As you probably know, art has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. Today, I let my inner art lover take over most of the issue with my reviews of three exhibitions that were highlights of our time in New York, plus a chapter from my book The Art of Investing in Art.
NYC Is One of the Best Cities in the World – as Long as You Are in the Right Zip Code!
After the wedding guests had departed, K and I spent four days in the city, doing what we always do when we are there: going to the theater, visiting museums, strolling in the parks, people watching in downtown cafés, and window shopping on Madison and Fifth Avenues. Or, if K is watching a tournament at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, I spend my time seated comfortably in one of the plush leather chairs at our hotel, sipping espresso, working on my laptop, and smoking a world-class Nicaraguan cigar.
The weather was good throughout our time there – bright sun, warm temperatures, cloudless skies, and what seemed like genuinely fresh air. Plus, the streets were mostly clean, the buildings mostly unsullied by graffiti, and the subways mostly untainted by the smell of urine.
That got me into a positive mood and, as always happens when I’m feeling good in NYC, Paris, or Rome, I begin to think about buying a pied-à-terre there – in this case, in Manhattan.
If all I knew of New York City was what I’ve seen on social media recently – reports on the insane numbers of murders, robberies, and other violent crimes that supposedly take place each year in NYC and most of the other “Big Blue Cities” – I wouldn’t have even considered such a proposition. But if you go there as a tourist and spend your time in the parts of the city that are frequented by tourists, you will have the impression that Trump is wrong about its “crime problem,” and that maybe he’s “creating a problem that doesn’t exist” as some Big Blue City mayors have recently accused him of doing. (You might think that – but if you did, you’d be wrong. See “Just the Facts,” below.)
Notwithstanding how much I enjoyed all the outdoor activities K “exposed me to” in the city, the best times I had, on a per-hour basis, were spent indoors at three museums: The Whitney, The Frick Collection, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This is not surprising. Spending time in art museums has always been my favorite thing to do as a tourist. And so it was this trip.
The Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney has a massive and impressive collection of modern and contemporary American art.
The Exhibition We Saw: All Day All Night
This is a retrospective of the work of Christine Sun Kim, an artist who is – IMHO – too young to be given a retrospective.
Well, no. That’s not right. In theory, at 45, she could have been producing art professionally and voluminously since she was 10. But she hasn’t. She’s been on the art scene now for barely 15 years.
So, what’s this about?
Is it about her being a woman? An Asian woman? An Asian woman from LA? No. But it could be about the fact that Christine Sun Kim is deaf.
Is Sun Kim just another affirmative-action artist, exploited by a museum wanting to be au courant with the zeitgeist of Woke Culture? My first impression of her work had me thinking, “Yes.”
I changed my mind after about 10 minutes of looking at it carefully. Sun Kim is not someone hoping to cash in on her victimhood. There is nothing about her drawings that says she thinks her deafness makes her special or worth any special consideration.
On the contrary, what you discover when you look at the development of her work from the sound experiments she was doing in the 2010s to the graphic work and installations she is doing now – for example, a mural she created last year called Ghost(ed) Notes, which covers multiple walls on the eighth floor – it is nothing like what you might expect from an artist who is focused on her handicap and her minority status. She is not preaching or protesting. Rather, she’s doing something more revolutionary: trying to close the gap between the deaf and the hearing world modestly (almost shyly) with humor and an approachability that feels entirely authentic.
The Frick Collection at the Frick Mansion
The Frick Collection is housed in the Gilded Age mansion that was originally the home of Henry Clay Frick. When he died in 1919, as specified in his will, steps were taken to transform the building into a museum, which was opened to the public in 1935. (His will even provided a $15 million endowment for maintenance.)
The permanent collection includes works of art that Frick had assembled over a span of 40 years, and is comprised of 16 individual collections – dozens upon dozens of Old Master paintings and European sculptures that integrate Italian, French, and Spanish works, which makes it a great place to compare different schools of art from multiple regions and time periods. Which is, I’ve read, the way Henry enjoyed viewing art.
This was the first museum I ever visited. I was on my way to Sunday mass with my mother when she decided we should spend the day in the city – and our time at the Frick Mansion was, for me, the most memorable part of that day.
