Charles Osgood, Longtime 'CBS Sunday Morning' Host, Dies At 91
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In 1967, he took a job as reporter on the CBS-owned New York news radio station.
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Rive Roshan Leaves Space in Between for Reflection, Rumination
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In an age plagued by overshare, few artists are producing works that invite viewers to find introspection rather than a photo opportunity. For Design Miami 2023, Rademakers Gallery presented Rive Roshan’s exhibit The Space in Between, whose solution – while fleeting – now echoes through upcoming shows and current commissions. The Amsterdam-based design duo behind the practice, Ruben de la Rive Box and Golnar Roshan, argue through pieces from their former installation that experiential art at any scale, and in a variety of contexts, is transformational.
The Space in Between Table
Color Shift Panels Nude, Sunstone, and Citrine
And the art of thinking couldn’t come at a better time. “We see that there is a lot of misinformation and that people are very quick to base their judgment on whichever input passes by. We want to stimulate people to trust their intuition and their internal motivations,” Rive Roshan says. “The Space in Between was designed to do this, to bring people from various viewpoints and ideas together and let them pause for a moment and reflect. We hope that this helps us all to reconnect.”
Vessel 3
Space in Between Table and Vessel 3
The objects, meticulously designed, consider the interplay of light, movement, reflection, and perception – all with the goal of stimulating the senses and engaging passersby. The dimensional tables include the show’s proprietary Space in Between Table – aptly named for the tension created in the pair’s contrast and relative placement – and the Rise table, employ a reflective, vibrant, textured glass that diffuses colored light with the effect of rippling water. Similarly are the Polarity Panels, a series of split-textured glass compositions nuanced in their duality. A line divides two richly tactile and colored components, while simultaneously being united as one holistic circle. The Color Shift Panels share a similar reflective, fluted glass but span across oblong shapes with a shifting color field in a radial gradient. The Shift Wall Light, however, takes all of those devices and repackages them into a tall, rectangular, wall-mounted luminaire, whose atmospheric effects are activated by electricity.
Side Table 1, V3 Vessel 3, and Polarity Panel 3
Grounding some of the more atmospheric elements is the Voices collection – a series of 3D-printed sand vessels that marry natural materials with technological innovation. The undulating, ribbed edges evoke imagery of the Japanese kirigami paper sculpture method, or an Iris van Herpen garment mid-pirouette. The very physical folds are an homage, an echo of voices from Iranian women calling for freedom. In addition are the Pebble Stool and Sand in Motion Pleat Side Table, two bronze artifacts that distill characteristics from Voices and present them in contrasting yet corresponding forms. Each permutation of pieces from The Space in Between creates a dialogue between the furnishings themselves and those whose eyes they catch.
Voices Vessels
As they wrap up one fair and prepare for the next, a smattering of their furnishings are being integrated into bespoke interior installations including a full wall-filling color shift installation at Penn1, a large development project in Manhattan, and a custom commission for an American corporate headquarters abroad. “Incorporating these moments into daily life – such as interior spaces, public spaces or institutions – we have the opportunity to connect with others and if that moment of connection sparks joy or evokes empathy then that is what we hope to have achieved.” Rive Roshan continues. “Through our work we aim to design objects and spaces that influence the mind – we have seen and learned that this is necessary, you do not just design the functionality of an object or a place but you design the influence it has on one’s current state in a moment of experience.”
Polarity Panel 2 and Soft Bronze Stool
Golnar Roshan and Ruben de la Rive Box, the designers behind the artistic practice Rive Roshan
Golnar Roshan and Ruben de la Rive Box, the designers behind the artistic practice Rive Roshan
For more information about The Space in Between, head to Rive Roshan’s site here.
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In the Details | Artists Network
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Showcase your talent and win big in Artists Network prestigious art competitions! Discover competitions in a variety of media and enter for your chance to win cash prizes, publication in leading art magazines, global exposure, and rewards for your hard work. Plus, gain valuable feedback from renowned jurors. Let your passion shine through – enter an art competition today!
Brian LaSaga shares his secrets for realistically capturing the subtleties of snow.
By Susan Byrnes
Drift, crust, powder—there are many words to describe the characteristics of snow. In St. George’s, Newfoundland, where the average annual snowfall is 155 inches, acrylic artist Brian LaSaga can be found carefully observing these characteristics that he later translates into paintings that are spectacularly detailed. Not only is LaSaga a keen observer of snow, he’s a lifelong student of the natural environment during every season in his native province.
LaSaga’s body of work consists of intimate land, water, sky, and snow scenes that often feature elements of human presence or natural processes. Focused on the familiar, indigenous, raw, and sacred, his paintings reveal a quiet reverence for the wild and tamed, and the touched and untouched beauty of his sparsely populated surroundings.
An ordinary occurrence like sunlight on snow might point out a singular moment like the confluence of natural elements as in Winter Fir, with its sunlit icicle adorning the small tree, or those in Whiskey Jack and Wood, with its side-lit woodpile and jaybird. Decaying objects such as the vehicle in Winter Relic serve as a visual counterpoint to the natural elements of snow and water.
This article originally appeared in the Winter 2016 issue of Acrylic Artist. Get the issue now—members get 30% off!
Capturing Snow
When most people think of snow, they think white, but not LaSaga. For him, snow is alizarin crimson, phthalo blue, ultramarine blue, and dioxazine purple. And yellow. “I always use yellow in snow,” he says. “I have to—very subtly—because of the sunlight.” He prefers Hansa yellow combined with small amounts of white, blue, orange, purple, and sometimes red.
