WEBVTT - Alec Baldwin’s “Sea and Mirror” plus Robert Indiana 0:00:06.480 --> 0:00:09.760 I didn't set out to immerse myself in the murky 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:13.080 realm of art fraud. In two thousand and ten, I 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:16.440 found myself waging legal war with a dealer who sold 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:19.160 me a painting that wasn't quite right, as they say 0:00:19.239 --> 0:00:22.799 in the art world. As fate would have it, my 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:26.599 story was unfolding just as the Knoedler gallery scandal was 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:32.559 taking center stage under intense scrutiny from the press. As 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:36.040 an actor, I'm always looking for what defines a character. 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:41.720 All con artists have their own definitive markings, and Friedman 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:47.879 and Glyphira Rosales presented themselves as courtly, almost academic, Yet 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:52.760 behind their poise and professional demeanor, I always sensed an 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:58.200 undertone of loneliness, even despair. To my surprise, these same 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:01.720 traits are evident in both our stories in this final 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:10.200 episode of the season. Art fraud is an ever present phenomenon. 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:18.120 Not long ago, Intego Philbrick, a dapper, young London dealer, 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:21.959 managed to steal some seventy million dollars from his friends 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:26.520 and colleagues by selling fractional shares of paintings than trading 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:32.080 those shares like monopoly cards, oftentimes pieces of one painting 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:35.520 would be sold entirely twice over in what amounted to 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:40.840 a sort of art world Ponzi scheme. Intego was brilliant, 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:44.920 says his friend Kenny Shackter, a droll and beloved columnist 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:49.480 of the contemporary art market, even more than like Goo 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:52.000 Goozien or some of the dealers. He could tell you 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:55.120 the difference between a two million dollar Christopher Wall painting 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:58.200 and a two point two million He would really have 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:01.560 a cabal of people, Intego, that he would sell work to, 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:06.600 and then he would resell it amongst those participants, unwittingly 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:11.080 that we're buying and selling art through him. Shackter lost 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:14.840 one point seven five million dollars when Philbrick vanished, only 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.359 to be arrested on an island off the eastern coast 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:21.840 of Australia. Kenny was left to wonder what had motivated 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:26.160 his friend to commit such egregious acts of fraud, just 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:30.040 as I had wondered about my dealer, Mary Boone. I 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:39.119 suspect the motivation is almost always universal greed. We'll get 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:42.720 into my sordid story in a bit, but first I 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:45.600 want to tell you the story of artist Robert Indiana, 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:53.840 creator of the iconic love sculpture. The whole world knows 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:58.240 those four letters to over two that spell love with 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:04.000 its oh at a Debonair slant. Long ago, Indiana had 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:08.280 lived with artist Ellsworth Kelly on Cowenty's Slip, the Artists 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:12.200 Wharf in Lower Manhattan. But in the early eighties he'd 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:15.400 come to the coast of Maine and never left. His 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:19.000 home was a rambling Victorian lodge hall on the scruffy 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:22.400 island of vinyl Haven, about halfway up the coast of May, 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:27.679 near Rockland. There his career had stalled for Indiana refused 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:31.000 a trademark or copyright any of his work, and let 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:38.600 tacky commercial spinoffs of love define him. By the end 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:41.240 of the seventies, he had moved out of New York City, 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:44.520 moved to Maine, and moved to vinyl Haven, Maine, which 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:47.280 is an island an hour off the coast that you 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:50.840 can only get to by ferry or small engine plane. 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:53.280 And so he was as isolated as they can get. 