. And so he looks

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Speaker 1: into this and he finds out where these posters are made,

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Speaker 1: and he gets his own posters. And you know, it's

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Speaker 1: the thing about him, he didn't he didn't look at

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Speaker 1: the guys selling posters and think, well, maybe I'll try

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Speaker 1: to sell something else. He was very pragmatic. If the

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Speaker 1: posters sold, he would do posters. And he later said,

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Speaker 1: you know, if the guy had been selling widgets, he'd

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Speaker 1: probably be selling widgets now, right. So, uh so he

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Speaker 1: started he got to pop up story. Didn't he go

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Speaker 1: get a store? Yes, exactly right. He's he starts doing

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Speaker 1: this on the street, just like the other guy trunk

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Speaker 1: of his car. And then because he is framing these things,

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Speaker 1: it occurs to him maybe he should have a little

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Speaker 1: framing store, and so he does that. Uh, and then

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Speaker 1: he gets a little more ambitious and he has a

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Speaker 1: little gallery. So he's framing and he's trying to sell

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Speaker 1: the work. But he realizes that he's nowhere out there.

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Speaker 1: And I mean it's in Westwood, l A. It's it's

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Speaker 1: not a bad community. There's some wealthy people in the

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Speaker 1: movie business. But uh, he knows he has to come

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Speaker 1: to New York and try to ingratiate himself, and that

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Speaker 1: leads him to come in and to actually meet uh

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Speaker 1: Castelli and and that's where the whole art world sort

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Speaker 1: of begins turning into an art market. One day, he's

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Speaker 1: in his l A gallery and uh, he's looking through

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Speaker 1: a art magazine and they're these very cool abstract photographs

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Speaker 1: by guy named Ralph Gibson um who just parenthetically I

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Speaker 1: happen to know because he would do the photo shots

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Speaker 1: for Avenue magazine. So I would go to his too,

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Speaker 1: Ralph's studio, and we would choose these really cool shots

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Speaker 1: and they would go on the cover of the magazine. Uh.

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Speaker 1: At any rate, Ralph gets a call from Gozian, who says,

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Speaker 1: you don't know me, but I like your photos and

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Speaker 1: I'd like to have a show of them here in California.

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Speaker 1: And there's a pause on the line, and Ralph says,

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Speaker 1: but I'm in New York and and he goes says, oh,

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I got I thought you were in l A.

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Speaker 1: Uh And well, but how about if I take the

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Speaker 1: pictures anyway? And and and Gibson says, well, if you

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Speaker 1: want to fly here and introduce yourself. Then you know

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Speaker 1: we could talk about that. So Gozian flies out he

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Speaker 1: um Uh. He arrives on his own and he meets Gibson.

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Speaker 1: They're both actually very handsome, charming gods. I mean, they

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Speaker 1: really are charismatic the world. Yeah. Yeah, and they liked

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Speaker 1: each other a lot. And so Gibson says, hey, before

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Speaker 1: you go back, you gotta meet my my agent, my dealer,

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Speaker 1: you know, Leo Castelli and Uh. As soon as Castelli

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Speaker 1: go Goesi and met it was you know, an spark,

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Speaker 1: a spark and and and you wouldn't have expected that

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Speaker 1: because they're so different. He's an Italian born kid. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The mother's maiden name. Yeah, it took the mother's maiden

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Speaker 1: name because he was Jewish and the war was looming. Uh.

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Speaker 1: He learns five languages. He's a very debonair guy, comes

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Speaker 1: to New York, eventually starts this gallery, as you said,

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Speaker 1: on the street, becomes the sort of reigning king of

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Speaker 1: pop art um and is very generous in his dealings,

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Speaker 1: both with artists and with other dealers. He's actually the

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Speaker 1: one who pioneers this idea of splitting deals with far

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Speaker 1: flung dealers because instead of trying to make their money

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Speaker 1: as much as they can in their own shops. Why

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Speaker 1: not share the connections and and then everyone will eventually

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Speaker 1: do well. And so this a network was a new

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Speaker 1: concept and totally not what Gogozian would have done. This

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Speaker 1: was very much Castelle. And you know, Gogozian, uh was charismatic,

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Speaker 1: but he was also a very aggressive guy. Why he

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Speaker 1: hadn't showed that before, I don't know, but now he

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Speaker 1: was very aggressive and uh he started uh selling paintings

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Speaker 1: much as he had the frame posters and in l A.

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Speaker 1: He just was sort of a guy who would uh

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Speaker 1: buttonhole you on the street and say, I know you're

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Speaker 1: a dealer, you might be interested in this guy's work

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Speaker 1: and uh. And they said that, They said that Ralph

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Speaker 1: Lauren used to self ties to people table side. Lauren

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Speaker 1: would like walk up to people and show them like

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Speaker 1: his collection of ties. Funny. Well, that's that's basically I mean.

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Speaker 1: And and that's the way Gogozian was regarded as a

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Speaker 1: totally bumptious kind of you know, o riviste or whatever.

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Speaker 1: And uh. And there was one person who didn't agree

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Speaker 1: with that take, and that was Castelli. Would people tell

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Speaker 1: you who knew Castelli, that he was really very astute

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Speaker 1: about art, that he knew good art, or was he

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Speaker 1: the same? Was all about markets? Was the first? Well

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Speaker 1: that's a good question. Um. You know people are always

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Speaker 1: talking about an I does this guy have an eye?

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Speaker 1: Does he have a good critical eye? Can he really

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Speaker 1: recognize which is the good painting which is not the

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Speaker 1: good painting? And it was it was assumed by everybody

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Speaker 1: that Leo Castelli had a great eye. But those who

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Speaker 1: are real cognizanti in this world would tell you that

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Speaker 1: it was actually his wife, Alana Sana Bend who had

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Speaker 1: the great eye. Um. But you know, uh, you talked

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Speaker 1: to a really really smart critic like Robert Store, who

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Speaker 1: was the head of the Yale Art School, and he

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Speaker 1: would say it was Alana all the way. And and

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Speaker 1: Costelli was just writing on on her. You know that's

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Speaker 1: not a very good analogy, but was writing on her judgment,

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Speaker 1: her judgment. Robert Store, the the the great authority I've

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Speaker 1: just quoted here, would be just as quick to sort

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Speaker 1: of disparage go goes In as he was to disparaged Castelle. Um.