For rendering shadows in his winter scenes, LaSaga uses dioxazine purple in every painting, because it tones down the yellow. To create the effect of blowing snow, as in Winter Woodpile, he paints in high key with lots of white and brushes with bristles that have been worn down with sandpaper so the paint can be scumbled, not brushed, onto the panel. Because less detail is needed to paint light, fluffy snow, he uses a softer brush so that very little detail is visible, as in Winter Relic, above. In Below the Hill, which depicts areas of frozen, dirty snow, a sharper brush is used to paint tighter chunks of ice.
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US museums face a funding crisis as new generation of donors comes of age
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There is a saying in the museum world: “There is always a job in development.” But for the first time, the industry is entertaining a future in which that once failsafe job of raising money for an art institution may not be so secure after all. While museums need more money than ever, the traditional philanthropic model is no longer one they can rely on. The rising generations are not interested in supporting these institutions the way their parents did—and the prospect of dwindling donations is keeping arts leaders up at night.
For more than a century, US museums have been sustained by donors with a very particular idea of what philanthropy looks like. “It used to be that one of the hallmarks of becoming a community leader was giving to bedrock institutions where you live—the local food bank, museum, orchestra,” says Catherine Crystal Foster, a vice-president at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. Contributions from private donors typically account for the largest share of museums’ operating revenue (around 40%, on average, in 2016), according to the American Alliance of Museums.
But younger generations have a very different relationship to both philanthropy and the arts. According to a 2023 survey from CCS Fundraising, while arts and culture is second on a list of baby boomers’ giving priorities, it does not even make the top three for Gen X, millennials or Gen Z. “There is disinterest, lack of engagement and also simply a lack of awareness of the arts and the cultural landscape—both from new money, particularly the tech industry, and younger generations whose parents supported museums,” says Leslie Ramos, a philanthropy adviser and author of the book Philanthropy in the Arts: A Game of Give and Take.
The question of how to engage young donors is not a new one. The Museum of Modern Art in New York established its first junior patron council in 1949. The strategy was widely adopted in the early 2000s, as the issue became more pressing. Now, it is existential. In the next 20 years, according to the investment bank UBS, more than 1,000 baby-boomer billionaires are expected to pass $5.2 trillion to their children in what has become known as the Great Wealth Transfer. “It’s kind of like the climate crisis—it feels so big that nobody knows what to do about it until, all of a sudden, you are forced to act,” says Mary Ceruti, the director of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
The reckoning is slow—it’s an erosion of energy, acquisitions and programming
Adrian Ellis, founder, AEA Consulting
To make matters more challenging, museums are far more expensive to operate than they used to be. Attendance has not returned to pre-Covid levels, but day-to-day costs—from shipping to food service—have increased precipitously. Ambitious expansions have left museums with considerably larger footprints than they once had, while government funding remains on the decline. Plus, social media offers a constant stream of information about disasters and crises around the world that feel considerably more urgent than the health of the local museum. In recent months, this perfect storm has precipitated ticket-price hikes and layoffs at institutions including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. “The reckoning is slow—it’s an erosion of energy, acquisitions and programming,” says Adrian Ellis, the founder of AEA Consulting, which works with museums and other cultural institutions. “It’s a story of energy seeping out.”
Part of the problem is that what museums once thought would engage younger audiences—populist shows, grand lobbies, exclusive parties—does not resonate as much as they had hoped. Foster says: “We’re not seeing clients of ours coming in and saying, ‘Wow, I went with my spouse to one of those museum after-dark events, and now I see it’s such an extraordinary institution, I’d love to fund it.’”
Instead, next-gen donors want to tackle big global issues, from climate change to racial justice. And those who do recognise the arts’ ability to strengthen social cohesion, improve health outcomes and encourage critical thinking are likely to eschew legacy institutions in favour of smaller organisations where their money can make a bigger impact. Jeff Bezos’s ex-wife MacKenzie Scott, who has an estimated net worth of $27bn, has funded smaller, culturally specific museums such as New York’s El Museo del Barrio and the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, as well as grassroots arts organisations such as the Laundromat Project in Brooklyn. Notably, no arts organisations appeared on her 2023 list of 360 grantees.
Change matters more than status
Many rising donors also want a different relationship with the institutions they support than their parents had. Rather than securing a seat on the board or getting their name on a gallery wall, they want to use their clout to push institutions to change—engage more deeply with community members, for example, or think more entrepreneurially. “Young high-net-worth individuals don’t want to use the word philanthropist,” says the philanthropy strategist Melissa Cowley Wolf. “They prefer investor, donor or partner.”
Cowley Wolf points to the example of Abby Pucker, a member of the prominent Pritzker family, which has a long record of cultural philanthropy in the US. With her company Gertie, which offers members a guide to Chicago’s cultural scene, Pucker is taking a different tack to encourage engagement in the arts. In addition to promoting local arts organisations, Gertie has teamed up with the non-profit Breakout to fund community leaders in fields ranging from sustainable agriculture to restorative justice.
So what exactly should museums do to engage next-gen donors? While there is no one solution, a few best practices have emerged. Forge relationships with community leaders, and ask what they need and how your organisation can help. Develop novel ways to measure impact beyond tickets sold or objects acquired. Create mission-driven endowment funds that specialise in supporting the work of low-income local artists, curators of colour or formerly incarcerated art workers. And redouble efforts to expand audiences by improving the visitor experience. The larger the audience, the larger the potential donor pool.
Ceruti says: “There is a shift in thinking about fundraising not as old-school socialite charitable giving but as more of a sales job. It sounds crass, but in reality a good fundraiser makes sure that someone else sees there is enough value in what you offer that it’s worth investing in.” In other words, development departments of the future may look different, but there will probably still be jobs there.