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:58.320 That's Luke nichoas the lawyer who represented Ann Friedman in 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:01.840 the dissol trial, and I found himself fighting a perhaps 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:07.440 more noble campaign on behalf of the iconic artist Robert Indiana, 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:10.440 he was gone as far as the art world was concerned. 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:13.840 Throughout the eighties, he made works here and there, but 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:17.280 he wasn't a superstar anymore. He wasn't recognized, and by 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:18.800 the end of the eighties he might as well not 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.800 even have existed in terms of his presence in the 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:25.919 fine art world. That was when an art advisor named 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:31.640 Simon salamac Carro started knocking. Salama Carro had seen his 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:36.200 work and was interested in meeting with Indiana to talk 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:40.600 with him about rejuvenating his career. He saw a path. 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:45.320 He saw a path of reintroducing Indiana's work to art historians, 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:49.920 to museums. He saw a path of getting the infringing 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:54.440 use of Indiana's images under control. No more shoes, no 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:59.080 more trinkets, no more use that was outside of what 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:05.520 Simon thought would really bring the brand back. Sala mccarrow 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:10.080 steered his work away from schlocky spinoffs to sculptures in 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:15.000 what Indiana came to call admiringly the noble Materials. He 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:18.960 also extricated the artist from an unpaid six hundred thousand 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:22.839 dollars in taxes and leans on his home. Such guidance 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:27.840 didn't come for free. Sala mccarro worked for the Morgan 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:31.799 Art Foundation for profit that held the rights to produce 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:35.760 Indiana's best known works, but Indiana could see it had 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:40.599 promise Morgan would take the copyrights in the trademarks, would 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:45.120 give Indiana of revenue from the use of those images, 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:47.799 so it would be a split between them, and Morgan 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:52.560 would monitor and clean up the market for Indiana's images. 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:56.360 It went all over the world and started bringing infringement 0:05:56.400 --> 0:06:00.159 suits season desist letters, and ultimately what that did was 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:03.720 it created the very clear message that Indiana's imagery could 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:08.320 not be exploited. At the same time, Morgan put millions 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:12.000 and millions and millions of dollars of funding behind the 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:16.720 fabrication of indiana sculptures, which are extremely expensive to fabricate, 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:20.039 difficult to fabricate. You need real facilities that Indiana did 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:24.320 not have. Ten years later, or so fifteen years, the 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.800 Whitney Museum in New York City had a major retrospective 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:30.400 of Indiana's work, and he was back on the map again, 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:35.640 extraordinarily successful. And then what happened. Michael mackenzie came into 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:41.680 the picture. In two thousand eight. Advisor Michael Mackenzie had 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:46.520 a brilliant idea, why not change Indiana's love to hope 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:50.599 and make it the banner for the surging Obama presidential campaign. 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:57.359 As Mackenzie deepened his relationship with Indiana over Hope, he 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:03.000 began expanding Hope Prince on canvas, more Hope sculptures, more 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:07.920 colors of Hope, Expand, Expand, Expand, and then he bought 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.520 a studio on Vinyl even near Indiana to have better 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:18.680 access to him. Soon other operators began swooping in. I 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:21.680 spoke with Bob Keys, a long time reporter for the 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:25.440 Portland Press Herald who just published a fascinating book titled 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:30.240 The Isolation Artist, Scandal, Deception, and the Last Days of 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:35.760 Robert Indiana. Keys described the circle of operators well. Jim 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:39.600 brann Is a long time attorney in Rockland, Maine. He 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:43.160 became much more closely involved in Indiana's affairs and in 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:48.200 six helped change Indiana's will that made him the executor 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:51.760 of the estate. And