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Speaker 1: He would say that no, no go goes In, It's

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Speaker 1: just a retailed guy. That was his. He's just a

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Speaker 1: retailed guy. Um. But you know, uh, I don't think

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Speaker 1: that's fair. I I remember I said not long ago

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Speaker 1: that I am not an art expert, I'm not an

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Speaker 1: art critic. But I will say that every virtually every artwork,

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Speaker 1: every artist that goes in has represented that I'm going

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Speaker 1: to see. I've just felt excited and drawn to that art.

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Speaker 1: And and and people who really are in this business

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Speaker 1: are actually very respectful of Larry's eye. He's really got it.

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Speaker 1: And you want, when you walk into his gallery, it's

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Speaker 1: not just the art, but it's the frames. Back to

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Speaker 1: the frames. But now there you know, it's no simple

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00:21:44,119 --> 00:21:47,080
Speaker 1: frames in in l a out of the trunk. It's

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Speaker 1: beautiful frames, and it's beautiful floors, and it's and it's

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Speaker 1: it's actually you know, very attractive people to you know,

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Speaker 1: uh you in. I mean, it's all really done perfectly.

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Speaker 1: And uh. And of course he's also the one who

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Speaker 1: had I don't know if the eye is the right

383
00:22:02,960 --> 00:22:06,439
Speaker 1: way putting it, but the the sense the prescience to

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Speaker 1: start expanding, uh, not only to another gallery in New York.

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Speaker 1: And there were a few who had two galleries in

386
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Speaker 1: New York, but to um to the rest of the world.

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Speaker 1: So I don't even know what the count is, whether

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Speaker 1: it's seventeen galleries or nineteen. It's somewhere between seventeen and nineteen.

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Speaker 1: We'll have to see how it settles. But um, you know,

390
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Speaker 1: this was a guy who who made his first move

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Speaker 1: in that regard in about two thousand when he went

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Speaker 1: to London. Um. There's a cute little story. I could

393
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Speaker 1: it just takes a minute because it's charming. Larry had

394
00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:44,360
Speaker 1: no thought of going to London. Uh. He was settled

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Speaker 1: in New York. UM. But he had someone who worked

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Speaker 1: from a lovely woman named Molly Dent Brocklehurst. There's a

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00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:55,120
Speaker 1: name for you. And she was, as you might expect,

398
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Speaker 1: a very blue blood person. She was from. She was

399
00:22:58,280 --> 00:23:01,960
Speaker 1: English and she worked for Larry in his New York

400
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Speaker 1: Um gallery and the one that the flagship across from

401
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Speaker 1: the Carlisle Hotel. And one of her artists that she

402
00:23:09,400 --> 00:23:13,640
Speaker 1: handled for him was Damien Hurst. And Damien Hurst. Uh,

403
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:16,640
Speaker 1: you know, we could talk for hours about Damian Hurst. Uh,

404
00:23:16,680 --> 00:23:19,520
Speaker 1: but the fact is hugely successful and the kind of

405
00:23:19,680 --> 00:23:22,879
Speaker 1: art that artists that that goes in liked best, the

406
00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:25,320
Speaker 1: kind who could churn out a stuff, you know, like

407
00:23:25,320 --> 00:23:29,120
Speaker 1: in a production line. Um. And so Molly was very

408
00:23:29,119 --> 00:23:31,560
Speaker 1: important to go goes In because she was the go

409
00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:35,639
Speaker 1: between with Damien Hurst. And one day she said to Larry,

410
00:23:35,640 --> 00:23:38,400
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I've got to leave you because my father

411
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Speaker 1: has just died. There's a castle in the family and

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Speaker 1: I have to go tend to the castle. Um And

413
00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:46,200
Speaker 1: Larry took a beat and he said, well, why don't

414
00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:49,240
Speaker 1: you just open a Go goes In office in London

415
00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:51,919
Speaker 1: and then you can tend to your castle and Damien

416
00:23:51,960 --> 00:23:55,040
Speaker 1: Hurst is there anyway, and you can sell some art.

417
00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:58,600
Speaker 1: And so that's exactly what happened. That that happened to

418
00:23:58,640 --> 00:24:03,400
Speaker 1: be just the time that the Russian oligarchs were starting

419
00:24:03,440 --> 00:24:06,520
Speaker 1: to come over, and so there was this whole new

420
00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:11,720
Speaker 1: you know, vein of big money um and and Larry,

421
00:24:11,960 --> 00:24:13,919
Speaker 1: Larry didn't know that was going to happen. It just

422
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:16,000
Speaker 1: it just happened out of serendipitous A lot of luck

423
00:24:16,040 --> 00:24:18,440
Speaker 1: involved with it. There is a lot of luck. Now

424
00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:21,439
Speaker 1: you touched on Mary Boone, so I have on my

425
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:25,000
Speaker 1: own history with so I'm told I just want to ask,

426
00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:27,639
Speaker 1: you know, in the way that people build these careers

427
00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:30,960
Speaker 1: because because part of that experience for me, I looked

428
00:24:30,960 --> 00:24:33,280
Speaker 1: at it was kind of inexplicable, you know when I

429
00:24:33,359 --> 00:24:35,480
Speaker 1: when I went through what I went through, which was,

430
00:24:35,960 --> 00:24:40,000
Speaker 1: you know, very specifically, to purchase a painting by a

431
00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:43,560
Speaker 1: painter in a certain year, and let's say that it