- This is the first in a two-part series on the future of museum fundraising. The second will examine how museums are developing new ways to generate income beyond philanthropy.
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Sotheby’s Exec Paints an Ugly Picture of Yves Bouvier’s Deceptions in Ongoing Rybolovlev Trial
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Proceedings in the ongoing legal spat between Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev and Sotheby’s have often been drawn out and detailed to the point of tedium, with hours-long questioning about the timing and content of emails seeming to fail to lead to even a substantive assertion, let alone wrongdoing. However, gems about the inner workings of the upper echelons of the art market and how eight- and nine-figure trophy deals get done do sometimes seep out.
Today was one of those days.
As most art world followers now know, Rybolovlev alleges the auction house “aided and abetted” a larger alleged fraud by Swiss dealer Yves Bouvier, who the billionaire eventually realized had overcharged him by roughly $1 billion on 38 art deals going back more than a decade. After years of legal wrangling in various jurisdictions around the world, Rybolovlev and Bouvier ultimately settled their differences late last year. Now, Sotheby’s is defending itself in court in New York.
Today marked the third day on the witness stand for Samuel Valette, Sotheby’s senior vice president, vice chairman, and head of private sales for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. For years, Valette played a key role as a liaison to Bouvier. Rybolovlev and his lawyers are trying to prove that Valette and other Sotheby’s executives were in on Bouvier’s scheme.
So far, that argument is not landing.
Valette has been composed, forthright, and even talkative on the witness stand, often going into greater detail than requested to explain the intricacies of wheeling and dealing in the art market. And despite having said more than once that Bouvier was a “great client,” it appears the gloves have come off when it comes to Sotheby’s shining a spotlight on Bouvier’s role in the case.
Valette was presented with an email today showing that Bouvier was working with Rybolovlev’s right hand man for art investments, Mikhail Sazonov, to secure $43.5 million for a surreal Rene Magritte painting, The Domain of Arnheim—a whopping $19.4 million markup from the $24.1 million sale agreement he himself had struck with Sotheby’s. Further, he was relaying the $43.5 million price to Sazonov even days before he had finalized and seen through the lower agreed-on price with Sotheby’s.
“I tried but $42 [million] is Mission Impossible,” Bouvier wrote to Sazonov in a November 2011 email, in an effort to turn up the heat.
Asked about this email, which he was not copied on, Valette emphatically said there was no such discussion or negotiation. “It’s a complete fiction. It didn’t happen. We never offered the seller $43.5 million. Ever.” Sotheby’s confirmed that it sold the painting to Bouvier via his holding company Blancaflor for $24.1 million.
Shortly after, Rybolovbov bought the work for the $43.5 million price that Bouvier falsely said the seller demanded.
Later in today’s questioning of Valette, lead attorney Marcus Asner brought up a a major Modigliani nude that was owned by mega-collector and Mets owner Steven Cohen. In late 2011, Sotheby’s executives caught wind that the painting, which they hoped to get “a shot” at, as Valette put it, was already on its way to a Geneva freeport for a viewing and possible sale at an asking price of around $100 million. At the time, Bouvier was president of and owner of a major free port—a temporarily tax exempt storage space for art in transit—in Geneva.
When Valette immediately called Bouvier to ask about the Modigliani, including whether it was indeed being shown to a buyer there, Bouvier told him he had no idea what he was talking about. Later, it emerged that Bouvier acquired the painting for a price around $93 million, but then flipped it to Rybolovlev for $118 million.
In an email to Valette, Sotheby’s then CEO Bill Ruprecht said, it seems to me like Sam, “you are getting left at the altar…by the same buyer.”
Asner asked Valette whether Bouvier was being truthful when he told Valette he had “no idea” what he was talking about. “In hindsight, no” replied Valette. Asner followed up by asking if Valette had indeed been left at the altar. “In hindsight, yes,” Valette said.
This particular Modigliani flip also ultimately proved to be the beginning of the end for Bouvier and Rybolovlev’s more than decade-long friendship and business relationship. It was the spark that Rybolovlev said unraveled the alleged fraud.
Last week on the stand, Rybolovlev recalled meeting advisor Sandy Heller (who is scheduled to be on the witness stand next week) at a lunch at St. Bart’s in the Carribbean in late 2014. It was Heller, who works as an advisor to Cohen, who revealed in conversation the price that Bouvier had paid for the Modigliani, unveiling the massive price hike passed on to Rybolovlev. That led the billionaire to question whether other works he bought via Bouvier had been as wildly marked up.
On the witness stand last week, Rybolovlev said upon learning this, he turned so pale and was so shocked that friends accompanying him to the lunch believed he was having a heart attack.
In a statement to Artnet News, representatives for Bouvier said “the allegations being made against Mr. Bouvier in the New York proceedings have already been rejected by authorities all around the world.” Bouvier was “was a seller and not an art adviser,” a fact that was “was not contradicted by a single judicial authority during nine years of legal fight in five different countries,” according to the statement.
Rybolovlev attorney Daniel Kornstein said in an emailed statement: “Sam Valette, Sotheby’s salesman, admitted that he was well aware the opinions he expressed about the valuations of art works would be passed on to third parties.”
“The evidence shared by Mr. Rybolovlev’s legal team has not shown any complicity by Sotheby’s in Mr. Bouvier’s alleged fraud,” according to a statement from Sotheby’s. The auction house said it is being “challenged for selling art to a dealer in accordance with company policy and art market best practices.”
