Gawker 
Enter your username and password.
New York, 8:50 PM
Thu Nov 26
21 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip Your Editors:
tips@gawker.com
Tipline: 646-214-8138
Editor-in-Chief:
Gabriel Snyder | Email
West Coast Editor:
Richard Rushfield | Email
Contributing Editors:
Valleywag:
Ryan Tate | Email
Media:
Hamilton Nolan | Email
Politics:
Alex Pareene | Email
Investigations:
John Cook | Email
Entertainment:
Brian Moylan | Email
Nights:
Adrian Chen | Email
Azaria Jagger | Email
Ravi Somaiya | Email
Weekends:
Foster Kamer | Email
Video Editor:
Richard Blakeley | Email
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
03/27/09
[property.timesonline.co.uk]
03/27/09
03/27/09
03/27/09
03/27/09
03/27/09
03/26/09
[www.portfolio.com]
03/26/09
[www.maineantiquedigest.com]
03/26/09
03/26/09
really, maybe answering you is legitimizing your crap.
03/26/09
03/26/09
03/26/09
03/26/09
03/26/09
03/26/09
03/26/09
Say it ain't so!
The entire genre makes it's profit by charging the rich and stupid outrageous prices for endless mediocre works. As if provenance and bragging rights were actually worth an extra $10 million.
03/26/09
03/26/09
03/26/09
03/26/09
03/26/09
So he promises enormous returns (like what he promised to John McEnroe, for example: "Investors like the tennis star John McEnroe said he had put up $162,500 for Salander-O'Reilly to buy art and then resell it at a profit. He sued, saying that Salander-O'Reilly had promised to pay him $325,000" - 100% returns!) in order to rent new space, and then he realizes he doesn't have buyers for his goods.
So to keep going, he does more - typical Ponzi.
Promising outsize returns? check. Investors who did not get their money back? check. Luxurious lifestyle by perpetrator who was hoping for that "big score" that would make it all A-OK? Check.
Ponzi, my deal Owen, Ponzi.
03/26/09
Thanks for the insight. Sometimes the quality of financial reporting around here gets my panties in a twist.
I wish I could summon Choire from the Gawker-grave to defend this ridiculous statement.
It's the art dealer's primary shuffle, which works like this. Every sale is actually a loan. The phrase "Ponzi scheme" gets bandied about- though it's not much more illicit than any decent hedge fund.
03/26/09
Last time I checked, people put actual cash (not a physical asset like a painting) into a hedge fund> they expected this cash to be managed, and returned when asked with sufficient notice. That is not being a broker, or a retailer.
I dunno, doesn't seem that complex to me, esp. compared with, say, Octomom's life or Britney Spears' TROs.
03/26/09
The art world is a sick little world. It has been ever since people began to smear poop on paper and charge for it.
03/26/09
(this comment NOT sponsored by New Yorker)
03/26/09
03/26/09
Uh, no. You are talking about a consignment business that should have had no "risk". Sotheby's and Christie's are basically art galleries, that have "temporary" exhibitions of what they are selling. They are brokers, and take the work on consignment (or provide a guarantee in special cases), and then sell it and give the money they get to the seller - you know, the ACTUAL OWNER OF THE PROPERTY.
Salander DID NOT OWN the property he sold, and the money he pocketed from selling things HE DID NOT OWN is not representative of a "leveraged business".
Don't go sending your resume to Dealbreaker anytime soon, OK?