The Exhibition We Saw: Vermeer’s Love Letters
This exhibition is unlike any I’ve ever seen. Most are either massive retrospectives of a single artist or wide-angle perspectives of a movement or school. This one featured only three paintings.
Vermeer (1632-1675) was a meticulous artist. It has been estimated that it took him three to four months to finish a single piece, and his entire oeuvre may have consisted of only about 50 or 60 paintings. Today, only 35 or 36 Vermeers are known to exist. What’s even more curious (at least, to me) is that no drawings or etchings by him are known.
When K and I were last in Holland, we visited several museums in Amsterdam, including the Rijksmuseum, where we had the opportunity to see about a dozen of Vermeer’s paintings, as well as many more by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and other painters from what is known as the Dutch Golden Age, a period of time roughly spanning the 17th century.
I’m a huge fan of the Dutch Golden Age painters because of the craftsmanship and technical near perfection of their compositions and their ability to create scenes that suggest that something dramatic is going on beyond the scene itself. Vermeer, IMHO, was the best of them.
If you see the exhibit, take a look at what a master he was at depicting every kind of material in exactitude – marble and concrete and wood, porcelain and glass, pewter and silk and cotton and wool. I can’t think of another artist that does it so well.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, commonly referred to as The Met, is huge. By floor area, it is the third-largest museum in the world and the largest art museum in the Americas. Its collection spans the globe and the ages, with art and artifacts from Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt to Greece and Rome, from the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Romantic period, the Impressionists, and the Expressionists to the full range of modern art.
You could visit every day for a month, and you would not have scratched the surface of what The Met has to offer. And that is why, every time I’m in New York, I stop by to revisit favorite exhibits and to see what’s new.
The Exhibition We Saw: Superfine: Tailoring Black Style
K and I spent an hour revisiting the French Impressionists and the American Modernists, but then headed to see this exhibit that I was eager to check out.
Curated by the museum’s Costume Institute, the exhibition presents a cultural and historical look at “Black style” over 300 years through the lens of what the catalog calls “Black dandyism.”
From the catalog: “Black dandyism, by and large engaged with by men, sprung from the intersection of African and European traditions of dress and adornment. Its history – from Enlightenment England to the contemporary art and fashion worlds of Paris, London, and New York – reflects the ways in which Black people have used dress and fashion to transform their identities, proposing new ways of embodying political and social possibilities.”
I have to say, the clothing on display was beautifully and precisely tailored as well as flamboyant in presentation.
I’ve been to fewer than a half-dozen museum-centered exhibitions of fashion and have always found that they give me more than I expected. The best one I’ve seen so far was in 2011 – “Savage Beauty,” a retrospective of the work of Alexander McQueen. It was phenomenal. I saw it twice. This one is not quite at that level – primarily because it is mostly men’s fashion – but was nonetheless worth a look.
Five Facts About Violent Crime in US Cities
* 50% of the murders committed in the US each year are committed by African Americans.
* About 50% of those are committed by Black men between the ages of 16 and 30. In other words, 50% of the murders committed in the US each year are committed by less than 5% of the total population.
* If you include Hispanics in these calculations, the percentage increases to about 65%.
* More than 90% of Black and Brown people killed in US cities are killed by other Black and Brown people.
* In large US cities, more than 80% of murders, rapes, and other violent crimes are committed in Black and Brown neighborhoods.
Conclusion: The vast majority (more than 80%) of murders, rapes, and other violent crimes committed in large US cities each year are committed outside the purview of visitors and miles away from the residences of the people that run the cities and the wealthy city dwellers that voted them in.
(Sources: the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program and the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey)
The following is a chapter from The Art of Investing in Art, a book I’ve been writing since 2010, which will finally (hopefully) be published this coming spring.
The Three Mortal Sins of Investing in Art –
and the Collectors That Are Guilty of Them
He was once a protégé of mine. He had a natural genius for business, and over the course of twenty years, I watched him build a billion-dollar financial empire. Then he retired. And to celebrate, he bought himself some expensive toys, including a yacht and several exotic cars. They were all too over-the-top for my tastes, but considering his net worth, well within reason for him.
One day, I received an email from him. He told me he was starting an art collection and attached photos of several of the pieces he had bought.
He had bought art in the past, but it had been purely decorative stuff. He hadn’t paid much for it, and he’d had no expectations that any of it would appreciate.
