Am I the Only One Who Notices that Robert Rauschenberg owns a Jasper Johns?
Last Saturday Herr Guitar and I went to see the Jean-Michel Basquiat show at BAM. I'm a big fan and knew this was probably my only chance to see so many of his works in one place. I won't go into the boring details of color and composition and Blondie and Madonna, I'll just say the show is great. It moves on to LA MOCA in July.
I visit museums often, and whenever I go to temporary exhibitions, I always like to check the description card to find out who owns the art. Am I the only one who does this? I think it started when I saw a Jasper Johns retrospective at the MoMA almost 10 years ago. It caught my eye that David Geffen owned one piece and was lending it to the show. I started looking at all of the cards, and sure enough saw other famous owners. Stephen Spielberg owned one, and I think Michael Ovitz. I kept thinking that all of these Hollywood types were keeping up with each other by getting bigger and bigger Jasper Johns to hang in their living rooms. Robert Rauschenberg, a Johns contemporary, also owned a painting.
The thing I noticed at this show is that tons of these Basquiats have the same owner: The Stephanie and Peter Brant Foundation. Stephanie Brant is supermodel Stephanie Seymour, and the only other time I have seen more than one Basquiat in one place is in the offices of Brant Publishing, owned by her husband, Peter (after seeing all of the pieces they own, HG said, "It's a good thing she dumped Axel Rose."). About eight years ago, when I was slinging administrative hash in the sales department at Newsweek and desperate to get into an editing position, any editing position, I went on a job search that led to two serious prospects. One was an editorial assistant gig at Financial Planning magazine, for which I thought I was completely unqualified. The other was second assistant to the publisher of Art in America. I love Art in America, but was not jumping at the idea of continuing to be an assistant. And one of the reasons they liked me is that I had worked for monsters in the past, which for some reason qualified me to work with this publisher, Sandra Brant. The bright spot of the postition is it involved editing a monthly art book review section, that included 25-35 different books, which I would describe in 100-word blurbs.
The other bright spot was the environs. The office is at 575 Broadway, in the Guggenheim Soho building. You walk in and are struck by an overwhelming number of original Warhols and Basquiats lining the walls. The office is quiet and library-like, but utterly beautiful, filled with bookish yet perfectly bone-structured types, the kind you usually only see in movies.
Financial Planning magazine had none of the charm or cachet, but I didn't have to answer anyone else's phone. That was my big career goal at the time, so I took a job there. Now I'm a professional financial journalist, and only an amateur art fag.
Here's a picture of Stephanie and Peter and another amateur art fag, Dennis Hopper. He is my unrequited actor love (well, he's one of them). Did I tell you about how I asked him to my high school prom (this was in 1989, you do the math)? That's a story for another entry.
I visit museums often, and whenever I go to temporary exhibitions, I always like to check the description card to find out who owns the art. Am I the only one who does this? I think it started when I saw a Jasper Johns retrospective at the MoMA almost 10 years ago. It caught my eye that David Geffen owned one piece and was lending it to the show. I started looking at all of the cards, and sure enough saw other famous owners. Stephen Spielberg owned one, and I think Michael Ovitz. I kept thinking that all of these Hollywood types were keeping up with each other by getting bigger and bigger Jasper Johns to hang in their living rooms. Robert Rauschenberg, a Johns contemporary, also owned a painting.
The thing I noticed at this show is that tons of these Basquiats have the same owner: The Stephanie and Peter Brant Foundation. Stephanie Brant is supermodel Stephanie Seymour, and the only other time I have seen more than one Basquiat in one place is in the offices of Brant Publishing, owned by her husband, Peter (after seeing all of the pieces they own, HG said, "It's a good thing she dumped Axel Rose."). About eight years ago, when I was slinging administrative hash in the sales department at Newsweek and desperate to get into an editing position, any editing position, I went on a job search that led to two serious prospects. One was an editorial assistant gig at Financial Planning magazine, for which I thought I was completely unqualified. The other was second assistant to the publisher of Art in America. I love Art in America, but was not jumping at the idea of continuing to be an assistant. And one of the reasons they liked me is that I had worked for monsters in the past, which for some reason qualified me to work with this publisher, Sandra Brant. The bright spot of the postition is it involved editing a monthly art book review section, that included 25-35 different books, which I would describe in 100-word blurbs.
The other bright spot was the environs. The office is at 575 Broadway, in the Guggenheim Soho building. You walk in and are struck by an overwhelming number of original Warhols and Basquiats lining the walls. The office is quiet and library-like, but utterly beautiful, filled with bookish yet perfectly bone-structured types, the kind you usually only see in movies.
Financial Planning magazine had none of the charm or cachet, but I didn't have to answer anyone else's phone. That was my big career goal at the time, so I took a job there. Now I'm a professional financial journalist, and only an amateur art fag.
Here's a picture of Stephanie and Peter and another amateur art fag, Dennis Hopper. He is my unrequited actor love (well, he's one of them). Did I tell you about how I asked him to my high school prom (this was in 1989, you do the math)? That's a story for another entry.
posted by j.m. at 1:51 PM
1 Comments:
I didn’t know you were a Basquiat fan too. Dave and I went to see that show @ BAM the very first weekend it opened. We thought it was awesome. So many pieces right in front of your face (with such easy access for vandals it made me nervous). I especially loved the piece with the sky scrapers and the airplane flying by, I don’t remember the title, but it reminds me of pictures my genius nephews and nieces draw of the city for me.
I do look at who the pieces are owned by as well as the years they were composed. It usually just says “On loan from Private Collector” which is rather annoying, because you want to know who it is. My boss loans out his art work a lot to different exhibits and museums and he always just has me put “private collector” on the contracts as well. I think some collectors think they’re being too “showy” if they have their name on the tag, it’s some sort of etiquette thing, same as anonymous charity donors I guess. Personally, if it were me I’d have my name stamped all over that shit.
The weekend we went to Basquiat was also the last weekend of the Marilyn Monroe photo exhibit at BAM. It was pretty interesting. The photos weren’t airbrushed or anything so you could actually see all of her “flaws” which was pretty refreshing considering the flawless wonders they feed us today.
Note: My boss gets “Art in America” here in the office. I like to flip through, but there really aren’t any brilliant articles in there. Maybe you could have taken them to the next level. –d.p
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