Kenny Schachter was in residence live at the Sentinel in Marfa for two weeks this month.

---

Oct. 22-Inigo Philbrick’s has a new venture, and Diddy’s $21 Million, Kerry James Marshall has a new owner: Kenny Schachter tells all

The largest U.S. protest to date, with 20 million people, remains the First Earth Day in 1970, a demonstration to draw attention to environmental issues that was organized by U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson. The second largest is Hands Across America (1986), with 7 million people, an effort to raise money and awareness of hunger and homelessness that was organized by Ken Kragen, co-founder of USA for Africa, which involved participants holding hands in a chain across the country. Sadly, we haven’t fared particularly well on either issue.

The No Kings protests on Saturday came in close behind them, with more than 5 million taking part in the marches against the authoritarian policies of President Donald J. Trump and the alleged corruption in his administration, according to some estimates. (Organizers put the number at nearly 7 million.) The voices of sane, peaceful Americans cannot be easily squelched, and the protests reminded me that I shouldn’t be too embarrassed to acknowledge where I hail from (before my family immigrated). Naturally, His Petulant-cy responded by posting an A.I. video of himself piloting a fighter jet, dropping poop on the far-bigger-than-his-inauguration crowds.

All the power to the fearless, inflatable-frog-clad activists railing against the systematic brutality of ICE and the National Guard deployed in that hotbed of international terrorism, Portland, Oregon I’m going to don my frog suit and head to the nearest art fair to object to the onslaught of negative media coverage that flies in the face of the robust, thriving community of artists, dealers, and collectors that doggedly prove them wrong year after year.

On a more pedestrian front, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon recently warned about potential peril in the $1.7 trillion private debt market after a handful of large-scale (and-profile) defaults. He compared them to “cockroaches,” inferring that, where there is one, there are probably more. But Dimon’s fear-mongering misses the point. Look at the succession of relentless cycles throughout history, economics and otherwise: a rash of new initiatives invariably crop up to fill the void left by the deceased or departed. The same could be said about the doom and gloom that continues to pervade art world reportage.

Forgive me for repeating myself, but please indulge me: Yes, one gallery folds here, another there, and so damn what? The repetitive headlines are monotonous and disingenuous, as Led Zeppelin called it in 1973’s “The Song Remains the Same”: 

Any little song that you know

Everything that’s small has to grow

And it’s gonna grow now

Push, push, yeah

To that effect, read Scott Reyburn’s encouraging New York Times article of enterprising enterprises last week and the captivating artists and galleries he highlights. The title says it all: “Britain’s economy has slowed, and sales at blue-chip galleries are down. But among young artists and emerging dealers, the mood is upbeat.”

About a certain, flourishing bicoastal gallery (that will remain anonymous—I gave my word), I can report that persistent, spiteful rumors about them shedding one of their beachheads and retreating back home are not only false; they are, in actuality, looking to expand in New York by opening a second space.

Along the same lines, with two spaces and a bar on the way in New York, Amanita inaugurated its third location in Rome on October 9 with a show by Daniele Milvio. (Disclosure: My son Adrian shows with them!) The exhibit, rammed with spillover crowds at the opening, has since sold solidly at prices ranging from €12,000 to €22,000 ($14,000 to $25,600). The unorthodox model that has enabled Amanita to buck the bleak kismet of late involves having four 20-something stakeholders (the bastards) equally vested in the fate of their business, shouldering various aspects of the partnership. Counting employees, they are nine in total, helping them remain lissome and flexible in the face of economic uncertainty and vicissitudes.

A brief note on Frieze, which was deemed a success, and Paris Basel, which I confidently predict will best it, just in time for the premiere of the Cartier Foundation, yet another venue to showcase contemporary art in a city teeming with it. A New York dealer I just spoke to reported their most profitable results ever and has now landed in Paris to begin setting up a Basel booth. Sounds grueling from where I’m perched at present (New York City). The grande dame of the art trade, Georgina Adam, whom I revere (how is her age nowhere on the internet, I need to know?), recently wrote in the Art Newspaper, “Is Art Basel Paris set to consume the Swiss original?” to which she concluded, “the answer seems still to be a clear… no!”