The trial continues Monday, with the dealer Sandy Heller, an appraiser from Winston Art Group, and Alex Bell, head of Sotheby’s Old Master department, slated to take the stand.
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‘Sort Of’ Review: The Max Show Is Back For Its Final Season
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Personal growth isn’t often linear. It usually comes in fits and starts.
Over the last few years, it has been great to see a wider range of TV series, especially half-hour comedies, embrace that. From “Insecure” to “Chewing Gum,” and from “Fleabag” to “Russian Doll,” they show their complicated lead characters heading toward more realistic resolutions, rather than something too neat and pat, too tailor made for a TV show.
At times, the “messy protagonist stumbling through life” premise has become a trope. But at their best, these kinds of shows deftly fuse the personal with the big picture. One of the more undersung recent shows that both fits that admittedly loose description, and is also uniquely its own, is “Sort Of,” whose third and final season begins Thursday on Max, after premiering on CBC in Canada last fall.
Each season of the show has followed star and co-creator Bilal Baig as Sabi, a nonbinary Pakistani Canadian in their 20s, navigating adulthood, jobs, family and cultural pressures, friendships and dating. The series has been groundbreaking for its nonbinary representation. Beyond Sabi, many of the show’s supporting characters are also queer. The show beautifully finds the balance between showing a rich tapestry of queer characters, while also allowing each character to be more than their identities and not putting labels on them.
This final season (which Baig and co-creator Fab Filippo have stressed was their decision) follows Sabi in the aftermath of several seismic events, particularly the death of their father at the end of Season 2. They are also starting the process of receiving gender-affirming health care and medically transitioning, figuring out both the physical changes, as well as how to tell the people around them.
Much of the show is about Sabi’s family, both blood and chosen. One of the great strengths of “Sort Of” is that it never seems to give short shrift to anyone, allowing many of its secondary characters moments of personal growth as well. Some of those richly developed subplots this season include Sabi’s sister, Aqsa (Supinder Wraich), alternating between trying to support Sabi, while also feeling emotionally neglected as she undergoes some big life changes. Meanwhile, their mom, Raffo (Ellora Patnaik), is navigating the complicated grief following her husband’s death, and figuring out how to better prioritize and express her own emotional needs.
There’s also Sabi’s deep and complex relationships with their friends and former employers Bessy (Grace Lynn Kung) and Paul (Gray Powell), and their kids Violet (Kaya Kanashiro) and Henry (Aden Bedard). Sabi used to be the kids’ nanny and became close to the entire family. But Sabi kissed Bessy at the end of Season 2, throwing a wrench into their dynamic. Bessy and Paul are also working on repairing their marriage after a number of big family stressors, particularly Bessy’s recovery from a near-fatal accident earlier in the series, which brought out a lot of complicated feelings in Paul. In a lesser show, it might all feel too unwieldy. Yet “Sort Of” efficiently weaves these storylines together, with Sabi as their common thread.
Final seasons of shows often place their protagonists into a moment of having to figure out a lot about themselves. Sabi is certainly in one of those moments, but it always feels real and lived in. For instance, a lot of this season of “Sort Of” focuses on Sabi needing to not hold so much inside, to tell their loved ones the hard stuff in their life, even — and especially — when it feels hard. As Sabi’s best friend 7ven (Amanda Cordner) tells them in one scene: “Why do you have to think so hard before telling me how you are?”
Toward the end of the season, Sabi has a meaningful conversation with their friend and mentor Deenzie (Becca Blackwell), who has abruptly decided to move to Costa Rica. “I’m in a weird place,” Deenzie, a trans man, tells Sabi. “I feel like I did when I first transitioned: out of my skin. I don’t know. I just want to go be somewhere where there are no preconceived notions of me for a bit.”
One of the great joys of watching “Sort Of” is that each of its characters gets to avoid preconceived notions of how they might be typically portrayed on screen. In the process, the show itself gets to be more than those preconceived notions as well, becoming something that’s one of a kind.
Without getting into how it all ends, the series leaves Sabi and all of its characters with just the right balance of having some kind of “closure,” and inching into a new chapter of their lives, with all of the uncertainty that comes with it. Only this time, they’re all better equipped to deal with that uncertainty. Isn’t that what personal growth is really about?
The final season of “Sort Of” premieres Thursday on Max, with two new episodes airing weekly.
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We Need To Talk About Anthony Anderson Hosting The Emmys
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The Television Academy sparked backlash online when Anthony Anderson was announced as the host of this year’s Emmy Awards, which aired on Monday.
Advocates for victims of sexual assault were quick to remind the internet about the three separate sexual assault or misconduct allegations against the “Black-ish” star, spanning from 2003 up until as recent as 2018. He has denied each of them.
The Sexual Violence Prevention Association called for Fox and the Television Academy to remove Anderson as a host. That didn’t happen, of course, as Anderson took the stage on Martin Luther King Day accompanied by his mother, Doris Bowman, who he included in multiple bits throughout the night.
Anderson received much praise for his job hosting, but amidst that came more backlash. Folks took to social media to call out Anderson’s controversial history.
In 2004, the first woman alleged that she was “lured” into a trailer on the set of “Hustle and Flow” where Anderson and assistant director Wayne Witherspoon “began removing her clothes” and “sexually assaulted her,” according to the complaint published by The Smoking Gun. The report goes on to state that a witness heard the woman’s screams and unlocked the trailer door, after which she “ran from the trailer naked.” Anderson was charged with aggravated rape, but a Memphis judge dismissed the charges against Anderson and Witherspoon.
