NYC Gallery Blitz, the Lucas Museum Arrives, a Messy Art Divorce

0:00Pixar style animation and it's very graphic. so you're looking horrified I'm confused there's like also images of Michael Jackson and Trek right yeah it's button pushing

0:21I'm Ben Davis and this is the art angle a podcast from Artnet News

0:33for many many reasons it has been several months since we have done one of our art angle chat casts where we assemble writers to talk about a few different news stories on the site but it's and we're finally back at it today we'll be talking about three topics first here in new york The fall art season kicked off with literally hundreds of gallery openings, followed by a bunch of fairs this week. The fall openings are always an event. This year, they're even more closely scrutinized, given how uncertain business has felt behind the scenes. We'll talk about highlights and observations from the galleries.

1:08Second, on the other side of the country, in Los Angeles, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art has finally debuted. the brainchild of Star Wars maestro George Lucas and his wife Melanie Hobson the long in the works billion dollar institution has its own quirky vision of art we'll talk about what that is and whether it works and finally we'll talk about developments in the truly epic divorce of Libby and David McGrabby which touches on hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars of art I don't know if we'll even get to all the details but the story involves a very important Jean-Michel Basquiat painting allegations of someone hiring a Russian hitman and a dog named Botox.

1:48With me to talk about these matters, first of all, is Min Chen, culture editor of Artnet. Min, how are you? I'm great. Thank you for having me. You've been traveling a lot, haven't you? How are you feeling? I am feeling tired, but inspired. Ready to go. Yeah, ready to go. Okay. And alongside Min, a relatively new face and voice on the Artnet team, Gabby Vidal-Irizarry, who writes Artnet's weekly gossip column, Wet Paint. Gabby, It's so great to get you behind the mic. Thank you, Ben. I'm excited to be here. I imagine that the opening of the fall shows and this week's art fairs are a pretty busy time for wet paint.

2:25How are you feeling? I mean, last week, candidly, I had to take the week off. I was burnt out by all of the openings, to say the least. I think I went to like 20 things and I lost my voice and literally couldn't talk to anyone. So needless to say, I'm very excited about this week. I'm excited for the fairs. It's kind of like going to a car dealership in a way, but I'm looking forward to it. Okay. Well, I'm glad to have coaxed you back from your rest so that we can get the benefit of all that gallery going you've been doing. So usually we start these chats by talking about highlights of art we've seen recently, But I just want to dive this week straight into the conversation because actually our first item is just what's going on in Art in New York.

3:18Artnet's Katya Kazakina had a season opener column called Less Is More, The Art World's Season of Recalibration, that investigated how dealers were planning for the fall. She joked that Ozembic is a drug of choice these days, not cocaine, meaning the mood was leaner and more clear-headed. Min, you've been on the road, but Gabby, you and I have both been out looking around. What does it all feel like? Is there art that sticks out to you? Yeah, I think that's a fairly true assessment on Katya's part. That's a really funny joke. I'm just kind of thinking about sort of the conceptual shows I've seen, specifically the Sentient Earth show at Amant, Lantie Ebers.

4:05Oh yeah, I was there too. I think we just narrowly missed each other at the opening. Yeah, it was incredibly crowded with a lot of young sort of downtown Ridgewood, Brooklyn types, which is very shocking. It seems like the youth is very excited by conceptualism and to that same sort of note, Maxwell Graham, which just opened a space in Tribeca, has a show by Michael E. Smith, and that's been getting a lot of praise. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. A lot of praise for, I mean, you have to describe that show because if you're not, haven't got your head deep in a conceptual art hole, you might be totally baffled when you walked into the gallery.

4:47Completely. I mean, you could essentially miss it. And you could essentially also think that maybe Maxwell Graham is still setting up their gallery space because the show is so conceptual and minimal. Like it's essentially like a hanging drape or something perched on a folding chair, etc. Yeah. I know you said in the lead up to this that you felt like conceptualism was having a moment. Does that feel like the vibe? To me, it feels very decorative. And I feel like that's sort of a manifestation of what Katya is talking about. That feels like safe. Yeah, it is safe and maybe it's like lower production value.