The highlight of Frieze week was undoubtedly the blockbuster Kerry James Marshall exhibition, his largest outside the U.S., at London’s Royal Academy of Arts (RA), curated by Mark Godfrey, Tate curator from 2007 to 2021. I previously reported that the owner of the $21 million painting Past Times (1997), Puff Daddy, had sold the work at the onset of his, uh, legal situation. After the fact, I discovered the $30 million buyer reneged.

Godfrey had contacted me to determine the ultimate owner of the work, as he told me that the RA under no circumstances would borrow from disgraced Diddy. I can now confirm that it has indeed been sold, as confirmed by Godfrey. What Mark didn’t reveal, though I can now disclose, is that he’s likely next chief curator of the museum after the recent expiration of Adrian Locke’s term. 

More intriguing (and juicy) is what a prominent birdie whispered into my ear about the new buyer! It was Larry G, after another offer of $29 million was turned down. Diddy paid $21,000,000, remember: The rich get richer, even while rotting in Brooklyn’s notorious Metropolitan Detention Center. It went to Gagosian for $30 million, or just above, and not to Ken Griffin; flush as he is, he isn’t a fan of KJM (if that’s possible!). Larry G did not respond to my text seeking comment. (See photo.) So, if it wasn’t for Larry, perhaps Jeff Bezos? Bear with me, I’ll find out… I always do.

Regarding the hullabaloo about London galleries—big, medium, and XL—reporting substantial year-on-year losses, you merely have to read between the lines (or a forensic accountant does) to get a clearer picture of what is actually at hand. The apparent U.K. money misfortunes that have befallen behemoths Hauser and Wirth, David Zwirner, and Almine Rech are more the outcome of forum shopping than anything else, with everyone searching for cheaper tax regimes. For example, tax refugees Manuel Hauser and husband Iwan Wirth picked up sticks from London and relocated to Switzerland; along with the rest, they are essentially rerouting secondary sales through more financially advantageous jurisdictions.

To wit, observe the exoduses from states like New York and California to Florida and Texas. The same could be said for countries like Italy, the Bahamas, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Portugal, picking up the slack from countries like the U.S. and U.K. These geographic destinations have come to resemble freeports, the designated secure warehouses near major international airports where goods can be stored without paying taxes and duties until moved to collectors (yes, they still exist aplenty, guilty as charged your honor)—but these are freeports for people.

From 2020’s Brexit to the cessation of the non-domicile tax in April (a tax structure that offered significant advantages for foreign income), the social and economic problems that seem to obstinately vex the U.K. (I can concur after living there 15 years) are entirely self-wrought. They don’t seem to learn. Indulge me one more song reference, in this instance from Radiohead’s landmark 1995 album The Bends:

You do it to yourself, you do

And that’s what really hurts

Is that you do it to yourself, just you

You and no one else 

Problems on another level continue to plague Simon Lee’s gallery business and everyone associated with it. Not only did His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs service (the grandiose nomenclature for the U.K. tax authority) shutter his flagship London space (there were also venues in Hong Kong and New York), forcing him into involuntary receivership, but the mess is compounding by the day, especially for its former artists (including Lisa Brice and Sonia Boyce), employees, and those it did business with: art fairs, collectors (who never received art they purchased), secondary consignors, galleries, banks, shippers, and logistics companies.