That same year, another woman filed a sexual assault lawsuit against Anderson under Jane Doe, seeking $900,000 in damages. The woman alleged that the assault occurred in his dressing room after a taping of “All About the Andersons” in Los Angeles in 2003. Doe said Anderson “made suggestive comments, grabbed her genital area and sexually assaulted her,” according to UPI.
In 2018, the Los Angeles Police Department opened an investigation into Anderson after a third woman claimed he assaulted her after catering one of his events. According to The Blast, who first reported the story, the woman went to the police months later with encouragement from the Me Too Movement. The woman, however, didn’t want to be interviewed by the authorities, which led to the case being thrown out.
Anderson and his reps have denied each of these allegations.
The comedian has maintained a lucrative television career, earning 11 Emmy nominations since 2015. He recently assumed the role of the host for Fox’s game show “To Tell The Truth” alongside his mom. After Monday’s ceremony, he told TMZ, “Of course, I want to host the Oscars.”
On this week’s “I Know That’s Right,” I discuss my concern for how much we’re disregarding sexual assault the further away from the Me Too Movement we get:
If you want more interviews, pop culture rundowns and conversations too layered for a social media thread to tackle, subscribe to “I Know That’s Right.” With new episodes dropping each week, this show is sure to keep you entertained, informed and shouting “I know that’s right” every now and then.
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‘Death and Other Details’: The Hulu Murder Mystery Delivers
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Everyone loves a whodunnit. They’re thrilling and captivating and always end in a satisfying revelation. And yet it’s easy for these classic murder mysteries to become predictable and tired. In a post-”Knives Out” world, no one wants to keep rewatching “Clue” with a slightly different roster of characters. We need modern mysteries with something to say, and Hulu’s “Death and Other Details” does just that.
The series, which premieres Tuesday, is a complex and gripping murder mystery that explores themes of class, power, deception and corruption — all in the middle of the ocean. Starring Mandy Patinkin and Violett Beane, “Death and Other Details” unfolds on a luxury ocean liner, where two wealthy families, the Colliers and the Chuns, are hoping to broker a major business deal.
Before they get the chance to close that deal, however, a guest is found murdered in his room. The guest in question, portrayed by Michael Gladis, is a near stranger to the group, and an obnoxious and entitled one at that, spending his brief stay on the ship drinking, smoking cigars, boasting about his wealth and being rude to the staff.
So when Imogene (Violett Beane), an outsider and friend of the Colliers, takes it upon herself to make him pay for his bad behavior by smashing his expensive watch, she unwittingly marks herself as the main suspect in his murder. To make matters worse, the detective heading the investigation is Rufus Cotesworth (Mandy Patinkin), the same man who failed to solve Imogene’s mother’s murder 18 years ago, which we see glimpses of in flashbacks throughout the show.
Rufus, whose accent can only be described as vaguely British, also serves as the show’s narrator, urging the “reader” to “pay attention” as the events unfold.
“If you want to solve a crime, any crime,” he warns at the start of the show, “you must first learn to see through the illusion.” Of course, that’s much easier said than done, even for Rufus himself, because what follows is one hell of an illusion.
Intent on proving her innocence, Imogene begrudgingly teams up with Rufus to find the real killer, but in their search for the truth, they find themselves with more questions than answers. As guests continue to drop dead, the two sleuths struggle to put all the pieces together. The only thing they know for certain is the name of one mysterious and powerful villain: Viktor Sams. And through it all, Imogene can’t shake the feeling that her mother’s death is somehow connected to the slayings on the ship.
Nothing about “Death and Other Details” is what it seems. From blackmail to family dysfunction to secret dalliances, there’s a lot going on underneath the surface, and there appear to be more connections between them than not. Though “Death and Other Details” certainly borrows elements from its murder-mystery predecessors, it is truly in a league of its own. Not only is the backstory far more elaborate, but the show also doesn’t shy away from commenting on privilege and class on a deeper level. Yes, the guests are pampered and the crew is overworked, but there is more to it than that. Through flashbacks and insights into the dealings of the Collier Mills company, we are shown a tale of greed and corruption at its worst. We see what can happen when wealth and power are abused and money is favored over humanity, and how those in power will use their influence to deceive. And none of this is simple or on-the-nose. It’s wonderfully woven into the plot as part of the mystery.
Of course, it’s not all death and injustice. The cast of characters helps add some much-needed fun and comedic relief to the show. Linda Emond, in particular, shines as Agent Hilde Eriksen, an Interpol investigator who boards the ship to help solve the murders and search for the “meat and potatoes” of the investigation. Her brusqueness, prompt lunch breaks, nighttime activities and interactions with Rufus and the guests on the ship add a healthy dose of humor to the show.
As a queer woman, I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention that there are not one but three lesbians in the show: Anna Collier (Lauren Patten), the soon-to-be CEO of Collier Mills; her wife, Leila (Pardis Saremi); and her ex, Eleanor Chun (Karoline). Yes, it’s complicated, but so is the series as a whole.
As the title suggests, “Death and Other Details” is all about the little moments, and no detail is unimportant, as Rufus heeds at the very beginning. But thankfully this doesn’t mean it’s too difficult to follow along or understand. In fact, it’s just the opposite. It’s quite thrilling to try to unravel the mystery as it plays out and to try to fit all the pieces into place.
With every new twist and turn, you can’t help but want more.
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These Are the Worries Haunting a Post-‘Babylonian’ Art Market in 2024
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Happy New Year, reader! The first column of 2024 finds some of you on the beach, others packing up to get your kids ready for school. Some are cementing deals which started in late 2023 and others are looking to drum up new business. Some of you are preparing for or have just completed expansions in an environment of higher interest rates and lower sales.