Now he was spending a lot more money. And his intention was, indeed, to buy art as an investment. But based on the photos he’d sent, I was concerned. What he was buying did not meet my definition of investment-grade. It was, at best, speculative. And he was never a speculative investor!
Though the pieces he’d bought had a visual appeal, they were vaguely derivative of the works of more established artists that had been collected by museums and major art collectors eighty and ninety years earlier – which means the kind of art that would almost certainly be rejected by the power brokers that collectively determine what schools of art and what artists among those schools would one day rise to the level of museum-quality investments.
There was yet another reason I felt I should put a damper on his enthusiasm. The qualities he liked in the pieces he bought were, in a sense, too accessible. For example, the subjects were attractive in a too contemporary way.
Since my friend had only a beginner’s exposure to art, he saw these qualities as fresh and interesting. But if he continued with his newfound passion, he would inevitably be exposed to enough of it that his enthusiasm for the pieces he was buying would wane. (I knew this from my own experience.) And when that happened, he would be doubly disappointed. He would no longer “love” the art he bought, and he would be faced with huge losses on it if he then decided to sell it.
I expressed my concerns very gently at first, hoping to have a more nuanced conversation with him later. But he informed me that he had hired an “expert” to guide him, which I took to mean that he didn’t want my advice. So I said nothing. And I secretly wished him luck.
There are general principles of investing that can be transferred from one asset class to another. But there are also differences. Fundamental differences. And if you are not cognizant of them, you can make mistakes. Sometimes serious mistakes.
I have made lots of mistakes in the thirty-plus years I’ve been buying and selling investment-grade art. I could probably fill an entire book about them. But most are versions of these three:
1. Thinking you can build a valuable collection simply by buying what you like. (A myth that is perpetuated by many dealers.)
2. Buying art on a whim (which usually means while on vacation).
3. Buying work produced by contemporary artists that have suddenly become “hot.” (A mistake that wealthy people often make.)
The “I Buy What I Like” Collector
Buying what you like isn’t a bad way to build a collection, so long as you think of the pieces you are buying as commodities. By “commodities,” I mean things like cars or computers that you don’t expect to be able to sell for more than a fraction of what you paid for them.
But if, in addition to being something you enjoy looking at, you want to see your art collection appreciate over the years, you must think of it the way you would think of any other financial asset.
So, when dealers advise you to trust your instincts and buy what you like, be suspicious.
They will tell you that art is meant to be enjoyed. Yes, they want you to love anything you buy from them. But there is another, more cynical, reason they say it.
They have learned through experience that novice art buyers often experience buyer’s remorse, usually within twenty-four hours of putting a new purchase up on their wall. If they bought it because they liked it, even if it was more expensive than they felt comfortable spending, they can brush their doubts aside. But if they feel that the dealer talked them into it – maybe by suggesting (truthfully) that it would be a good investment – they won’t trust that dealer to make any further recommendations.
There is another problem with the “buy what you like” approach is that I alluded to earlier. What is beautiful to the novice often looks derivative and obvious to an experienced collector. The more exposure you have to art – looking at it, studying it, buying and selling it – the more likely your preferences will change.
You might, for example, love the $5,000 Peter Max you bought at a fundraiser for your kid’s school in year one of your collecting journey. But ten years later, you may be embarrassed to have the thing on your wall. (I’m perhaps unfairly selecting Peter Max as the exemplar here. His work has merit, but it was so commercialized because of his earlier success that it became a caricature of itself long before it had a chance to inch its way up into museum-grade acceptance.)
The Impulse Buyer
Impulse buyers usually have, at best, a passing acquaintance with art and little interest in building a serious collection. They buy most of their art when they are traveling or on vacation as “mementos.” And, in fact, billions of dollars’ worth of art is bought each year on cruises and in destination galleries.
That’s why you find so many art galleries in touristy places like Vail, Palm Beach, Key West, Forte di Marmi, and San Miguel de Allende. And you’d be hard put to find a luxury resort of any size around the world that does not have at least one.
Tourists tend to buy whatever “name brands” are promoted by the on-site dealers. On cruises, for example, you’ll see, large-edition lithographs by the likes of Marc Chagall and Salvador Dalí, or limited-edition pieces by Thomas McKnight, Thomas Kinkade, Romero Britto, and Itzchak Tarkay. At most resort galleries, you’ll see much of the same.