Jamie Thomas, who was then an 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:55.600 island caretaker, became much more involved in Indiana's personal affairs 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:57.520 and he became the power of attorney as well as 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:01.040 the healthcare power of attorney, And from that point on, 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:05.920 Indiana certainly lost control of much of the legal and 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:10.000 professional aspects of his life in terms of his legal representation, 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:13.680 and Jamie Thomas was authorized at that point to make 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:17.600 business decisions for him as power of attorney. That's when 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:21.240 we began to see much more work attributed to Mackenzie 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:25.360 start to come out of the UH Indiana studio at 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:27.920 a time when Indiana was definitely in failing health and 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:30.880 had not made new work in quite a while. Now, 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:33.200 is that to say that that it looked to you 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:37.760 and others as if what Mackenzie and um Thomas we're doing, 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:42.079 and perhaps Brandon as well, was forging. UH forging is 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:44.160 a legal term. I think what they were doing was 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:48.600 pushing the boundaries of what was authentic work. The work 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:51.280 was suspicious right away in the eyes of many people 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:55.240 who knew it. It didn't seem authentic. My reporting suggests 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:58.040 that Indiana probably was aware of its creation but not 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.560 involved with it, and and look the other way. And 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:06.320 that was fairly common during that point in his life. 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:14.959 And what did it mean that Thomas became beneficiary I 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:17.520 guess of the estate. I mean he had nothing to 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.000 do with making art. Why was he written into the will? 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:24.320 Thomas was written into the will because Indiana at some 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.840 point surrounded himself with people from the vinyl Haven community 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:30.480 who were loyal to him, and Thomas was in that camp. 0:09:31.120 --> 0:09:33.800 Thomas had a relationship with Robert Indiana that went back 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:37.520 many decades. There is a lot of debate among people 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:39.840 who worked with Indiana how close they were, but it 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:42.960 is a fact. At as eightieth birthday party in two 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:45.959 thousand and eight, Indiana invited Jamie Thomas to it, and 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:48.040 that was a pretty personal affair, so they definitely had 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:53.839 a friendship. Jamie Thomas ultimately convinced Indiana to make him 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:58.080 the power of Attorney. And then we see Thomas's text 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:03.000 messages with Mackenzie up until the point Indiana died, where 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:06.280 they were texting back and forth about works that they 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:09.640 would create together. You can envision the text W I 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:12.880 N E and and so forth and so on, you know, 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:15.880 stacked four letter words. They were texting back and forth 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:18.520 that they should create on their own while Indiana was 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:22.440 on his deathbed. And so Mackenzie, deep in that relationship, 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:26.520 built it with Thomas. Thomas was on the inside. Thomas 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:29.880 became involved in Indiana's life at a time when his 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:32.400 health was failing, and many people on the island saw 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:35.080 him as coming in to help get Indiana out of 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:38.480 some more trouble. But there's no question that in so 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:42.200 doing he also isolated Indiana from all of his art 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:45.040 world contexts who could no longer reach him an interview 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:47.200 him and talk about things. And at the same time, 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:49.560 there was a large body of work coming out of 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:53.120 his studio and it had the mark of Mackenzie all 0:10:53.200 --> 0:11:00.680 over it. Fine art friends like legendary Dartmouth art professor 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:04.400 John Wilmerding started knocking on the door of Indiana's Vinyl 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:09.640 Haven home and getting no response. John Wilmerging made at 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:11.920 least an annual trip to see Robert Indiana at the 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:15.040 Star of Hope every summer. I believe the last time 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:18.120 he saw Indiana was in the fall or late summer 0:11:18.160 --> 0:11:21.520 of m d made a comment to Indiana that it 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.280 sort of looks like the School of Indiana, and Indiana 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:26.160 sort of shrugged and said, I guess in some ways 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:29.280 that it is. Wilmerding never saw him again. He tried 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:32.040 to reach him, He sent emails that were not returned. 