432
00:24:43,680 --> 00:24:46,199
Speaker 1: was two thousand ten or two thousand eleven, and I

433
00:24:46,280 --> 00:24:50,479
Speaker 1: pay a five figure some for that painting, and then

434
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:52,359
Speaker 1: I say, I want you to go find me this

435
00:24:52,480 --> 00:24:54,880
Speaker 1: other painting that's an older painting that might be worth

436
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:57,920
Speaker 1: twice as much as that are more, and you then

437
00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:00,960
Speaker 1: sell me that painting. I think, selling me that painting,

438
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 1: But what we find out is it's a copy you

439
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:06,639
Speaker 1: had made of that painting, and yet you charge me

440
00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:08,960
Speaker 1: the amount of money. This was kind of the undoing

441
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 1: of the whole thing for her when you represent that

442
00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:15,320
Speaker 1: you charge me a hundred and ninety thousand dollars when

443
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:17,080
Speaker 1: I just bought the other one from you two weeks

444
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 1: ago for eighty five thousand dollars. Why would I pay

445
00:25:19,800 --> 00:25:21,919
Speaker 1: you a hundred ninety thousand for the one when I

446
00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:24,080
Speaker 1: just paid you eighty five for the one? That was frustrating.

447
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:25,880
Speaker 1: There was a lot of things that made it difficult

448
00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:30,760
Speaker 1: for her to escape um responsibility, and and and and

449
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:33,760
Speaker 1: when she settled with me means it's all on public record.

450
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:35,680
Speaker 1: She she writes me a check for a million dollars

451
00:25:36,040 --> 00:25:38,920
Speaker 1: to go away. And my point is is that that

452
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:43,800
Speaker 1: we all sat there the the the statute of limitations

453
00:25:43,800 --> 00:25:46,320
Speaker 1: had passed in terms of the criminal and we get

454
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:48,360
Speaker 1: ready to do a civil trial and we're gonna we're

455
00:25:48,359 --> 00:25:51,359
Speaker 1: gonna go after a lot of emails of her. And

456
00:25:51,359 --> 00:25:53,960
Speaker 1: they settled the case very quickly at that point, because

457
00:25:54,000 --> 00:25:56,040
Speaker 1: you realize she didn't wake up one day and decided

458
00:25:56,080 --> 00:25:58,879
Speaker 1: to do this to me that day. We wondered whether

459
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:01,400
Speaker 1: there was something and I'm wondering for someone who had

460
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:05,200
Speaker 1: a career like hers, it was so you know important,

461
00:26:05,720 --> 00:26:08,199
Speaker 1: I mean, she represented people. She must Someone said to me,

462
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:10,440
Speaker 1: you know, she'll just turn around and take a busk

463
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:12,639
Speaker 1: yet out of the bin. That she hasn't selled to

464
00:26:12,680 --> 00:26:16,040
Speaker 1: cover her her losses, you know, to her in this litigation,

465
00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:19,440
Speaker 1: What do you think happened with someone like her? Why? Well,

466
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:21,520
Speaker 1: here's what occurs to me to say. I mean, I've

467
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:24,639
Speaker 1: interviewed Mary. I interviewed her a good long time for

468
00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 1: the book. And then as the book was getting ready

469
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:33,040
Speaker 1: to be published. Of course she was. Um Uh. She

470
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:36,199
Speaker 1: was sentenced and for tax invasion, nail for tax evasion.

471
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:39,639
Speaker 1: And so I went to interview her again. Um and

472
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:42,879
Speaker 1: that actually became an article in Town Country. UM. So

473
00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:44,800
Speaker 1: I spent quite a bit of time with her, um

474
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:48,880
Speaker 1: interviewed after the sentencing. Yes, yes, yes, spent a little

475
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 1: time in her gallery. UM. I think she was still

476
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:54,439
Speaker 1: sort of trying to shape the narrative there and and

477
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 1: thought I could do this, and and maybe she thought

478
00:26:57,560 --> 00:27:01,119
Speaker 1: Town Country was a pretty sympathetic audience, which I suppose

479
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:05,560
Speaker 1: it's fair to say it is. Um. But I had, well,

480
00:27:05,600 --> 00:27:07,200
Speaker 1: first of all, I had liked her. You know that

481
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 1: she's she's easy to like. She uh, she's charming, she's

482
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 1: sort of she's she's sexy. Felin is a great word

483
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:21,240
Speaker 1: for it. And um uh. And certainly in those early

484
00:27:21,320 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 1: days she showed uh enormous uh cleverness in how she

485
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 1: built her business. By the way, Gogzian was the one

486
00:27:29,920 --> 00:27:34,000
Speaker 1: who discovered David Sally. Um Mary Boonett had a chance.

487
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:36,320
Speaker 1: She looked at his work early on, but she'd rejected it.

488
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:39,920
Speaker 1: She wasn't bold enough and that instance to think that

489
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:43,080
Speaker 1: that would work for her. But Gogozian went to see

490
00:27:43,520 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: Sally's work and uh, and he took a chance. He

491
00:27:46,840 --> 00:27:51,719
Speaker 1: had rented aloft on the fifth floor overlooking for twenty

492
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:55,280
Speaker 1: West Broadway, which for twenty West Broadway was the big

493
00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: artist cooperative. Leo Castelli the king of the realm. And

494
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:04,040
Speaker 1: so when go goes Ian rented a loft space on

495
00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:08,280
Speaker 1: the fifth floor literally looking down at the Kingdom, it

496
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 1: was kind of almost creepy, you know. It was like

497
00:28:11,280 --> 00:28:12,960
Speaker 1: he was looking down to what he was going to

498
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:17,240
Speaker 1: conquer one days. Yes, he really was. And so he

499
00:28:17,320 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 1: had this show for for David Sally. It did very well.