The impulse buyer, by definition, knows nothing about the status of these artists among the institutions and influential people that determine the investible value of art. His objective is to hang pieces on his wall by “known” artists that he can impress his friends with. So, his focus is on the signature, which the dealer assures him is genuine. And he assumes he’s getting a good deal because he’s smart enough to negotiate a 20% discount.
I have no argument with people who buy art this way – just as I have no argument with the “I buy what I like” collector. But, again, this isn’t the way to build a collection that could appreciate over time.
The “Art Basel” Enthusiast
The Art Basel collector knows that buying “what you like” and buying on impulse are a waste of money. He is wealthy, knows a fair amount about art in general, and is in the market to buy “serious” art with serious investment potential.
He sees himself as cutting-edge, a groundbreaker, a trendsetter, which, in his mind, means buying the hottest artists appearing in the hottest art exhibitions – and Art Basel is the very hottest.
It is one of the best-known and best-promoted art fairs in the world. Every year, it stages exhibitions in multiple cities, including Basel, Switzerland (of course), as well as Miami, Hong Kong, and Paris. Tens of thousands of the top 1% of the 1% show up, dressed in their finest trendy fashions, to stroll through mega-tents and convention centers and gawk at the grossly overpriced art.
You can’t blame the dealers for their prices. After all, it’s expensive to rent a booth at Art Basel. And yet, because the dealers do so well, the demand for these booths has always been far greater than the supply. (Most of the dealers return every year.)
Since it was started in 1970, Art Basel has led the way in exhibition-based vending. Today, there are dozens of other shows that take place simultaneously and adjacent to Art Basel that feed off its enormous draw but cater to slightly different market sectors. In Miami, for example, there are at least a half-dozen, including Art Miami, whose focus is more on established artists, and Design Miami, which features mostly commercial-grade art.
As a group, these exhibitions have become the primary markets for contemporary art sales worldwide. They are, as advertised, fun to go to. Ultimately, though, they are designed to separate the arrogant from their money – people that are happy to pay double what a piece is worth simply for the bragging rights.
Oh, Mary!
Oh, Mary! – currently at the Lyceum Theater on Broadway – calls itself a “comedic stage play,” but it is something more and less than that. It’s got a plot that feels more like an SNL sketch than a Broadway comedy. It has bits of dark comedy and burlesque that work because they are not too much. And running through it all is the sort of fun delivered by a good Drag show.
A spoof of the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln, his wife, the play is set in the days leading up to Lincoln’s assassination. It portrays Lincoln as a closeted homosexual and Mary as a woman driven to drink by her husband and politics, which have kept her from pursuing a career as a cabaret performer.
Audience Reaction: It was pretty much non-stop laughing, ranging from hearty to healthy to uninhibited belly laughs.
Critical Reception: I found nothing but good reviews. Oh, Mary! was a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
I didn’t plan to include News & Views in this issue, but something happened over the weekend that was big and urgent. So I’m mentioning it here, with the promise of following up on it soon…
Trump Demands the Truth About the COVID Vaccines
It looks like President Trump suspects he was misled by the CDC into thinking that Operation Warp Speed (his strategy to use government resources to accelerate the development of the COVID-19 vaccine four years ago) was a success – that it resulted in a vaccine that was both safe and effective.
Those of us following AERS (the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System) have known for many years that the vaccines were neither effective nor safe. But that’s not what the government agencies have been saying.
In a recent announcement on Truth Social, Trump said this:
It is very important that the Drug Companies justify the success of their various Covid Drugs. Many people think they are a miracle that saved Millions of lives. Others disagree! With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer, and I want it NOW.
I have been shown information from Pfizer, and others, that is extraordinary, but they never seem to show those results to the public. Why not??? They go off to the next “hunt” and let everyone rip themselves apart, including Bobby Kennedy Jr. and CDC, trying to figure out the success or failure of the Drug Companies Covid work.
They show me GREAT numbers and results, but they don’t seem to be showing them to many others. I want them to show them NOW, to CDC and the public, and clear up this MESS, one way or the other!!! I hope OPERATION WARP SPEED was as “BRILLIANT” as many say it was. If not, we all want to know about it, and why???
Nikki Glaser Roasts Celebrities
Enjoy it here.