Adding insult to pecuniary injury are the clawback provisions of the bankruptcy code, which are legal tools intended to ensure against unfair treatment being given to preferential creditors. The insolvency practitioners managing the proceedings have cast a wide net—and continue to do so—in an effort to collect as much from as many as they can; the extent of which is not only unfair but unjust, considering they have sued artists and workers who are in no position to disgorge their earned commissions and wages. The only parties that will benefit from such futile efforts are the bankruptcy administrators and, as per usual, the lawyers! A well-known artist told me:

It’s costing us plenty to try and deal with all the unpaid storage and importation fees, etc. There is a lot of stuff going on around clawbacks. So far, we haven’t been affected since Simon neglected to pay us any more money during the clawback period, but the details are kind of crazy, as the winding-down entity’s lawyers are threatening the people who worked during that period for their wages. This seems a lot more randomly mean than when Madoff investors who’d managed to get some money out before he went down were clawed back, since in some way they were passive investors who knew that an investment had risks. Since I am not affected, I don’t think I should comment, but those who are have been deciding about how and when to go public.

If you’ve wondered what felon Inigo Philbrick has been up to since his release from prison last year, here you go. I was contacted recently by Nimrod Kamer, a ubiquitous pest who is the self-proclaimed “most ambitious social climber alive.” (He’s appropriately named “nimrod,” also meaning a foolish or inept person.) I have a soft spot for him, for some odd reason, and here is how our chat transpired: 

Nimrod Kramer: Btw Inigo hired me to develop a shroom coffee powder. With his wife.

KS: The Great Mushroom Swindle.

NK: A new frontier.

KS: Of hallucinogenic fraud. You serious?!

NK: Yeah. They got few investors.

KS: What’s your involvement? Illegal, no?

NK: I’m doing reels and research. It’s a tremella shroom powder just like @dirteaworld (look up)

My curiosity was piqued, so I got in touch with the man himself, who’s the subject of an entertaining BBC documentary that you can watch here (if you’re outside the U.K., you’ll need a VPN, ask your kids). I’m not just saying this because I’m in it, but the Times of London characterized the program as a “…complex financial saga both neatly explained and deftly personalized by the juicy drama of human acrimony, most especially from the charismatic U.S. art magus Kenny Schachter, a former friend of Philbrick’s. Here is the conversation that ensued:

KS: You starting some coffee co?

Inigo Philbrick: Lattes for cons?

KS: Eh?

IP: Not sure a coffee company makes much sense — Starbucks seems to be having a hard time

KS: Ahh mushrooms!

IP: No coffee.

KS: What is it? 

IP: A beauty supplement—something Victoria is into

KS: Ahh, ok.

IP: Chinese medicine made modern basically.

KS: Ahh, not the trippy variety.

IP: Hydration. Extends life in fruit flies and meant to plump skin.

Trips are a thing of the past—happily for all

Enjoying Texas?

KS: Trips are a thing of past?

Texas fascinating, but been loooooooooong.

IP: It’s a big place. Marfa is beautiful, but being there a long time… kinda like a prison sentence.

Ks: Ha!!!! Why are trips a thing of the past?

IP: Because I don’t take drugs! And don’t do transcendental meditation either

KS: But everyone else does that would be good pay to get back to parity-wise.

IP: Good play you mean? I think that’s an awfully crowded space.

Either way, nice to have some work—have been SO many people offering and so few people following through since I got out.

KS: Offering what type of opps?

IP: You name it, but I don’t want this to be the subject of the next dispatch so let’s head the conversation off. Trying to do good things in baby steps.

Some final thoughts on my two-week exhibit and writing residency sojourn in Marfa that came to an end the Sunday before last. I cannot express the scope of what I learned while entrenched in the arid desert environs of the town with a full-time population of about 1,800. I was under the misapprehension that Marfa was swarming with artists and the ilk, but boy was I wrong. That wasn’t exactly the case, even in the midst of the festivities of Chinati Weekend. The revelation for me—besides the stunning, inimitable landscape, which I expected—was the sheer breadth of Judd’s all-encompassing vision and empathetic sensitivities. He made art, design, and architecture whole cloth out of space, as formidable as the metal and adobe he famously plied.