500
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:24,360
Speaker 1: He sold quite a number of paintings. Mary Boone came

501
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:28,120
Speaker 1: across the street from her new little um gallery IF

502
00:28:28,160 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 1: at four twenty and she ended up taking Sally because

503
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:33,240
Speaker 1: you know, it goes in At that point it was

504
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:35,880
Speaker 1: just a guy from California. He didn't really know he

505
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:37,679
Speaker 1: wasn't a dealer. He had to admit he was not

506
00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:41,360
Speaker 1: yet a dealer um and that's actually what drove him

507
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 1: to be kind of a different dealer. Instead of representing

508
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:50,600
Speaker 1: an artist's primary work. In other words, you find an artist,

509
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:53,880
Speaker 1: you discover him. He paints the painting. You take it

510
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:56,840
Speaker 1: and you sell it to a collector. That's primary. That's

511
00:28:56,840 --> 00:28:59,840
Speaker 1: the primary market. If the art has been sold once,

512
00:29:00,320 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 1: then it doesn't matter how it sold the second time.

513
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 1: Might be an auction, might be a private deal, whatever

514
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:09,240
Speaker 1: that then it's a secondary market. So Larry was always

515
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 1: most interested in the secondary market because there was more

516
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:15,719
Speaker 1: money in it. It was usually a fifty fifty situation.

517
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:18,960
Speaker 1: And uh, because there was just more art to buy

518
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 1: and sell. He would he would go to someone's house

519
00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:22,440
Speaker 1: for dinner. He would see work on the walls. He

520
00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:26,960
Speaker 1: would remember that who were businessmen. Yeah, meaning when you're

521
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 1: dealing with artists their artists. Yeah, And when I'm taking

522
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 1: the paintings that somebody who is the owner wants to sell,

523
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:35,479
Speaker 1: everybody who realizes it's commerce and and and you know,

524
00:29:36,320 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 1: I mean he did discover Boskia very early on. I

525
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:42,000
Speaker 1: wasn't the first, but the second, I would say, in

526
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:48,280
Speaker 1: fairness to Larry um and um. And he uh did

527
00:29:48,440 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 1: enormously well with Boskia. But even so that again was

528
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 1: a primary artist. Uh. The work was selling for a

529
00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:59,080
Speaker 1: few thousand dollars in the early eighties, whereas only a

530
00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: few years later in the eighties, UH Gogozian was representing

531
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:06,960
Speaker 1: UM people like Sign New House and and and probably

532
00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 1: getting half of a seventeen million dollar sales. So secondary

533
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 1: work was really where the big money was, and that's

534
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 1: where Gagosian went the one. The other thing I would

535
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 1: just say about Mary is that I think I think

536
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:26,160
Speaker 1: that what she did really shocked the whole art community,

537
00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:28,200
Speaker 1: the whole art market, and I don't think that people

538
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:32,200
Speaker 1: do that sort of thing a lot. Now, having just

539
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:36,600
Speaker 1: said that, Larry Gogzian did have to give four million

540
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 1: and change to the to the I R S for

541
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:44,600
Speaker 1: uh sending works that had been bought to a buyer's

542
00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 1: second residents and and state rather than the first one.

543
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:50,479
Speaker 1: You know, that sort of thing you that dealers can

544
00:30:50,520 --> 00:30:53,560
Speaker 1: sometimes do. I have one last question for you. I

545
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:56,080
Speaker 1: want to say that you know this kid from the

546
00:30:56,120 --> 00:30:57,800
Speaker 1: Upper West Side where you grew up in the Upper

547
00:30:57,800 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 1: West Side of Manhattan, who's tooling around owned a New

548
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 1: Mexico with a guitar. He doesn't know what he wants

549
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:05,440
Speaker 1: to do, he's running for the Santa Fe sports page.

550
00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:09,320
Speaker 1: And then you you enter a world in which you

551
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 1: see a lot of things that you experienced a lot

552
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:13,960
Speaker 1: of things, and one of them is love. One of

553
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:16,640
Speaker 1: them is you meet your wife, Yes in the in

554
00:31:16,680 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 1: the in the Towers of Manhattan show Yes. I think

555
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 1: that's fair. That well. Uh my wife, Gaiford Steinberg Um

556
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 1: was married to a very well known Titan of Wall Streets,

557
00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:33,680
Speaker 1: Saul Steinberg Uh no secret there. They had a wonderful

558
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:37,040
Speaker 1: marriage for for many years, but he did eventually die

559
00:31:37,080 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 1: after a long lingering situation. I knew Gaifrid through a

560
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:47,280
Speaker 1: few different women who are sort of hostesses around town

561
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:49,600
Speaker 1: who would have me as a single guy at the table.

562
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 1: And I remember meeting her a first time and just

563
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 1: being dazzled by her intelligence or beauty. And so some

564
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:03,320
Speaker 1: months after Saul died, I just thought, I really loved

565
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 1: talking to that woman. Let's just invite her to lunch

566
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 1: and see what happens. And we went to lunch and

567
00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 1: we had a great time, and we went to dinner,

568
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:12,760
Speaker 1: and one thing led to another. So that was We're

569
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 1: celebrating our fifth anniversary on Saturday. Michael Schnayerson his latest

570
00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 1: book is Boom. If you want to hear more about

571
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:24,719
Speaker 1: the social scene at the height of the nineteen eighties,

572
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:28,560
Speaker 1: you can't get a better storyteller than Tina Brown, who

573
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:31,760
Speaker 1: took over Vanity Fair just in time to document that

574
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:35,640
Speaker 1: period's excesses. We were in the Reagan era, right, we

575
00:32:35,800 --> 00:32:39,400
Speaker 1: just role Reagan was on a glide path to re election.