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:35.720 He had ters responses from others in the Indiana camp 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:37.920 and basically was told you're no longer going to be 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.480 able to see him, and other people were peeled away 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:45.520 as well. By early two thousand eighteen, attorney Luke Nikas, 0:11:45.840 --> 0:11:49.760 representing the Morgan Art Foundation, alleged that the trio of 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:55.000 art publisher Michael Mackenzie, caretaker Jamie Thomas, and local business 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:58.760 partner James W. Brannan had taken control of the eighty 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:05.080 eight year old artist Indiana lived in an old Mason's home. 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:08.480 Was a very old home, big beautiful home, tons of space, 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:12.440 but also in need of significant repair that wasn't kept 0:12:12.559 --> 0:12:15.679 up over time, and so Indiana's bedroom was on the 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:19.320 top floor, and near the end of his life, they 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:23.400 took the staircase that went from his bedroom out of 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:27.040 the house down to his yard out of the house. 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:31.760 That completely removed it. We were told by studio assistants 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:34.640 that the locks were changed so they couldn't get in 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:38.560 to help Indiana, that windows were boarded up so that 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:41.960 he couldn't yell out or reach out for help, and 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:47.000 so this was total isolation in the extreme to prevent 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:50.240 Indiana from reaching out to the people he knew could 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:55.320 help him out of this situation. There was more. Luke 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:59.480 learned the Trio had taken over Indiana's email account, his 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.040 voice mail, and had completely controlled every aspect of his 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:07.800 life for the last several years. Not only did Morgan 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:12.160 allege Jamie Thomas stole money from Indiana and diverted opportunities 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:16.200 from Indiana, but Morgan alleged that Jamie Thomas and Michael 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:23.400 Mackenzie had conspired to forge works in Indiana's name. The 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.800 trio had even stolen images that the Morrigan Art Foundation 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:31.400 owned and sold those images as Indiana's even though they weren't. 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:37.840 We found a Instagram post a video of someone signing 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:42.080 in mackenzie studio Robert Indiana works with an auto pen 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:45.200 or a ghostwriter, and in the middle of the video, 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:49.520 the studio assistant said for jury and posted that Mackenzie, 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:54.040 her boss, was forcing her to forge paintings and if 0:13:54.080 --> 0:13:56.640 the police came, she would quote unquote sing like a bird. 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:00.360 And so we we filed this lawsuit a edging that 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:04.400 Mackenzie had forged these paintings. The very next day, in 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:14.880 May of two thousand eighteen, Indiana died. Despite Indiana's death, 0:14:15.200 --> 0:14:20.280 the case forged ahead. We jumped into discovery in the case, 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:24.040 got more information related to the works that were being made. 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:28.480 We have witnesses, We took testimony, and then throughout the 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:31.920 case Michael Mackenzie testified that he had absolutely no more 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:35.000 works by Indiana in his possession. He wasn't making any works. 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:38.880 The entire business was shut down in that respect. Two 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:43.880 weeks ago, I inspected Michael Mackenzie's property to look at 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:46.600 the works that were on the property, and it turns 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.160 out there were over a thousand works on the property 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:53.080 that we're supposedly by Robert Indiana. Stencils that he was 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:57.080 using with certain years two thousand fifteen, two thousand seventeen. 