To all of you, I wish good luck!
Because luck is what we all need in this period of rentrée—from holidays to reality, from herd mentality to selectivity, from bloat to sobriety. It’s a fragile moment.
This is a moment when predictions abound. And, predictably, some of these tend to be self-serving, verging on spin. Take Marc Glimcher, president of Pace gallery, which plans to open a new branch in Tokyo this spring. In Art News, he anticipates “the continued resurgence of Japan as a global art world hotspot.” Or take any number of art advisers, whose reflex is to position a market contraction as a “buying opportunity.”
Behind the scenes, however, many market players find themselves anxious and confused. There’s a growing fear about gallery closings and collectors dumping art. Younger dealers, who’ve never lived through a market hiccup, lament the drop in Instagram sales. Investors bristle at unsatisfactory returns on art assets.
“History will look back at this time and be like, ‘That was so Babylonian. Those people were so self-indulgent, and it was all so frivolous,’” said Natalia Sacasa, senior director of Fleiss-Vallois, a Paris gallery that opened a New York branch last year.
“I don’t want to be doom and gloom, but I don’t think that the kind of money we’ve been dancing around with will come back,” she added. “Everybody needs to be more considerate and modest—and really examine what’s valuable.”
The question of value (and values) is key for many collectors, who are trying to offload the works they bought very recently.
“There’s been a lot of buying, and people have some regrets about things they spent money on,” said London-based art adviser Morgan Long.
Some sales are related to the ongoing war in the Middle East and collectors’ fury at the Artforum letter, signed by thousands of artists. Others have more purely market-driven concerns. In both scenarios, collectors are considering selling even at a loss, dealers and advisers said.
At the most basic level, it all boils down to supply and demand.
“There’s a complete oversupply on the primary and secondary market,” said Sacasa. “Supply has increased with the perception of increased demand. But now that the demand has been met, supply is overwhelming the buying population.”
There’s also a sense that buyers just awakened from a fever dream.
“People bought really intensely the past three-four years,” said the owner of a bicoastal, emerging-art gallery. “And some collectors are saying, ‘What did I just do?’”
As they contemplate selling, collectors encounter a market that’s gone illiquid seemingly overnight.
One vulnerable segment is early- and mid-career artists, “who’ve been launched but not taken off,” said the owner of a mid-size gallery in New York and Los Angeles. These artists have had a couple of successful solo exhibitions, but haven’t been scooped up by mega galleries.
“Collectors expect that artists start at smaller galleries and go to bigger and bigger galleries,” said the dealer, whose artist had been poached by a mega gallery. “When this doesn’t happen by their third or fourth show, there’s a sense that something is wrong. But big galleries only want artists who can scale up and meet their demands. Collectors should calm down.”
The speculative market has dried up as many new buyers who had rushed into the art market during the pandemic vanished.
“Anybody who’s been speculating and has stuff they thought they were going to be making some money on might have a few surprises,” Long said. “Especially right now. It’s expensive to get money. Art is no longer an easy place to park your cash.”
The outsize returns once promised to art flippers are hard to nail. “It’s not like buying a Lucy Bull for three grand and selling it for $3 million three months later,” said another bi-coast gallery owner.
There’s also a deadlock between the expectations of buyers and sellers, art adviser Todd Levin told Artnet News this week.
A 2023 Nicolas Party painting that initially sold for $750,000 quickly returned to the market at more than $3 million, according to a person who was offered the work—but the market didn’t take the bait. “You’ve got to be a complete chump to do it,” the person said. (Party’s auction record is $6.8 million and he’s represented by the international powerhouse Hauser & Wirth.)
I also heard a story about artist Hayley Barker, whose intricate oil-on-linen paintings of flowers and plants have become hits with collectors in the past two years, leading to a recent upsurge in primary market prices (current range is $15,000 to $125,000).
Barker’s 2022 painting BOZO Front Yard (2022) was sold for $45,000 in August 2022 during her solo exhibition at BOZOMAG gallery in Los Angeles. All the works in that show came with a 5-year non-resale agreement. Yet this painting was offered for resale by the gallery at $375,000 just a year later, according to a person familiar with the offer.
Presumably there were no takers at that level, because the canvas appeared at Sotheby’s day auction on November 16. It ended up fetching $177,800, including fees, according to Artnet Price Database.
“There’s a sense of urgency to deaccession and concern for the future of the market,” said the owner of a mid-size gallery. One of his seasoned clients uses art as an investment vehicle. The buyer in question is strategic about what he buys and most of the works have gone up in value. But he’s made some mistakes, and is now razor-focused on the 10 to 20 artworks that he’s not going to make any money from, the dealer said.
The main thing on his mind? How to get rid of them. His main fear? That they are going to be worthless.
Still the allure of access to new works by hot artists remains strong.
“It’s like a flex,” said a London-based collector. “It makes [collectors] feel they’ve done something great, they passed some sort of threshold. As if somehow spending the money is a success.”
Buying “investment-grade” art is the focus of many collectors now. People will line up all day to buy a Cecily Brown from Paula Cooper for $1 million, a mid-size gallery owner said. They will also pay $4 million at auction for her work. (The artist’s current auction record stands at $6.8 million.)
What does work, then? Long said her clients are looking for either “important pictures that don’t roll around that often or lower-end things because they really love them.”
Some of the top collectors in the world are still looking for the best of the best and are prepared to shell out millions for those prizes—as the recent record sales of Agnes Martin and Richard Diebenkorn showed.