576
00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:43,000
Speaker 1: I came in as a London outsider who didn't know

577
00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:45,960
Speaker 1: really much about America, and I was just plunged into

578
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:50,080
Speaker 1: this world of Reagan's America, which was this kind of

579
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:57,920
Speaker 1: black tie, wildly consumers. You know, Bob, he was on

580
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:01,680
Speaker 1: the magazine. It was just, I mean, it boggles my

581
00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:04,240
Speaker 1: mind when I when I read the diaries now and

582
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:07,440
Speaker 1: when I started to compile them, how much We went

583
00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:12,680
Speaker 1: out for a link to my full interview with Tina Brown.

584
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:28,120
Speaker 1: Text Tina to seven zero one zero one. This is

585
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you're listening to. Here's the thing. Richard

586
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 1: Fagan's New York gallery has sold hundreds of millions of

587
00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:39,680
Speaker 1: dollars of the greatest works of art from the Renaissance

588
00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:44,320
Speaker 1: through boscuillat his expertise as the Italian Baroque. He was

589
00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:47,320
Speaker 1: one of the most important dealers to the newly minted

590
00:33:47,360 --> 00:33:51,040
Speaker 1: millionaires of nineteen eighties New York, who all bought their

591
00:33:51,200 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 1: art and their cultural cash from Figen. As Sathobies put it, quote,

592
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:59,320
Speaker 1: Richard's a secret is to buy what's not in fashion

593
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:03,600
Speaker 1: and to trust his keen eye for quality unquote. In

594
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 1: recent years he's been stepping back from the day to

595
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:09,879
Speaker 1: day leadership of the gallery, but his taste is still

596
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:14,719
Speaker 1: evident in its choices. Just this year, before the pandemic hit,

597
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 1: they put up an exhibit of old Master and nineteenth

598
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 1: century drawings. Richard Fagan is a dealer, but says he's

599
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:25,080
Speaker 1: really a collector, a passion he's had his entire life.

600
00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:29,760
Speaker 1: The eleven year old Richard Figen earned a hundred dollars

601
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:31,920
Speaker 1: and the first thing I bought was a hundred dollars.

602
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:34,960
Speaker 1: You bought a painting for a hundred dollars. And when

603
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:38,160
Speaker 1: you told your parents you're gonna take the hundred dollars

604
00:34:38,160 --> 00:34:41,279
Speaker 1: of your personal fortune, all of your personal fortune, and

605
00:34:41,320 --> 00:34:44,840
Speaker 1: by a painting with it, what did they say? I

606
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 1: don't think they much interfered. They just they just s't

607
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:50,920
Speaker 1: as long as you were happy, as long as you

608
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: left them alone and bother them. He's gonna go buy

609
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:55,480
Speaker 1: a painting, okay, So what let him go buy some

610
00:34:55,520 --> 00:35:00,160
Speaker 1: paintings and you bought what painting? I bought a your

611
00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:04,040
Speaker 1: painting from the sixteenth century in an antique store near

612
00:35:04,080 --> 00:35:06,680
Speaker 1: where I lived for a hundred dollars. And what was

613
00:35:06,840 --> 00:35:08,440
Speaker 1: what was it about? I mean it was it really

614
00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 1: about an appreciation of art? Partially partially it was financial

615
00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:21,319
Speaker 1: At eleven, Yeah, you understood the equity involved at that

616
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:25,600
Speaker 1: age because you were surrounded. But your father was successful. Yeah,

617
00:35:25,600 --> 00:35:27,680
Speaker 1: but he was a lawyer. He didn't have any art,

618
00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:32,520
Speaker 1: didn't have any art. So how does what's the two

619
00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:35,720
Speaker 1: thousand one a Space Odyssey moment for you? When the

620
00:35:35,800 --> 00:35:38,520
Speaker 1: Black Monoliths shows up in your bedroom and tells you

621
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:41,319
Speaker 1: you need to go out and buy art? I don't know.

622
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:46,000
Speaker 1: I guess I recognize the values, and I felt that

623
00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:49,440
Speaker 1: there was a vast difference between price and value. So

624
00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:51,920
Speaker 1: I decided to take advantage of that, and I ended

625
00:35:52,000 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 1: up selling it for a hundred dollars. It was not

626
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:56,799
Speaker 1: a very successful It wasn't a score. It wasn't a

627
00:35:56,800 --> 00:36:00,360
Speaker 1: big coup for you. Does this progress or was was

628
00:36:00,360 --> 00:36:02,440
Speaker 1: it a one off? Would you keep going even when

629
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:04,839
Speaker 1: you were eleven? You kept going? I kept going. When

630
00:36:04,840 --> 00:36:09,720
Speaker 1: did the aesthetic enter the picture? It entered it fairly early.

631
00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 1: As I got more involved and I got to understand more,

632
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:18,799
Speaker 1: then the aesthetics took over. In the beginning, I went

633
00:36:18,880 --> 00:36:22,440
Speaker 1: to work for a company that was in my family,

634
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:26,879
Speaker 1: an insurance company on the West Coast, Beneficial Standard. Yeah,

635
00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 1: did you enjoy that? I enjoyed the investment aspect, but

636
00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:33,080
Speaker 1: the art that I wanted as chase was in New York.

637
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:37,120
Speaker 1: So I arranged to buy art for the chairman of

638
00:36:37,160 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 1: our company, which brought me to New York frequently, and

639
00:36:40,680 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 1: I ended up staying in New York. You sold your

640
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:47,799
Speaker 1: seat on the Exchange in fifty seven. Yes, yes, one

641
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:51,239
Speaker 1: of the great Wall Street figures told me that I

642
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:54,799
Speaker 1: wouldn't like it, and he was right, so that I

643
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:57,200
Speaker 1: only had that seat for about a year and you

644
00:36:57,320 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 1: and you and you dumped your seat on the Stock

645
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:02,719
Speaker 1: Exchange dumped. I sold it for a lot of my

646
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:08,040
Speaker 1: broken It cost me fifty dollars. I had about six

647
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 1: thousand dollars of initiation visa or whatever, and I sat

648
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:16,720
Speaker 1: for the fifty six thousands. To start your own art, yes, business,

649
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:20,839
Speaker 1: your own gallery, yes, But then you but when you

650
00:37:20,880 --> 00:37:24,680
Speaker 1: open up, Richard Feigen, your first company, you've got to

651
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:27,279
Speaker 1: get money to go buy pay or do people lend

652
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 1: you to the people? Do they consign the pass and consignment?