0:14:57.280 --> 0:14:59.960 Stamped on the back of the paintings that were used 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:03.000 is Indiana signature. So I went to the judge and 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:05.720 I asked for more discovery given that we had been 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:08.960 denied information, and then was allowed to go out again 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:12.520 and inspect the entire studio. And when I was there, 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:17.760 I cataloged the entire blueprint of how Michael mackenzie operated. 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:21.680 The catalog resume of Robert Indiana's works was tabbed with 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:25.160 post it notes. He had a full composition notebook of 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:28.400 drawings of Indiana works he was creating, and so we 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:31.000 went back to the court and said he's forging works. 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:34.200 This is the blueprint, this is the forger's den. I 0:15:34.280 --> 0:15:38.560 received a phone call from one of Michael Mackenzie's now 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:44.280 former friends and what he said was two things. Number One, 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:48.880 Michael Mackenzie still forging works. He just forged a hundred 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:52.360 and fifty in his studio. Here's a picture. He's stamping 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:56.320 the back of those works with two thousand fifteen stencils, 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:59.720 with two thousand seventeen stencils. He's selling them for a 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:05.240 lot of money all over the world. And production was 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:08.840 still ramping up when you came to the studio under 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:12.040 court order, allowed to inspect his property to see what 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:14.960 he had created. In the middle of the day and 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:20.200 night before you arrived, he shipped seven truckloads of art 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:24.240 off the property into a storage facility to prevent you 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:30.120 from seeing what he had done. Luke got a declaration 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:34.760 from Mackenzie under oath, detailing all of this, detailing the 0:16:34.840 --> 0:16:38.360 forgeries he was making, detailing how he was using the stencil's, 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:42.520 detailing Mackenzie's proclivities towards guns and threats, and the way 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:45.240 he deals with people in his workplace, and so we 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:49.400 got that declaration under oath, went back to the judge, 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:51.760 and the judge is now opening up the whole other 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:55.360 phase in the case for violation of all of these 0:16:55.360 --> 0:17:01.640 discovery orders that she's issued. In the summer of Luke 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:06.679 Nichols demonstrated the automatic signature machine that signed Indiana Prince 0:17:07.040 --> 0:17:11.919 and showed the tropes of forgeries. With that, three of 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:17.000 the parties settled, the Morgan Art Foundation, the artist's Star 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:22.760 of Hope Foundation, and the estate itself. Perhaps now top 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:28.280 quality Indiana works could be sold again. Also participating in 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:32.120 the settlement where Jamie Thomas, the island caretaker, and Jim 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:36.840 Brannon the lawyer, left out was Michael Mackenzie, who said 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:40.160 he would work with both parties but implied the wrangling 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:44.199 wasn't done yet. Quote I can take this apart, he 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:48.760 warned his partners in The New York Times. The terms 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:52.000 were secret, which struck many as odd since the Star 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:56.000 of Hope is a nonprofit foundation. There are many people 0:17:56.000 --> 0:17:58.120 who believe that settlement needs to be made public because 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:01.439 the Star of Hope Foundation is a public entity in Maine, 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:04.520 and it's uh the taxpayers and their citizens and residents 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:07.760 of Maine have vested interest in the outcome of it, 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:11.639 and it's worth maybe a million hundred million dollars the estate, 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:16.040 and UH as taxpayers, we have a right to know 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:18.240 at least what it says and and who's going to 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:20.720 benefit from the estate and where the artwork is going 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:26.240 to go. Indiana wanted his artwork on view and for 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:36.600 