Art World Scandals

By Edward

Warning: if the art world bores you, like, oh, say…NASCAR does me, you’ll want to skip this one.
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The art market is beyond white hot again and so, with success, of course, comes scandal. In fact, it feels like the press is paying a bit more than the usual amount of attention to the wheelings and dealings of the last great unregulated industry in the Western world lately (and of course, that makes everyone associated with the art world feel all warm and fuzzy for finally being noticed, on one hand, and rather anxious about strangers peering in too closely, on the other).

Two scandals of particular note are the Lehmann/Mehertu scandal and the NPR/MoMA scandal. The Lehmann/Mehertu scandal involves money, access, and ego. The NPR/MoMA scandal involves money, Nazis, and Egon Schiele.

Scandal 1:

Julie Mehertu is a New York-based painter who shot to stardom after Long Island City PS1’s first "Greater New York" exhibition (a survey of promising young talent) a few years ago. (The second "Greater New York" exhibition opens this Sunday, and speculation again is running high as to who will emerge as the new "ones to watch.") Mehertu went on to be included in the last Whitney Biennial and other important exhibitions, and there’s a waiting list for her work as long as she is tall.

One of the people waiting for one of her major pieces is Swiss art collector Jean-Pierre Lehmann, whose wife is a partner in the very influential Lehmann-Maupin Gallery in Chelsea, and who lent Mehretu’s New York dealer, Christian Haye (whose gallery The Project shot to prominence about 5 years ago) $75,000 in an agreement that included significant discounts on work by gallery artists AND what most collectors will sell a body part for when it comes to rising art stars: right of first refusal. In other words, Haye had agreed that as soon as a new Julie Mehertu painting was available he would let Lehmann say yes or no to purchasing it before anyone else got the chance. Neither party denied that that was the agreement.

What was denied was whether Haye lived up to his end of the deal. When Lehmann later saw in catalogs of Mehertu’s work that other collectors he had never even heard of had been sold major pieces that he had not been offered, he confronted the dealer and essentially got a rude reception for asking. Lehmann took the issue to court and won a settlement for a cool $1.7 million. Remember, all he had lent the gallery was $75,000.

The highlight of the courtroom drama was when the beautiful Mehertu was called as a witness to testify about the overstated value of her own work (a very odd and awkward position to be in). Most of my friends who know Julie well (I’ve only met her casually) say she’s a bit bemused and a bit concerned about the long-term effects of all this on her career, but mostly she’s focused on her and her girlfriend’s soon-to-arrive first child.

Arrangements like the one between Lehmann and Haye are common in the art world, and usually disagreements are settled quietly. That Lehmann took this one all the way has rattled a few art world folks, who rather enjoy the lack of regulation in the industry. To many dealers, it feels as if regulation is definitely coming, though, and high-profile cases like this one all but ensure that it will. This New York magazine article goes a bit more into the types of controversial dealings that folks may soon ask Uncle Sam to step in and clean up.

Scandal 2:

The other scandal garnering attention in the art world involves former NPR reporter David D’Arcy. I note "former" because allegedly due to pressure brought by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) on his employer, D’Arcy was fired after reporting on All Things Considered about a painting by Austrian artist Egon Schiele (titled Portrait of Wally) that was allegedly stolen in 1939. The report can be heard here (as can be seen NPR’s "correction"* to the story).

The painting has a long, infamous history. MoMA exhibited the painting in 1997, having borrowed it from its present owner, the Leopold Foundation. However, its return to the foundation is being opposed by the Bondi family in Vienna, who insist the painting was stolen from their ancestor, Viennese dealer Lea Bondi, in 1939 by the Nazis.

In 1999, Manhattan DA, Robert Morgenthau, subpoenaed the painting, and it still remains in storage. Officially, MoMA wants no part of the dispute, but critics argue that they could step in and should step in to ensure it’s returned to the Bondi family.

Complicating the matter quite exquisitely is the paradoxical position MoMA Board Chairman Ronald S. Lauder finds himself in. On one hand, he’s a major collector of Schiele’s work. On another hand, his museum is bound by the loan contract they signed with the Leopold Foundation (and, in my opinion, MoMA shouldn’t be dragged into this really, because if they’re seen to be doing something that violates that contract, that will make it harder for future exchanges of this sort to be negotiated and we lovers everywhere will be the poorer for it). But on yet another (oddly third) hand, Lauder is also the Chairman of The Commission for Art Recovery, whose stated mission is to

[S]pur restitution efforts by European governments in order to help bring a small measure of justice into the lives of families whose art was seized, confiscated, or wrongfully taken – on a massive scale — as a result of the policies of the Third Reich and the devastation of the Holocaust.

Now the aspect of the "scandal" currently getting the most attention is the fact that NPR relieved D’Arcy of his duties for allegedly overlooking "basic standards of journalism" in his report. I listened to that story, and it seems pretty damn balanced to me. What the art world is whispering about is what MoMA did to get D’Arcy fired. According to artnet.com, D’Arcy’s lawyer is exploring the options open to him.

Art world types are still dining out on their own personal "involvement" on both scandals, and as the entire planet converges on New York for the Armory Show this week, they’re bound to be "so-o-o-o-o over" both stories by the week’s end. Please do share if you hear any juicy details from reputable sources, I need all the dining out gossip I can gather this week.

*I put "correction" in quotations, because NPR’s notice doesn’t seem to address anything actually reported by D’Arcy. And in fact is actually contradicted by a fax D’Arcy reportedly was sent by MoMA declining to be interviewed for the story.