653
00:37:30,960 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 1: And when did things begin to change for you? When

654
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:36,359
Speaker 1: did you start to really take off, if you will,

655
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:40,239
Speaker 1: and sell more paintings and build your business. Well, when

656
00:37:40,239 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 1: I got to know the collectors and the museums. That

657
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:47,000
Speaker 1: became very much involved with a number of museums, and

658
00:37:47,040 --> 00:37:50,839
Speaker 1: I began to either know what they wanted or what

659
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:54,080
Speaker 1: they ought to want, and then I have to convince

660
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:56,919
Speaker 1: them well of what they ought to want if they're

661
00:37:57,000 --> 00:38:00,680
Speaker 1: lacking certain museums themselves or clients of your Oh yes,

662
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:03,840
Speaker 1: a lot of museums. Was there a sale or a

663
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:06,719
Speaker 1: transaction that you facilitated back then that really began to

664
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:09,200
Speaker 1: make your reputation? Was there when you recall what you

665
00:38:09,280 --> 00:38:12,920
Speaker 1: thought that was a big turning point from my company? Um,

666
00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:16,960
Speaker 1: I don't think there was a single instance. But but

667
00:38:17,120 --> 00:38:20,080
Speaker 1: I've dealt with most of the major museums in the world,

668
00:38:20,160 --> 00:38:24,319
Speaker 1: I mean the Metropolitan National Gallery to Louver and so on,

669
00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:30,440
Speaker 1: and I would spend time look at their collection, decide

670
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:33,600
Speaker 1: they need such just such a painting, and then if

671
00:38:33,640 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 1: I had it, I would offer it to them. Hopefully

672
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:39,640
Speaker 1: they would agree with me. Someone that you were an

673
00:38:39,640 --> 00:38:42,239
Speaker 1: early proponent of was Bacon, who I am a great

674
00:38:42,280 --> 00:38:44,799
Speaker 1: admirer of. So I'm assuming you knew him. You must

675
00:38:44,800 --> 00:38:47,719
Speaker 1: have known him, correct. I never met Bacon. You never did.

676
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:51,439
Speaker 1: I had the first Bacon show, I think in America,

677
00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:55,319
Speaker 1: but I didn't deal with him directly. I just brought

678
00:38:55,400 --> 00:39:02,360
Speaker 1: up his work around because I admired it. He originally

679
00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:04,719
Speaker 1: said he was going to come to my opening, and

680
00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:08,239
Speaker 1: I thought that was great. And then I later got

681
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:12,080
Speaker 1: a call that he wanted me to fix him up

682
00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:16,359
Speaker 1: with some young boys, and I said, I'm I'm out

683
00:39:16,360 --> 00:39:18,239
Speaker 1: of my water here. I'm not up to this. I

684
00:39:18,680 --> 00:39:23,080
Speaker 1: couldn't handle it, so I dissuaded him from coming. You're

685
00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:26,800
Speaker 1: one chance to meet Bacon. I suppose I could have

686
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:29,160
Speaker 1: met him. Had you been willing to pimp for Bacon,

687
00:39:29,239 --> 00:39:36,959
Speaker 1: you might have had a nice friendship. Yeah, I might have. Yeah,

688
00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:40,960
Speaker 1: but when I can't remember the exact timing. But I

689
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:44,680
Speaker 1: bought my friends this Bacon show. The whole show of

690
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:52,440
Speaker 1: fourteen paintings cost me an average of probably six seven painting,

691
00:39:53,440 --> 00:39:58,239
Speaker 1: and I sold him for a thousand, twelve paintings that

692
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 1: are individually worth now hundreds of thousands and hundreds of

693
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:05,640
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars. Yeah, how would you describe the art

694
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:09,799
Speaker 1: market today compared to when you first arrived here and

695
00:40:09,880 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 1: moved here in the sixties. And I think that the

696
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 1: art market is much much larger now, much more international,

697
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:23,720
Speaker 1: and um, the focus has changed a lot. Right now,

698
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:27,239
Speaker 1: the old master market is largely dead unless you have

699
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:31,480
Speaker 1: something extraordinary that nobody's ever seen before. There's very small

700
00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:36,160
Speaker 1: market for old masters, largely contemporary, and that's where all

701
00:40:36,200 --> 00:40:38,799
Speaker 1: the focus of the spotlight has been on the contemporary.

702
00:40:38,960 --> 00:40:44,520
Speaker 1: So I may see permanent value in things and end

703
00:40:44,600 --> 00:40:46,560
Speaker 1: up buying it, and there isn't that much of a

704
00:40:46,640 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 1: market for it. I think when you see someone you

705
00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:52,960
Speaker 1: read about them in the paper and they say that

706
00:40:53,000 --> 00:40:58,080
Speaker 1: this guy bought this painting, uh uh, this Picasso or whatever,

707
00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:03,120
Speaker 1: some huge name in the in that world, and they

708
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:06,040
Speaker 1: paid five million dollars for the painting they paid through

709
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:09,560
Speaker 1: the highest amount ever paid. Do those people always assume

710
00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:12,000
Speaker 1: that the day will come that they'll sell that painting

711
00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:14,680
Speaker 1: for more than five million dollars or do they ever

712
00:41:14,719 --> 00:41:17,080
Speaker 1: sit there and say, I don't care about that, I

713
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:19,359
Speaker 1: just want that painting because I love that painting. It's

714
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:23,680
Speaker 1: always about or is it always about equity and markets

715
00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:27,000
Speaker 1: and resale about eventually? I think it depends a lot

716
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 1: on the individual. You know, um, I think of spending

717
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:35,800
Speaker 1: that kind of money, usually they have to be assured

718
00:41:36,840 --> 00:41:38,880
Speaker 1: that the intrinsic value is there and we're going to

719
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:45,239
Speaker 1: get it back. Some people don't much care. For some

720
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:50,120
Speaker 1: people that five million dollars may not be that much.