“They are happy to spend above $100 million,” said an adviser to several top collectors. “They are very specific and very selective. And they ideally want to do it privately.”
Auction houses will be looking for trophies to sell. In February, Christie’s is planning to auction off the contents of Sir Elton John’s Atlanta penthouse, with thousands of objects ranging from his robes and shoes to furniture and photographs, according to a person familiar with the sale.
But many top clients are “a little bored” with acquiring art these days, and maybe even finding more excitement in other arenas of spending, Sacasa said.
“With the collector at this level of buying, the chase is as exciting as the catch,” said Sacasa, who was a director at Luhring Augustine gallery and worked with Christopher Wool when his prices were going through the roof. “Now these collectors are being chased. And they are being chased by everyone.”
A case in point: Andre Sakhai, who’s been actively buying, selling, and gifting art over the past decade, is taking a breather from his art-market escapades to focus on a new interest: Miami’s food scene.
“Definitely been more into food recently, for sure,” Sakhai said in a text message, responding to my query. “Signed leases in Covid and now just living through the passion. I still like art—don’t get me wrong—but don’t find art so exciting now.”
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‘Parthenon of Macedonia’: site where Alexander the Great was proclaimed king reopens | Greece
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For 2,170 years it had lain in ruins: a palace that symbolised the golden age of antiquity, three times bigger than the Parthenon, unprecedented in architectural ambition, unparalleled in beauty.
It was here in 336BC that the king of ancient Macedonia, Philip II, was murdered; and here in the great peristyle – or columned courtyard – around which its banqueting halls coalesced that his 20-year-old son, Alexander the Great, would be proclaimed king, a moment that would change the course of history.
This week, for the first time since its destruction at the hands of Roman invaders barely 200 years later, the Palace of Aigai, the largest surviving building from the classical Greek era, has resumed its past glory, with thousands visiting the reopened monument after the completion of its 16-year reconstruction.
For Kyriakos Mitsotakis, the Greek prime minister, who opened the site an hour’s drive west of the port city of Thessaloniki, its inauguration was replete with significance far beyond Greece. “The importance of such monuments transcends local boundaries,” he told the assembled crowd. “And we, as the custodians of this precious cultural heritage, must protect it, highlight it [and] promote it.”
For restorers who first began work in 2007 it was an achievement that at times had seemed an impossible dream.
“When we began what we confronted were tens of thousands of scattered architectural remains, a huge jigsaw puzzle of column bases and capitals [column tops], architraves, roof tile fragments and walls,” says Angeliki Kottaridi, the archaeologist who oversaw the €20.3m (£17.5m) EU-funded project. “To envision how it would have looked, then to piece it together and have that verified, was pure joy.”
The crowning glory of what had once been the royal metropolis of Macedonia, the palace was not just a model building but “an architectural manifesto of the ideal state,” according to Kottaridi. No other edifice, she said, came close in inventiveness, brilliance or architectural harmony.
Under a massive building programme ordered by Philip, Aigai was transformed into a sprawling city with the palace part of a complex that would include a theatre, sanctuary, library and vast necropolis of more than 500 burial mounds. Philip’s tomb is believed to be among them.
“Less than 10% [of the city] has been excavated,” enthused Kottaridi, who has worked at the Unesco world heritage site for close to half a century. “It is a gift that keeps on giving.”
The palace is among more than 800 monuments currently being upgraded in Greece thanks to financial help from the EU. With the centre-right government investing so heavily in the “cultural economy” Mitsotakis emphasised the role the site would play as a “catalyst” for growth across the region – along with it buttressing Greece’s identification with ancient Macedonia. Local officials agree.
“They’re calling it the Parthenon of Macedonia,” said Konstantinos Vorgiazides, the mayor of Veria, the nearest town to the archaeological treasures. “Every year the site draws about 250,000 tourists but now we are expecting it to increase greatly. We’re very proud. I was there for the inauguration. It’s a beautiful place.”
For historians inside and outside Greece the new palace does something better still: refocus attention away from the classical age of Pericles in Athens to the Macedonian dynasty of northern Greece and achievements of Philip and Alexander.
“History is always about what we focus on,” said the British historian and broadcaster Michael Wood, speaking from London. “And this focuses our attention on the incredible events that began there. This small, provincial, militaristic kingdom would be the catalyst for the spread of Greek culture and Aigai the launch pad for Alexander the Great’s adventure in history, his expedition to Asia and conquest of half the known world.”
If the Parthenon represented the peak of the classical age, the royal metropolis conjured the beginning of the Hellenistic age, one that would last for hundreds of years and be felt as far as Afghanistan and India.
But there was something else, said Wood, who retraced the young warrior king’s epic journey through deserts, mountain ranges, rivers and plains from Greece to the north-west frontier of Pakistan and India in the 1990s.
The palace’s reconstruction had shown, yet again, that like the Parthenon marbles, great historical monuments have “an integrity” best seen united in their natural landscape. “The modern Greek state, as it should be, is proving to be a pre-eminent guardian of its ancient Greek culture,” said Wood. “What the palace also does is draw attention to the fact that the fifth-century sculptures should all be in the same place, back in Athens.”
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Peter Crombie, Actor Known for ‘Seinfeld’ Appearances, Dies at 71
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Peter Crombie, the actor who was probably best known for playing the role of “Crazy” Joe Davola on five episodes of the hit television sitcom “Seinfeld,” died on Wednesday in a health care facility in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 71.
Crombie had been recovering from unspecified surgery, said his ex-wife, Nadine Kijner, who confirmed his death.