5:24I think overall, the mood that I've noticed and when I've asked people how they feel, it's like cautious optimism. And I think also conversely, that's kind of reflected in sort of Zorner's approach, like Anna Wyant's and sort of banking on a young star or George Roy at Hauser. man you know i i was giving a talk uh the other week and uh in the q a someone asked me do you think that there's a conspiracy to make george roy the next big thing and i had actually never heard of the guy i i know i know that's crazy because he's like this hot um young painter but i'd never heard of him and so i was just like i can't comment on any yeah that's funny i feel like he has all the tools to become successful like he's young and hot and like literally hot exactly um and he's he's english i believe but um i remember learning about his work on this auction website maybe it was honestly platform david zorner's digital auction initiative that was interesting because the opening goers were much older and seemed more seasoned than the crowds I experienced at other galleries that day.

6:40Yeah I mean the paintings are like these fuzzy nudes like big crowds of fuzzy nudes and leaves me utterly cold. Sex party decor is what it looks like. Yeah it felt like there's kind of like a horny vibe. Also Carol Dunham's show at Matthew Brown I kind of laughed because I saw Dana Schutz pointing at this painting and it really looks like ass play for lack of a better word or term but i was just there you go there's the big trend for the fall yeah so we'll see i'm curious coming off katya's piece definitely it's been a difficult art market but did this season feel any different did you see any galleries playing it safe or were they taking risks nonetheless it feels like same old same old i I don't know.

7:31My hope was to sort of do this diaristic entry last week, chronicle the Tribeca and Chelsea openings, but that didn't work out. And then I have been thinking about trends. For me, the shows I've enjoyed the most are kind of the ones that were delayed and were supposed to be the summer group shows. Right. Like Jenny's and Tenko Presents has a show up at No Ink, this modeling agency that's sort of anchored in this John Waters sculpture of a popper's bottle. Yeah, okay, there it is again. There is a kind of a low-key debauched vibe. I think so. Decorative but debauched? Yes, yes, I think so. And then what's another show?

8:13I went to Times Square Space and saw a show called Live Sex Acts. So again, kind of hunkering down on this theme, but it has a lot of amazing photography from Times Square Sex Acts. So that's interesting. I mean, observation. I do think something I've been thinking about is that I do think part of the maybe back to basics approach of the art world right now is just selling the idea of the art world as a cool place to be that's one observation which includes a lot of stuff that's like touches on you know the the delights of the social scene and then uh yeah interesting you mentioned the group show thing because a takeaway that I had from my pass through of the galleries is that a lot of the energy to me seems to be in group shows, which is unusual.

9:06Usually I think to myself, you know, like, why bother with the group shows? You know, because with one artist, you can really drill into a single idea and stuff. But, yeah, it's almost like that the group shows capture more that social energy. I think the show at the Hill Art Foundation right now, Thucydides' Fever Dream which is about Chinese artists responding to the US and US artists responding to China. It's a really brainy show but it really had ideas in it and it really felt like all the artists were activating each other and it was also nice to see a big slice of younger Chinese artists too because I feel like weirdly the artists, in my opinion have sort of fallen off the art world's radar for a little while.

9:50Any other trends you're noticing? Any aesthetics in play? Well, look, I think there's a lot of pretty painting. I went to the Jordan Wolfson opening at Gagosian Gallery. This is one of the big highlights of the fall, specifically because I wanted to see if that represented something different.

10:19and it's a combination of kind of like 9-11 trolling and cartoon pornography. The press release is very indirect. Like it is like kind of a surprise box show and then you go in and there are these giant hulking blown up images leaned against the wall and they're like fanged. They have these giant spikes on them. It looks like vampire castle decor and then the images are a combination of pictures of the Twin Towers and then kind of pictures that clown on various art world controversies so like Jordan Wolfson kind of bad boy artist Jeff Koons is one of his heroes so there's a joke about Jeff Koons favorite famous series Made in Heaven, which is his pornographic works where he actually, they star him.

11:13And it's a famous image from that series, only redone as like Pixar-style animation. And it's very graphic. So you're looking horrified, man. I'm confused. There's like also images of Michael Jackson and Shrek, right? Yeah, it's button pushing. You know, it feels like every image, and he's good at this, Every image is trying to push prod you a little to troll you a little. But to be honest, what I took away from it is this felt to me like a throwback to what was going on 10, 15 years ago in post-internet art. You know, like a gallery full of images that feel like they're weird stuff called from digital archives from the internet, reframed as art with a certain kind of dark energy that's about how melted things are now.