The Big Bend Sentinel newspaper I wrote for, and will continue to contribute to, is situated adjacent to a bustling café that’s open seven days a week, from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., which is exactly where I plopped myself for the majority of that time. Publicly writing and engaging daily in such an unconventional context resembled a mix between a rodeo and a town-hall meeting. I was, for a considerable chunk, post-3 p.m. closing, more alienated than a monk in a monastery: Though they can’t generally speak, they are within breathing distance of their brethren. Being so alone so much slowed down Einstein’s space-time continuum. I wonder if that means I aged less for the duration of the trip?

My experiences, only fleetingly art related, ranged from discussions of local politics—they voted to raise the property tax rate 70 % during my stay, which is under appeal—to the prospect of computer cooling facilities to fuel the A.I. revolution (bubble). The highlight was getting taken to the woodshed by a cowgirl who admonished me for talking too loudly on the phone while we were both outside—ha, ha! I’ll miss the wailing screech of the freight trains running adjacent to my Airbnb bedroom 24/7 (I now can’t sleep without them.), and the genial hospitality of literally everyone I met, Judd-related and otherwise. Except for the cantankerous cowgirl, that is.

In conclusion, there are plenty of obdurate collectors who would go to any length to possess art (including me), perhaps not to the extent of breaking into the Louvre to pinch it—though there are those too—and that won’t subside anytime soon. I promise you.
Kenny Schachter is a New York artist and collector who held forth at the Sentinel for two weeks this month. His website is at www.KennySchachter.art

---

Oct. 7–Breathing architecture and artworks that walk

The ginormous, barrel-shaped, galvanized iron roofs of the artillery sheds and military airplane hangars repurposed by Judd housing portions of his encyclopedic collections of art, design, books (and bagpipes!) are wondrous in and of themselves. Everything he breathed on, despite the conceptual rigidity and austerity that most would equate with his all-encompassing 

Weltanschauung (worldview), in actuality, is imbued with heartfelt passion and humanity. 

Another widely held misconception of Judd, that I admittedly acceded to, was his bellicose espousal of the dictum: form over function. His life’s work is, to me at least, a utopic vision obstinate in focus but also unstinting in his embrace of artists he responded to (that were or became friends, like Roni Horn), facilitating commissions permanently situated throughout Marfa. I was admittedly taken aback by how touched I was and, moreover, the devoted community of custodians that tend to it all and explicate to the droves of tourgoers with a grace and tenderness akin to caretakers in a hospice. 

The architecture and artworks, though, exude mortal qualities that took me aback. The buildings and sculptures speak, communicate—well, they randomly radiate sounds—through a series of pings, dings and rings that are audible as you make your way through the environs. If any foundation curators are reading this, I’d like to install sensitive recording equipment in the vaulted rooftops and amidst the grid of “100 untitled works in mill aluminum, 1982–1986”, large scale sculptures that form an endless horizon in two of the Chinati structures.One last thing regarding the 100 untiled works. Due to extremes of temperature, these pieces possess additional seemingly humanoid tendencies, perpetually incrementally shifting over the course of the nearly 40 years they’ve been “living” in the sheds—sorry for my characterization, Donald. A curator referred to the movements, caused by expansions and contractions of the metal, as the sculptures’ “walking”. I hope the animation I’m working on depicting this phenomenon (in my, umm, inimitable manner) doesn’t exacerbate the grave-spinning of Judd I may have stirred already.

Oct. 5 － Judd: the Hoarder with order who also had the hots for a bit of hot air

I’ve been trying to avoid the elephant in the barrel-ceilinged barracks, Donald Judd, who fabricated his way into the canons of art, design and architecture history. But I’ll share a few thoughts on the subject without resorting to rehashed cliches (hopefully). Most incongruously, the godfather of minimalism was a monumental magpie that out-accumulated even me. Imagine that. But where we differ most dramatically is the fact that Judd was a hoarder with order—everything, and there were lots (and lots of lots) was compartmentalized and codified in the extremis.