In his role as Davola, Crombie played a temperamental character who stalks Jerry — a semi-fictionalized version of the comedian Jerry Seinfeld — and develops a deep hatred of him.
Tall and lanky, Crombie’s character had a flat, borderline menacing effect and an unblinking 1,000-yard stare. In the series, he also stalked the tough New Yorker Elaine, in one case plastering a wall of his apartment with black-and-white surveillance photos of her.
Aside from his part in “Seinfeld,” Crombie also had roles in the movies “Seven” (1995), “Rising Sun” (1993) and “Born on the Fourth of July” (1989), among other acting television and movie credits.
Crombie was born on June 26, 1952, and grew up in a neighborhood outside of Chicago.
His father was an art teacher, and his mother taught home economics, Ms. Kijner said. Crombie trained at the Yale School of Drama before moving to New York.
Crombie and Kijner met in Boston in the late 1980s before marrying in 1991. Though they divorced a few years later, the two remained friends.
“He was like a rock,” she said. “He was someone you could always call and lean on.”
Kijner said Crombie is survived by a brother, Jim. She said Crombie stepped back from acting around 2000, and worked on his other passion, one of which was writing.
The comedian Lewis Black commemorated Crombie on social media, calling him a “wonderful actor” and an “immensely talented writer.”
“More importantly he was as sweet as he was intelligent and I am a better person for knowing him,” Mr. Black wrote.
Larry Charles, a “Seinfeld” writer, also mourned Mr. Crombie.
“His portrayal of Joe Davola managed to feel real and grounded and psychopathic and absurd and hilarious all at the same time,” Mr. Charles wrote on social media. “This was a juxtaposition I was always seeking on my Seinfeld episodes and reached a climax of sorts with ‘The Opera.’ Seinfeld was a sitcom that could make you uncomfortable and no guest actor walked that line better than Peter.”
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Sotheby’s to Oligarch at Art Fraud Trial: The Buck Stopped With You
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Sotheby’s was involved in a dozen of the sales, but only four are the subject of the lawsuit. The auction house has said that it knew nothing of any scheme and, as its lawyers argued again on Friday, that Rybolovlev should blame only himself for failing to protect himself against price inflations.
In particular, said Marcus Asner, a lawyer for Sotheby’s, Rybolovlev’s aide had never formalized the agency agreement with Bouvier, had never asked to see contracts with the sellers Bouvier said he was buying art from, and had never checked to see where all the money Rybolovlev paid was going.
Though Rybolovlev’s aide was the point person, Asner said, the billionaire himself also never checked these things and ultimately was responsible because he was in charge.
“You understand the term ‘trust and verify’?” Asner said.
“I understand,” Rybolovlev replied.
“Mr. Rybolovlev, are you familiar with the term ‘the buck stops here’?” Asner asked later. “You’re the boss.”
One of the most compelling moments in Rybolovlev’s second day on the stand was his account of how he first became aware that he had been significantly overpaying for his art. Rybolovlev, speaking softly in Russian through a translator who sat by his side, described for the jury a chance meeting in St. Barths in December 2014 with a New York art adviser.
Over lunch with his girlfriend, a friend who was a collector, and the friend’s wife in a restaurant at the Eden Rock hotel, Rybolovlev said, he struck up a conversation with the art adviser Sandy Heller. The art adviser, he said, mentioned that a client, the hedge fund manager and Mets owner Steven A. Cohen, had recently sold a Modigliani painting for $93.5 million.
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Epstein Documents Bring Allegations Against Collector Leslie Wexner – ARTnews.com
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New allegations against Bath & Body Works founder and art collector Leslie Wexner have emerged from the unsealed civil lawsuit brought against the late Jeffrey Epstein by an alleged victim of sex trafficking.
According to recently unsealed court documents, Virginia Giuffre, who in 2015 accused Epstein and his partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, of coercing her into sexual encounters with powerful politicians and businessmen, claims to have had sex with Wexner on multiple occasions. While the 2015 civil lawsuit was settled in 2017, last month U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska of the Southern District of New York released the names and related documents from the case. Wexner was among the names included in the documents.
He, nor any other powerful figures listed, have been charged with a crime. Per the Columbus Dispatch, the list represents potential witnesses, plaintiffs, victims, or business links to Epstein and—or—Maxwell, who is serving 20 years in federal prison for her involvement in Epstein’s sex trafficking operation.
The unsealed documents include a 2016 deposition that Giuffre provided in a separate lawsuit in which she was questioned about claims that Epstein trafficked her to prominent figures in politics and business, including Wexner.
Wexner previously denied any wrongdoing and denounced any knowledge of Epstein’s criminal activity.
Wexner, founder of the retail empire Bath & Body Works Inc, formerly known as L Brands, is a major collector of artists associated with the New York School—such as Wilem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and Lee Krasner—as well as Pablo Picasso. He and his wife Abigail also funded the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University. Both Wexner and another collector named in the court documents, Glenn Dubin, have appeared on the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list. The connections between the billionaires and Epstein were already publicly known before the release of the unsealed documents on January 3.
As early as 2002, a feature in New York Magazine described a “weird relationship” between Wexner and Epstein, including their involvement in a high-end housing development in New Albany, Ohio, where they both had residences. The project was financed predominantly by Wexner, however Epstein was also made a general partner “despite putting only a few million dollars of capital into the project,” per the article.
In 2019, the New York Times published an investigation that described Wexner granting Epstein “sweeping powers” over the his finances, charitable giving, and personal expenses. The move included signing Wexner’s tax returns and borrowing money on his behalf, in addition to obtaining luxury assets valued at roughly $100 million.
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