12:10Aside from the slightly slimmed down, and now I guess I am getting maybe a slightly party mode vibe. Certainly not topical. There's not a lot of topical stuff. One thing I was thinking is like, Gabby, I don't know. I felt like there was a little bit of a throwback. like a little bit of the indie sleaze throwback i mean like nate you got nate lowman doing these giant paintings of keys and i was like at the heart of chelsea um ed's werner and i was like yeah it feels like people are betting on like a return to the naughty oddies or the early 2010s yeah i feel like we're almost at the end of it though or aesthetically and maybe that's why like I didn't get a chance to see the Jordan Wolfson show.

12:54I only saw it in Instagram stories and I was really upset I didn't go because the sculptures slash works, whatever, looked so funny. They are laugh-out-loud funny. They are sort of internet troll-y. They do kind of also make you, yeah, then you question why am I laughing because it's supposed to put you in a kind of uncomfortable position. I mean, that's kind of his aesthetic. Completely, but it feels like also Because when I think of indie sleaze, I think about the 1980s weirdly and sort of like this excess and politically sort of what is going on in the United States and the world is kind of reminiscent of it.

13:35But for some reason, I feel like the Wolfson show specifically, people were expecting to be sort of shocked because he's so good at shocking people. and it was much more minimal than what people expected. But then it's funny, there's just this cult around him where I talked to someone who went to that after party and their assessment was like, I was disappointed, but what else was I supposed to feel? And like, isn't that kind of the genius of - Yeah, our colleague Andrew Russeth interviewed him in the lead up to the show and Wolfson didn't want to talk a lot about the show. I think kind of its effect is inseparable from its surprise, which makes me wonder how prime they are to last.

14:27But he said, this is a very traditional sculpture show. I have yet to do one and it feels like the time to do it. And that's the other thing, my observation about that show is it was like serial production. It's a product line. It is a bunch of things that have this very signature frame, which incidentally at the opening, which was like packed, there's a line to get in. And it did feel like a joke about the art world, like from a satire of the art world where there are these like actual deadly paintings. Like it wouldn't take too big of a mistake for someone to fall and hurt themselves on one of those spikes.

15:06and as more people packed in, I did feel like I was in the trash compactor from Star Wars and then these kind of like meme-y jokes glaring at you and then like very chic people and very frumpy me there trying to have a conversation in front of it. But in case, my observation is it felt like a little bit like a product line and that's how I felt like a lot of the art that I just noticed a lot of art where it was like, I'm unveiling the new product line. Yeah, that makes sense. And I kind of agree with that assessment. A show I loved was the Mark Cocopelli show. Yeah, I do want to say at least one or two things that we like before we move on because I think there was a lot of good stuff.

15:51So, yes, Cocopelli. Cocopelli. Uptown. Uptown. I've yet to make it. At Gladstone. And the last show I saw of his was at Rena Spallings. This is the artist who was in greater New York who did sort of South Park inspired works. Yes, like a Cartman fridge microwave. I don't know how else to express it, but he works primarily in video and sculpture and sort of has a sense of humor and has sort of a product line maybe if we're going to go with this Jordan Wolfson analogy, but way more quirky, like Etsy seller versus sort of mass produced Tesla or whatever if Wolfson is Tesla. Coco Peli's Etsy but it was just very whimsy and fun and daring and it just reminded me of like Alex Bagg in that sense it is nice to see galleries take risks like that and I was talking to this artist Genevieve Goffman and she was just like it seems like some people are still having fun making art despite it all yeah well I mean and I I am totally pro-fun I do think it's notable that The times are very melted, and that is not the vibe.

17:01It is not the time to talk about current events. One of my favorite shows is an artist named Anna Maria Maolino at Hauser & Wirth, who's a very storied Brazilian artist who got the Golden Lion in Venice for Lifetime Achievement a little while ago. It's almost like a mini retrospective of her work. and some of it touches on life during the dictatorship in the 1970s. It was just really nice to see something in that depth, that kind of subject matter. And also just, she's a very interesting experimental artist and also just the depth of it. But I feel like we've kept you silent long enough, Min, and we should really turn to your recent travels.

17:52So over here, the galleries are opening, but something much, much, much more consequential was happening on the West Coast. What was that? The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which is opening this week after a decade of delays. It's finally here. And it has been quite a saga to get the museum to this point. Ten years ago, there was the long back and forth on where it's going to be. it's going to be in Chicago or San Francisco. Los Angeles was finally selected and the museum broke ground in 2018. The pandemic happened. That meant its opening date kept getting pushed back. I think it was last year when they decided 2026 is when they were going to open.