The scope of Judd’s holdings traversed Navajo rugs; furniture and design by Alvar Aalto, Mies van der Rohe, Gerrit Rietveld, Rudolph Schindler, Gustav Stickley; and, art by George Earl Ortman, Agnes Martin, Lucas Samaras, Jasper Johns. Yayoi Kusama, H.C. Westermann, John Wesley, Fred Sandback, Roni Horn, among many others. The avid bibliophile collected more books than the Library of Congress, which Trump hasn’t gotten around to pruning—just yet. 

Another Juddian tidbit not widely known was his penchant for pipes—bagpipes that is. Judd collected examples of the (wildly annoying, to me) woodwind instrument that, before they were even known in Scotland, originated in the Middle East or North Africa, and dated at least to ancient Egypt (around 400 BC) and perhaps even earlier—according to AI anyway. Best of all was his stated reasoning for insisting on bagpipe performances at many of his openings and said to be constantly playing in the background of his NYC building on Spring Street: “When the bagpipes start, the conversations end.”

Oct. 4 －The whole enchilada(s), my dangerous driving and desert art-habbing

I showed up just shy of 9am, as I pretty much do 7 days a week, to a packed café and find my sculpture serving as a tabletop for more enchiladas than I’d ever seen in one place, a few backpacks, and a puddle of water pooled beside it all. Save to say, the steel is no longer stainless. 

Regardless, I resigned myself to such occurrences as this is what I knowingly signed up for. The upside? This exercise is proving therapeutic in combating my fanatical obsessive-compulsive disorder. Admittedly, I long to return home to New York if only brandish my sponge and resume where I left off—scrubbing and scouring. 

What was more amusing, when I jumped into my truck on the way to “work”—it’s only a few minutes from my hotel (everything is in Marfa town) but I needed to drive somewhere after and in the midst of an illegal U-turn, un-seatbelt-ed, I was waived to proceed by a considerate driver heading in the opposite direction. The vehicle that let me cut in front, I only noticed after the 3-point maneuver, well performed I might add, was, in fact, the town Sheriff! I burst out laughing, in an oh-fuck-could-I be-any-stupider act of capitulation. He just smiled back and kept on truckin’. People really are kind here. 

I know lots of artsy-fartsy types in and around Minneapolis, Minnesota in the art and music industries (if you can refer to them as businesses, any more) which happens to be nearby to the famed rehab clinic, the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. No coincidence there, like the old Roach Motel advert, they check-in for treatment and don’t check-out of the surroundings. Sorry for the inappropriate joke, but I’m a recovering addict myself.

Similarly—kind of—in this neck of the…desert, there are lots of Juddites that after internships, residencies or foundation positions have established footholds in and around town, from Christopher Wool to countless others. Like many before and after, Wool, who lives between New York and Marfa with his brilliant wife, painter Charline von Heyl, was lured back in 2006-7, after a residency, which was a familiar account I heard again and again.

Oct. 1－A brief Introduction as to why, exactly, I came
Artist-writer-designer-architect-developer Donald Judd (I’m jealous of his multiple multi-hyphenates) staked his claim, the remote—to put it mildly—old US cavalry fort was established in 1911 to defend against incursions and smuggling from both sides of the  border during the Mexican Revolution. Before Judd, Marfa was most famous for serving as the location of the 1956 film Giant, starring Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean, and Rock Hudson, that filmed in the area and, the historic Hotel Paisano, which served as the base for cast and crew. 

Judd began purchasing a succession of 22 buildings begging in the early 1970’s and, after construction launched in 1979, culminated in the establishment of the Chinati Foundation that opened to the public in 1986. Upon his death in 1994, he established a parallel institution, the Judd Foundation. The town has become an art, design and architecture mecca over the years, attracting hundreds of thousands that have made the pilgrimage, a number of whom remained. 

The basis of my project in Juddville, entitled POSTBOX, is a lone sculpture, a few photos and some furniture I designed—a desk and chairs—in the reductive language of the master maestro of minimalism, Donald Judd. My installation, by choice, was plopped down smack in the middle of the bustling Sentinel newspaper café (a former funeral home and country music venue) where I’ve ubiquitously decamped like an ornament on the hood of an old car, writing in real-time. 