721
00:41:50,920 --> 00:41:54,960
Speaker 1: The documentary that you were in, the Art of the Steel,

722
00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:57,000
Speaker 1: I want to get to something about that in a moment.

723
00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:03,360
Speaker 1: But another documentary I saw they showed coons standing in

724
00:42:03,480 --> 00:42:08,560
Speaker 1: a laboratory like setting with a bunch of his uh disciples,

725
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:13,160
Speaker 1: and they're all applying paint to these canvases and under

726
00:42:13,239 --> 00:42:18,240
Speaker 1: his direction, and they're asking basically, is it a coon's

727
00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:22,600
Speaker 1: if your hand never touches the brush? And he was unrepentant.

728
00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:25,600
Speaker 1: He said, oh no, I'm everything. He said, what they're

729
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:28,880
Speaker 1: doing is completely in my direction. And there was a

730
00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:31,480
Speaker 1: bunch of them working simultaneous. He's going from canvas to

731
00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:33,759
Speaker 1: canvas to well, he has he has a sort of

732
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:37,880
Speaker 1: a factory. Now, what do you think about though, I

733
00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 1: think a lot of these values are confections, and I

734
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:49,560
Speaker 1: think that Jeff Coon's is a very sophisticated and clever

735
00:42:49,680 --> 00:42:56,680
Speaker 1: guy and a substantial buyer of old Master pictures, which

736
00:42:56,719 --> 00:42:59,200
Speaker 1: I understand a lot of them are on loan to

737
00:42:59,280 --> 00:43:02,800
Speaker 1: the Metropolitan Museum. Things he bought Coons things he bought,

738
00:43:03,480 --> 00:43:07,960
Speaker 1: and he's very sophisticated. I do not believe he's an

739
00:43:08,040 --> 00:43:11,520
Speaker 1: artist of any consequence. You don't know a lot of

740
00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:16,520
Speaker 1: people would different from different with me on that. I

741
00:43:16,560 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 1: don't think. So. You've never transacted to Coons, You never

742
00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:24,360
Speaker 1: bought I've never bought or sold a Coons because you

743
00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:29,120
Speaker 1: didn't want to. No. I I don't get involved in

744
00:43:29,200 --> 00:43:34,880
Speaker 1: things where I have doubts about the intrinsic value. Ever, No,

745
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:38,320
Speaker 1: really not, And I don't consider Jeff Coons an artist

746
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:42,680
Speaker 1: of consequence. Do you think there's a market for a place,

747
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:48,080
Speaker 1: a gallery to open in which you have, uh, you know,

748
00:43:48,120 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 1: the curators of the gallery, let's say, are people with

749
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:54,000
Speaker 1: some experience, and on the walls they hang art of

750
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:56,279
Speaker 1: people that are undiscovered that they really really believe it,

751
00:43:56,320 --> 00:43:59,279
Speaker 1: And all the art is for arguments sake. You know,

752
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:02,640
Speaker 1: under to have thousand dollars, it's not super expensive. It's

753
00:44:02,640 --> 00:44:06,560
Speaker 1: not no six figure purchases there, maybe even under ten thousand,

754
00:44:06,960 --> 00:44:08,839
Speaker 1: there's a market for that. Do you think people want

755
00:44:08,840 --> 00:44:10,160
Speaker 1: to come in and they want to look at art

756
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:12,440
Speaker 1: or do most people who have money to buy art

757
00:44:12,560 --> 00:44:16,239
Speaker 1: their big game hunters. They want famous, big pieces and

758
00:44:16,480 --> 00:44:20,520
Speaker 1: feathers in their cap and so forth. I think there's

759
00:44:20,640 --> 00:44:26,240
Speaker 1: very little now that remains undiscovered. The market has expanded

760
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:33,960
Speaker 1: and there's so many people in it that uh, and

761
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:39,120
Speaker 1: you can't predict which things are going to be successful

762
00:44:39,400 --> 00:44:45,120
Speaker 1: or not. Um. I remember years ago I was in

763
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:49,719
Speaker 1: Japan with a very dear friend of mine, Jim Rosenquist,

764
00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:55,279
Speaker 1: we just died last year, and um, we were in

765
00:44:55,360 --> 00:45:00,600
Speaker 1: this gallery and in walks the artist Sama. Her work

766
00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:06,200
Speaker 1: at that time was very inexpensive. Since then, they've gotten expensive,

767
00:45:06,680 --> 00:45:11,359
Speaker 1: and you couldn't have predicted that. For me, it's relatively

768
00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:15,319
Speaker 1: easy to tell which things they have permanent importance. That

769
00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:17,680
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that they're ever going to be picked up

770
00:45:17,680 --> 00:45:22,319
Speaker 1: by the market collectible expensive. There are things today that

771
00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:26,040
Speaker 1: I'm just flabber gasid at the prices they bring, because

772
00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 1: I don't regard them as being intrinsically very significant. Whereas

773
00:45:31,000 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 1: five years ago they caused very little. Now their prices

774
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:38,240
Speaker 1: are enormous. That doesn't happen very often, and you can't

775
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 1: tell what which things are going to have that kind

776
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:45,400
Speaker 1: of appreciation. The documentary that you were in, Art of

777
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:49,360
Speaker 1: the Steel, Uh, one of my favorite documentaries about the

778
00:45:49,560 --> 00:45:55,399
Speaker 1: acquisition of the Barnes collection, folded into the the Philadelphia

779
00:45:55,480 --> 00:45:58,520
Speaker 1: Museum and all the sterm and drawing about that. And