public consumption. That's what he cared most about. What I'm 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.720 struck by in this story is the efforts Indiana made 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:42.639 to get his name back and to get the valuation 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:45.600 of his work back. And he's successful, but then he 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:48.359 runs into these people and it just blows up in 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:53.400 his face. Ultimately, this is the story of a brilliant 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:56.920 but lonely man whose art may never have filled the 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:00.720 whole in his heart. Certainly he never had another long 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:06.639 term partner after Ellsworth Kelly asked for the Vinyl Haven community. 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:11.840 Despite welcoming the great artist in early the local fishermen 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:15.920 and their families had cut Indiana off amid shocking charges. 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:22.600 Indiana had been arrested for solicitation of prostitution in and 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:27.080 stood accused of paying minors for sex. One local boy 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:31.040 testified that he was twelve when the abuse began and 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:36.080 that it had continued for six years. Another accuser also 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:40.400 came forward. A legal proceeding acquitted Indiana of the charges. 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:45.800 In Indiana said he felt lucky to be acquitted, a 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:52.520 sentiment that left the Islanders outraged. I feel that Indiana 0:19:52.560 --> 0:19:54.959 brought on a lot of the problems himself because of 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:59.080 his inability to resolve the conflicts. He suffered from a 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:01.600 lot of she was in terms of his youth and 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:04.520 his lack of trust and his inability to let people 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:07.119 close to him, and that really did affect him at 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:11.119 the end. I feel sorry for him because of his 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:15.320 lack of personal tools that one needs to navigate the world. 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:17.600 He didn't have a healthy youth grown up, and he 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:20.119 never figured out how to live in the world in 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:26.639 a partnered sort of way. All he was left within 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:36.439 the end was hope. After the break, Michael Shnayerson and 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:39.639 I will talk about Mary Boone Ross Bleckner and a 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:43.639 painting I loved and finally was able to purchase sort of. 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:50.240 In the movie gaslight Ingrid Bergmann found yourself wondering why 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.600 her possessions are moving and vanishing. Is she losing her mind. 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:56.800 I thought about that movie, Alec when I first heard 0:20:56.840 --> 0:20:59.359 about your own personal brush with art fraud. So how 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:03.359 did that happen? Well, you know, for a long time 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:07.359 I had walked around with this mailing card that I 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:12.040 got from Mary Boone and Gallerie selling a painting by 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:15.320 Ross Bleckner, and I had it with me and you know, 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:17.400 kind of stared at it every now and then thought, Wow, 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:20.040 I wonder where that painting is. And I mean I 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:23.840 I wasn't someone who was keen on researching that and 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:28.720 chasing that down. First of all, let's talk about Bleckner 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:30.960 a minute and and sort of put him in context. 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:34.480 He had come up in the early eighties in a 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:37.960 group of young, very dramatic artists represented by the Mary 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:41.320 Boone Gallery. They were doing something new, you know, breaking 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:44.280 out of abstract and minimalist art that frankly most people 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:48.159 were tired of. And Mary saw that the market was 0:21:48.200 --> 0:21:51.240 ready for big, bold paintings with a lot of color paintings, 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:54.439 you can understand. So by the early nineteen eighties she 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:58.200 had the hottest gallery in New York. Perhaps not by coincidence, 0:21:58.680 --> 0:22:02.639 her artists were mostly ale, handsome, very dramatic They are 0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:06.320 artists who actually looked and acted like artists. Painters like 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:09.720 Julian Schnabel with his broken plate paintings, Eric Fishel with 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:13.080 his paintings that showed a dark side of suburban life, 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:17.400 and David Sally, who painted sensuous women among various symbols, 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:22.040 and finally Ross Buckner. So what was it about Ross 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:25.880 Buckner that you liked, you know, more than those other artists. 