The idea was to actively engage with the residents over two weeks, from artists to locals, assimilating into the landscape and documenting the process, as opposed to parachuting in for a few days and making a hasty retreat after devouring a dose of Judds. The disparate group of people I met was comprised of only a smattering of artists, contrary to my expectations, until the Chinati art weekend and gala beginning October 9^th (through the 12^th) in any event.

An enterprising developer from Houston with some previous art exposure, Tim Crowley, opened an art infused hotel I was staying in (before checking into an Airbnb), the neighborhood theatre and a small art/fashion/design studio building. Surprisingly, Tim informed me that the majority of visitors don’t make the trek here for art, but instead for the vast parks, observatory and, oddly enough, Marfa is a major wedding destination. May as well formalize your marital relationship in the desolate wilderness before you end up in an emotional one. I’m kidding.

My POSTBOX sculpture is a formal homage to Judd, albeit with a satirical slant. There is a functional mail slot on one side of the 3-foot square stainless-steel cube. Nevertheless, nothing that that goes in—whether notes from devotees seeking to commune with the divine presence many ascribe to Judd or more pedestrian, as a repository for café detritus—could ever be retrieved. Besides the spring-loaded flap, the cube necessitates a bevy of brawn to move, yet upend, as it weighs as much as a typical Judd (i.e. a lot).

Typical of my encounters tapping away at my table, I met an amiable elder artist with an unforeseen connection to my piece: he hailed from a family of multiple generations of mail carriers. 

My exhibit and writing stint got off to a particularly embarrassing start that I’ll blame on the cliché that Americans possess a notoriously poor sense of geography, rather than my own intellectual shortcomings (there are far too many to note), or I did when Tim Johnson, the proprietor of the Marfa Book company, introduced himself. Tim caught me in the midst of studying a grade school color-coded map of the US to determine where on earth I was. 

Johnson was described as “a poet, editor, small-town flaneur, musician, and prolific collaborator” by Joshua Edwards, in a 2011 interview on the Poetry Society of America website. https://poetrysociety.org/poems-essays/interviews/an-interview-with-tim-johnson-of-the-marfa-book-company Tim is indicative of the wide and wonderful array of creatives that litter the far western reaches of the Chihuahuan Desert, particularly in the immediate vicinity of Marfa. 

Sept. 29– An auspicious start, broken down beside the highway, that began my version of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure

I rented the only manual car (within reason, price-wise) in the state of Texas from Turo, the peer-to-peer carsharing company, which allows private owners to loan out their vehicles via an app, in preparation for my two-week writing, art and design exhibit/residency in Marfa, under the auspices of the Big Bend Sentinel newspaper (founded in 1926). If I’m not preoccupied shifting gears, my mind has a tendency to wander—more so than usual—and I’m a bad enough driver as it is.

Barely out of Midland, Texas airport parking lot, the “check engine” light began flickering as my rental car was in the midst of a mechanical failure. Not long after, I found myself stranded by the side of the highway for what lasted few hours all told. When I phoned the owner requesting a search and rescue mission (ok, demanding), he chastised me for renting such an old car, which happened to be his 2014 Toyota Corolla, with 167,000 miles on the clock.

I was finally found on a remote shoulder where my vehicle was replaced with an old pick-up truck that wasn’t in much better condition than what preceded it, with a mere 157,000 miles. After the switch transpired, I hunkered down for what ensued, a very fast 3-hour drive, as every airport is at least as far from the art and nature destination. So began my Marfa adventure, where I was swiftly installed as the newest cub reporter covering the art beat.

---

More

• Kenny Schacter’s works on view checklist
• Kenny Schachter’s official site — exhibition announcements, articles, press, etc. kennyschachter.art
• ArtNet – Kenny Schachter — a profile on ArtNet summarizing his roles and contributions (artist, writer, lecturer) Artnet News
• Writings – Kenny Schachter — archive of articles, essays he has authored. kennyschachter.art