780
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 1: there you are at an shib but I think it's

781
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:03,399
Speaker 1: either Christie's or south Aby's. And you say some are

782
00:46:03,560 --> 00:46:06,520
Speaker 1: my favorite quote, some art is attractive and not very significant,

783
00:46:06,840 --> 00:46:09,719
Speaker 1: significant enough, very attractive, And then you point to a painting, say,

784
00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:12,920
Speaker 1: now this picture, this painting is neither significant nor attractor,

785
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:15,840
Speaker 1: but it'll sell for thirty million dollars or some obscene

786
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:18,280
Speaker 1: amount of money. Yeah. I got a lot of flak

787
00:46:18,280 --> 00:46:21,239
Speaker 1: out of it. Really no. And the Barnes is a

788
00:46:21,360 --> 00:46:25,359
Speaker 1: very good example, because the Barnes Foundation I was very

789
00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:32,319
Speaker 1: much opposed to moving it, and they wanted it downtown

790
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:37,880
Speaker 1: for tourist reasons. I always maintained it was it was

791
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:41,279
Speaker 1: fine where it was, and if they wanted to make

792
00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:44,799
Speaker 1: it accessible to the general public, they could have run

793
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:47,760
Speaker 1: shuttle buses back and forth. It was only a about

794
00:46:47,760 --> 00:46:52,279
Speaker 1: a fifteen minute trip. I visited it down in Philadelphia.

795
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:57,120
Speaker 1: They tried to red they tried to recreate the Saints

796
00:46:57,160 --> 00:47:01,359
Speaker 1: and so on. I think that was absurd. Um, I

797
00:47:01,400 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 1: think it's been successful. I assume there are crowds of

798
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 1: people that come and see it, But I still think

799
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:10,520
Speaker 1: it could have been handled were in their in their

800
00:47:10,560 --> 00:47:14,480
Speaker 1: other building where they were, which was an admirable building.

801
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:19,160
Speaker 1: I don't think they had to move it is There

802
00:47:19,280 --> 00:47:22,360
Speaker 1: is there a if you go to one city and

803
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:24,160
Speaker 1: you're gonna go and see the art in that city,

804
00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:27,640
Speaker 1: you're gonna pick one. Which one would you pick? I

805
00:47:27,680 --> 00:47:31,760
Speaker 1: would probably pick London. You would why because the National

806
00:47:31,800 --> 00:47:37,720
Speaker 1: Gallery has a great collection. The Tate Gallery has always

807
00:47:37,719 --> 00:47:43,319
Speaker 1: been very active. Uh, it's a it's a real and

808
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:47,680
Speaker 1: the new British artists are continue to be very important.

809
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:54,680
Speaker 1: They were when I was involved with giving exhibitions. I

810
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:59,200
Speaker 1: focused on that new generation of British artists. Still longer

811
00:47:59,520 --> 00:48:05,360
Speaker 1: a new generation, they're now older, much revered group of artists,

812
00:48:06,120 --> 00:48:11,600
Speaker 1: but they've had a very significant um role in what's

813
00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:16,360
Speaker 1: going on today. So I think that Tate is important,

814
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:20,040
Speaker 1: The National Gallery in London is important, and so on.

815
00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:26,920
Speaker 1: Now in your own home is art something that certain

816
00:48:26,960 --> 00:48:32,080
Speaker 1: pieces survive and they stay there forever. Of their pieces

817
00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:34,399
Speaker 1: that you have on a wall, and they're never gonna

818
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:36,960
Speaker 1: leave that wall, and they live there forever. Pieces you love.

819
00:48:37,160 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 1: What is the art in your home change over time? Now?

820
00:48:40,200 --> 00:48:42,759
Speaker 1: The stuff of my home generally is stuff that I

821
00:48:42,840 --> 00:48:47,560
Speaker 1: own personally, and it's pretty stable as stays there stuff

822
00:48:47,600 --> 00:48:51,400
Speaker 1: you love. Oh, I have, uh, a pretty large group

823
00:48:51,440 --> 00:48:58,359
Speaker 1: of very early Italian pictures from the from fifteen centuries,

824
00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:03,640
Speaker 1: which is a is a period that interests me a lot.

825
00:49:04,239 --> 00:49:11,880
Speaker 1: Why First of all, I like it esthetically, and secondly

826
00:49:11,920 --> 00:49:15,640
Speaker 1: it's important in terms of the evolution of our history.

827
00:49:17,160 --> 00:49:20,879
Speaker 1: Some of the things in that period interests me intellectually.

828
00:49:22,000 --> 00:49:26,120
Speaker 1: So I have a large group of those things. Every

829
00:49:26,160 --> 00:49:28,720
Speaker 1: now and then I give something to the Yale Art Gallery.

830
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:35,000
Speaker 1: But so you have beyond your home and in your gallery,

831
00:49:35,200 --> 00:49:38,560
Speaker 1: do you have in storage tons and tons of pieces

832
00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:41,200
Speaker 1: that you own? Not tons and tons of things, but

833
00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:44,920
Speaker 1: some some things I have, but I don't keep it

834
00:49:44,960 --> 00:49:49,640
Speaker 1: in storage. It usually is on my wall in my

835
00:49:49,760 --> 00:49:53,799
Speaker 1: home if it's personal gallery or in my gallery. And

836
00:49:53,880 --> 00:49:57,920
Speaker 1: I don't generally change that around that much. There's not

837
00:49:58,080 --> 00:50:00,400
Speaker 1: that much that interests me enough to buy it. I

838
00:50:00,440 --> 00:50:07,960
Speaker 1: don't have that big, diverse and inventory, Richard Fagin. Last year,

839
00:50:08,040 --> 00:50:12,520
Speaker 1: Fagen sold some of those personal treasures to fund his retirement.

840
00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:18,560
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin, and you were listening to here's

841
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:18,960
Speaker 1: the thing.