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:28.679 I think just the colors. I mean, you know, my 0:22:28.720 --> 0:22:32.640 own personal taste, you know, I think that picture just 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:36.240 kind of cast a little tiny spell on me, you 0:22:36.240 --> 0:22:38.439 know what I mean? And I like, I said, I 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:41.560 wound up carrying that in a sheaf of papers that 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:44.160 I had, that a little binder. One day, as luck 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:46.080 would have it, I met Ross and a bunch of 0:22:46.080 --> 0:22:49.879 other people for Ross's birthday, which coincided with another opening 0:22:49.920 --> 0:22:53.960 he had at Mary Boone and I went, I saw 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:56.320 a painting I liked. I had to hustle out the 0:22:56.320 --> 0:22:59.280 door because would relate to another appointment. I came back 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:02.359 the next day that painting was sold. You went into 0:23:02.359 --> 0:23:06.880 that event one night, I think you said. In two right. 0:23:07.240 --> 0:23:10.080 We went to the gallery because it was Ross's birthday 0:23:10.359 --> 0:23:12.119 and we went to the opening and then we were 0:23:12.240 --> 0:23:15.679 hustled out of the opening very quickly. I was like, well, 0:23:15.680 --> 0:23:17.119 I'd like to spend some time or look at some 0:23:17.119 --> 0:23:19.240 of the paintings, and they were like, what you know. 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:21.760 They weren't there to buy any of Ross's paintings as friends. 0:23:22.560 --> 0:23:25.680 So I came back the next day and I said 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:29.360 to Mary, that's the painting I want. She said, well, 0:23:29.359 --> 0:23:32.120 that's sold. And then you realize, well, of course it did, 0:23:32.520 --> 0:23:34.680 and she said, when you come in and we can talk. 0:23:35.119 --> 0:23:37.040 I go to a computer with her and I take 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:39.560 her to see in mirror the painting that I'd refer 0:23:39.640 --> 0:23:41.719 to in the in the mailer that I carried around 0:23:41.800 --> 0:23:44.800 the Holy Grail here if you will, of Ross's paintings 0:23:44.880 --> 0:23:48.960 to me, I said that picture, I said, where is that? 0:23:49.040 --> 0:23:51.680 She was, I think I can get that. I think 0:23:51.720 --> 0:23:55.040 that guy will sell that painting. So that was the 0:23:55.080 --> 0:23:57.560 picture that was literally the image that you had had 0:23:57.600 --> 0:24:00.439 on your card that you were walking around with was 0:24:00.600 --> 0:24:05.679 the painting Sea and Mirror from n She said, I 0:24:05.760 --> 0:24:08.399 know who bought that, and she said, I think I 0:24:08.400 --> 0:24:12.439 can get it fair. I presume you thought, well that 0:24:12.480 --> 0:24:14.960 could be expensive if she's going to persuade someone to 0:24:14.960 --> 0:24:17.600 sell the painting back to you. But you said, go 0:24:17.640 --> 0:24:20.359 ahead and try your luck, you know, Mary, if you 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:23.920 can do it, great, and only the next day, if 0:24:23.960 --> 0:24:26.680 not even that day. She called you back to say 0:24:26.720 --> 0:24:31.359 what she said. I got the painting. Now, the paintings 0:24:31.440 --> 0:24:35.440 that were contemporary, the paintings that were from that gallery 0:24:35.520 --> 0:24:38.520 exhibit in and around that time, we're in the high 0:24:38.800 --> 0:24:41.840 five figures. She then came to me and said, I 0:24:41.840 --> 0:24:43.960 can get you this painting for a hundred and ninety 0:24:44.000 --> 0:24:49.640 thousand dollars. And it was more than double the dollars 0:24:49.680 --> 0:24:53.239 that Ross was getting for the other paintings, where they 0:24:53.240 --> 0:24:56.719 were a five thousand dollar range. So what was her 0:24:56.840 --> 0:24:59.760 rationale for why you should pay you know, more than 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:05.200 ice I was buying the nineties six painting. She was saying, how, 0:25:05.840 --> 0:25:08.080 I'm buying it from this collector and that's what he wants. 0:25:08.160 --> 0:25:12.240 He wants a hundred dollars for the painting. I said, great, 0:25:12.400 --> 0:25:17.760 I'll take it. I was just completely completely overjoyed that 0:25:17.960 --> 0:25:22.439 I could get the painting. Thrilled with the opportunity he 0:25:22.440 --> 0:25:25.520 had been presented to finally own his own holy Grail 0:25:25.560 --> 0:25:29.600 of paintings. Alec purchased ross Buck, Nurse c and Mirror 0:25:29.920 --> 0:25:33.000 from Mary Boone for the agreed price of a hundred 0:25:33.000 --> 0:25:36.320 and ninety thousand dollars. A short time later, the painting 0:25:36.400 --> 0:25:40.240 arrived at Alex's office on the Upper West Side, so 0:25:40.520 --> 0:25:42.800 we had them hang the painting. And when they hung 0:25:42.840 --> 0:25:46.720 the painting, it reeked very strongly of some chemical like 0:25:47.160 --> 0:25:51.000 paint thinner, turpentine, some astringent kind of chemical smell like that. 0:25:51.680 --> 0:25:54.919 And then I called her and I said, that gauzy 0:25:55.320 --> 0:25:59.359 feathered effect that is on display in this painting in 0:25:59.400 --> 0:26:01.800 the N and six Sea and Mirror like no other. 0:26:01.880 --> 0:26:04.960 I mean, it's probably one of his gaussiest series of paintings, 0:26:05.480 --> 0:26:07.760 and very watery. It doesn't look like that at all. 0:26:08.160 --> 0:26:10.240 It doesn't look like that at all. And I said, 0:26:10.280 --> 0:26:13.240 what's going on? And it smells at this chemical? She said, well, 0:26:13.840 --> 0:26:15.920