Where Art and the DNC Intersect

well that’s kind of funny….. its not really important… but i really didn’t expect much concerning art out of the DNC emails soooo… seems about right…

So apparently, a vetting committee at the DNC was deliberating over a couple of people to be POTUS hosts… and they took issue with a lawsuit concerning Craig Robins of Miami.

Jackie Soffer and Craig Robins both are issues. They were passed by DNC vet committee in 2012 to attend a DWS Chef’s event. They both have their own lawsuits which they ended up settling and paying large amounts, especially Jackie.

~ DNC Email Chain, May 12, 2016 11:33 AM

They’re actually referring to a lawsuit Mr Robins filed in 2010 against the gallery that told Marlene Dumas (a fancy dancy high society artist) of the private sale of one of her pieces.

…
At its heart, the $8 million suit is a fairly ordinary contract dispute about confidentiality agreements and sales promises. But the details of the disagreement have provided a rare view into a normally very private world of high-end art selling in which membership rules, responsibilities, rewards and reprisals can be so complex and changeable that even art world veterans say they sometimes struggle to decode them.

Mr. Robins asserts that he sold a painting of a dark figure by the highly praised South African-born artist Marlene Dumas through the David Zwirner Gallery in Chelsea in 2004 with an agreement that the sale remain confidential. But the gallery, which did not yet represent Ms. Dumas, told her about it, Mr. Robins claims, causing her to become angry with him because, like many artists, she prefers to see her paintings remain long term in prominent collections.

Mr. Robins says that Ms. Dumas — one of whose paintings sold for more than $6 million at Sotheby’s in 2008 — maintains an active blacklist of those she views as speculating in her work, a blacklist that, he says, he is now on…

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/17/arts/design/17blacklisting.html?ref=oembed

I kind of feel like nobody is going to care about this… I understand that if you’re vetting somebody then this is just what comes up and you should mention it but come on. I’m pretty sure this falls into the lawsuit category of ‘nobody cares‘.

You should read the article though! The writer goes on to note the conflicted nature of the fancy dancy art world and some inherent hypocrisy…

“This is the biggest fear for most artists for whom there is serious demand,” said Allan Schwartzman, a veteran art adviser and curator, who, like others involved in selling work, described an increasingly complex interplay between contemporary artists’ market value, collector base and long-term reputation.

“In general,” Mr. Schwartzman said, “there has been so much profiteering in recent years, even from so many people who are seen as being serious collectors.” (Of course, dealers and auction houses also earn commissions on this kind of profiteering.)

“Profiteering” is a great word to use when talking about the fancy pants art market.
I’m not sure anything else better describes how a painting that should be in a freely accessible public museum, with copyright free digital images made available, is instead bought and sold for hundreds of millions of dollars and subsequently spends years out of public sight before resurfacing to be sold again.

Think, back in 2010 they were describing double-digit millions as profiteering… It’s 2016 and we’re now well into the triple digit millions.