18:36But along the way, they lost some key personnel. The CEO, Sandra Jackson-Dumont, stepped down and then its chief curator, Pilar Tompkins-Rivas, also left. And the CEO role has been filled by Tracy Bates, who has been a longtime advisor to the founders, George Lucas and his wife, Melody Hobson. They have not filled the chief curator position. But Bates did recently say to the New York Times that Lucas has always been the chief curator of the museum, which is telling. But then again, the museum was founded on Lucas and Hobson's collection. And I did get to preview the museum earlier this month, and Lucas was at the press event.

19:19He gave a little speech, and again, reflecting on this long journey to get the museum to this point, he did say that I'm used to doing the impossible, but this one almost broke my will. But I think, to me at least, it paid off. I loved it. It's a great museum. It's not without its flaws, but I totally enjoyed it. Well, I want to take advantage of the fact that you've actually been out there and been through it. I mean, just tell people who haven't been. It looks like a spaceship. It does look like a spaceship. And actually, the architect is Ma Yansong, who was actually picked by Lucas because Lucas saw one of his museums in the Gobi Desert.

19:59I believe it's called Ordo's Museum, which Ma actually designed after a spaceship he saw in Star Wars. So it's a full circle moment. And yeah, Ma was at the press event where he talked about visiting the site. And he was actually inspired by the nature surrounding the site and the clouds. The clouds were like his inspiration. But yes, it looks like a spaceship. But yeah, within we have Lucas and Hobson's vision of narrative art. Okay, so what is that? I'm curious. What do you think narrative art is? I don't know. I pass. Gabby. For me, film is like the most narrative art. But it's like about storytelling.

20:35But yes. based off of the art collection they have, it's a bit confusing. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you got it. It's visual storytelling. And that's something that Lucas talked about at the opening. Narrative art is about art that tells stories. And of course, a lot of art tells stories. Well, what art doesn't tell stories? I know. Are we talking just, he doesn't like abstract art? Yes. Yes. But, you know, the museum is really focused on images that illustrate shared beliefs and our myths and our imagination, things that bind us together as a society. So definitely you're not going to see a Pollock there.

21:10Well, he loves Norman Rockwell. So I know that it does have a very famous Norman Rockwell where it is kind of Norman Rockwell clowning on Jackson Pollock where it's an illustration of a painter at a canvas of a Jackson Pollock and he's doing a very credible illustration impression of Jackson Pollock. Yes, there are a lot, a lot of Norman Rockwells in there. But I think the term narrative art, again, just to go back, it's specific, but I also find it quite expansive. Like when you first hear, you think about film, illustration, comics, you know, but they also cover a ton of work. You know, Mary Cassatt's Painting of Mothers, Frida Kahlo's Self-Portrait.

21:48You know, it's harder to think of art that doesn't tell a story, I feel. Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting because not recently, but in generations past, illustration, to call something illustration would have been a negative. Like in the, you know, 50 years ago or even more than that, you know, 80 years ago in the heyday of abstract expressionism, like they hated surrealism because they'd say, you know, this is like illustration. It's illustrating concepts. Your article about it points out many interesting juxtapositions, including a Frida Kahlo with a Batman costume. Sure, yeah. The Frida Kahlo self-portrait is across the comics gallery, so there are some interesting juxtapositions there.

22:35And I think it goes towards Lucas's mission of celebrating illustrators who are often overlooked. They deserve to be on the museum wall next to a Picasso, next to a Mary Cassatt, you know. And the museum does have an introductory gallery with an exhibition called The History of Narrative Art, where it takes you through, you know, cave paintings, royal portraits and depictions of like legendary battles and even the Sistine Chapel. And it's putting everything on the same level and just saying that this is visual storytelling that has developed and evolved throughout the ages. It's something we all share.

23:12They deserve equal footing. Yeah, I mean, I guess for me, one thing that the narrative art emphasis brings out is an emphasis on story over object, maybe. Like, it is a very different vision of art that he's offering. And I'm just trying to get to the bottom of what it actually ends up implying, because a lot of this is art like comic book art that was meant to be then reproduced, for instance. and correct me if I'm wrong but you said that in the opening galleries it even like a lot of art is presented on screens? Yes, it is very, very bizarre and I don't think it's the effect that they're aiming for like I would say some replicas, some recreations are great the Sistine Chapel, the cave painting, all that is great but then it does get very excessive because it's basically just shining light into your eyes the whole time and you're looking at a portrait of Henry VIII you're looking at Caravaggio's card players and it's just excessive, I feel.

24:13They could have just turned the entire gallery into an immersive experience. The Sistine Chapel was excellent. They should make the whole thing that way. As in the video experience of the Sistine Chapel? Yeah, it's just a projection in a room in an environment of the Sistine Chapel. It's great, but I think keep it to a minimum because there are actual paintings in the gallery. And so you're going from dimly lit to brightly lit and it's just too much. industrial light and magic is what you call that go to the fourth and fifth floor galleries those are excellent a lot of work is laid out a little bit too much but if you're a fan of comics and you know norman rockwell i mean that places for you sci-fi fantasy art it's amazing to see but you also get a lot of high art yeah i guess i guess that's one way to say it it's it's actually it's art history told through Norman Rockwell instead of Jackson Pollock it is Norman Rockwell.

25:09That painting that I mentioned I mean dogs playing poker is in there Exactly, exactly I mean Lucas has said himself it's the people's art so it's not necessarily art in the canon. It's art you see every day it's art on a magazine cover on a record cover so those illustrators, those designers those artists are often forgotten in the shadows and this is him celebrating them and bringing them out of shadows. Do you feel, I don't know, does this concept of narrative art resonate with you, Gabby? Not particularly. I don't know. It's a nice idea to sort of have galleries unfold under themes like history and motherhood and childhood.

25:47There's a simplicity to it that I think could be good for the general public that isn't necessarily inclined and there's something so daunting about approaching art through history, the historical lens sometimes, but But I also just like looking at your article, and in some of the images, it's like seeing this Robert Colescott, I'm just like, this is crazy. I saw that at the New Museum. It's here, and it's hung in such a different way. What is that painting? Describe it for the... Well, it's George Washington Carver, so it's essentially a replica of George... Not a replica, but it's an ode. Ben, you'll do such a better job at describing this.

26:27Well, no, it's an homage to Washington Crossing of Delaware, but with George Washington Carver in the George Washington position. But it's in the middle and it's like flanked by two historic paintings. But I wonder if like, if George Lucas is indeed the curator of the museum, the more you talk about this and the more I think about it, I'm like, oh, I wonder if this is sort of his director brain. And there's sort of a disparate range of references that he's thinking about when he's directing movies or like themes or like a storyboard and this is it kind of all coming together and in that way I think those digital screens are ineffective and it would be almost more nice to like see them printed out or like vitrine style momo with notes or something because it just reads a bit static and then compared to the outside of the building it's just very disorienting whereas like you describe a digital production of the Sistine Chaplet and I'm like oh that makes sense in this spaceship sure yeah yeah 100 there's like a futuristic theme in the first gallery but that doesn't actually carry into like the upper galleries and I agree it's a bit like going inside George Lucas's brain where he sees connections and you're supposed to stand in the gallery and figure it out yourself you know and the senior curator Ryan Linkov did say that But you do see them, these paintings having conversations with each other.

27:56You do see different perspectives emerge, having them juxtaposed against each other. I remember watching a documentary about the making of the first Star Wars. And talking about the first cut was a mess. And they went back and the famous dogfight scene, when they're escaping the Death Star, that it wasn't working. And so he just cut together footage from World War II dogfight scenes. and then just do that. Overlay those images. So it is interesting because the movie is, the museum seems to be like that. It's like here are these images that have these storytelling moments that provide a visual language you can draw on for your own stories.

28:36It's almost like his collage of art history. Fascinating. And so there is Star Wars in it. I mean, it's not a Star Wars. They're at pains to say it's not a Star Wars museum, but there's some of that there, right? And how much is that of an attraction of it? There's a ton of Star Wars stuff. So there is a cinema section, and the only cinema in there is Star Wars cinema. So you get props, costumes, models, concept art, all Star Wars. That room was packed on opening day because this is all from George Lucas's archive, and it's a major franchise. And I have a feeling they're using the Star Wars to draw people, at least for the opening to the museum.

29:21So to sum up before we move on to the next item, in one line, your review, is it more original trilogy Star Wars or is it more Star Wars prequel in terms of quality? I'm going to go with the sequel trilogy. It's the most recent one. Wow, okay. Because it's nostalgic. There's a little bit of new stuff, but overall, you know, it's a trip. It's a trip. But yeah, crell-pleasing. Well, moving on to another very dramatic story. Gabby, you've been writing our wet paint column, and you have this story. It is titled, The Biggest Art Heist of the 21st Century, According to Libby McGrabby. What is going on?