The Black Box of the Art Business

[Music] in the heart of the Swiss Alps of the shores of Lake Geneva in the land of banks and discretion you will discover the most secretive place in Switzerland in the middle of a warehouse complex a stone's throw from the border with France is the Geneva Freeport watched by surveillance cameras and surrounded by barbed wire fences this complex is traditionally a custom zone where merchandise is stored before being exported abroad but today it has become a permanent storage site with 60,000 square meters of space rented by the city of Geneva to transporters or to private individuals to safeguard their assets behind these anonymous double lock doors there is gold and diamonds [Music] it is also the largest wine seller in the world with 3 million bottles laid to rest Gong whose bottles worth five hundred a thousand two thousand dollars quietly maturing and gaining in value at a constant temperature and humidity these buildings are anti earthquake and the doors resistant to explosives and to protect these treasures from fire a special room houses hundreds of extinguishers that can be activated at any moment another reason the freeport takes so many precautions is because behind its gates rest priceless works of art thought to be worth tens of billions of dollars it's perhaps the world's largest museum but a museum no one can visit [Music] the Geneva Freeport is one of Europe's best-kept secrets its doors works by Picasso Rembrandt Leonardo da Vinci and thousands of Antiquities a treasure the size of which nobody knows the scale or the value you'll never obtain an inventory of all the works in the Freeport who knows how many there are three hundred three thousand three hundred thousand another secret is the name of the owners of the works you don't want anyone to know what you're up to and that's where the free port comes in recently a number of cases have tainted the institution's name the looting of Jewish assets money laundering tax fraud it's hard to say if it was hidden or not but it was kept very discreetly in the Freeport the Geneva Freeport is an Eldorado for art dealers wealthy heirs and fraudsters it's where they do their business hidden from view one man agreed to open the doors of the Freeport to us Eve Bouvier with his managing director Ramon Cass ice he runs the world's the biggest company in the transport and storage of artworks now their customs office is here Swiss customs are here permanently the site is controlled by them and they imposed the opening times it's impossible to enter outside of those hours and Swiss customs permanently control that the procedures in place of the strictest in all Europe every day dozens of priceless artworks enter or leave the store rooms managed by Yves Bouvier's company there's even a special workshop to pack and prepare the works for shipment sit on a sample this is a very important painting that's leaving for an exhibition in a museum in Hungary in a special isothermal crate dynamic here look here it has special antacid paper what's that just behind a painting by Modigliani I shouldn't be telling you that can we see the Modigliani no because it's a question of confidentiality why's that because its owner hasn't authorized me to show it is it a private owner I can't tell you that does it belong to a museum I can't tell you that it's confidential yes everything's confidential here the watchword is secrecy Eve Bouvier was originally a shipper but he transformed his old shipping company natural lagoon founded in 1859 into an art market multinational it is now present in Geneva Luxembourg and Singapore the man nicknamed the Freeport King had a great idea to earn client loyalty his company would not only pack and ship artworks it would provide in Geneva 20,000 square meters of storage space along with framing and restoration workshops it also offers its clients special rooms in which to admire their assets or negotiate sales dealer's gallery owners and buyers can thus meet in total discretion today the former Schiffer has become a multimillionaire we meet him again in Paris in the high-class eighth district a stone's throw from the Elysee Palace Eve whoo yay the shipper of the Geneva Freeport welcomes us to his Paris home a richly decorated and furnished apartment this is the living room with bowed land I love his poetry so this is a nod to him I also love this globe which belong to one year who saw you painted jungle scenes with animals although he never travelled it was in a bad state so I had it restored this is a small romantic work by Bon Appetit devil order burnout it's very pure and simple by storing and shipping his clients artworks Eve Bouvier gradually learned another much more lucrative trade as an art dealer because she felt hot on what have I done in 30 years of working in the art world I learned to listen to the professionals and find out how things worked I learned to listen to insurers and restorers I got to know the business instead of lugging crates around I knew how to open my ears and learn the ropes lots of art dealers are ex restorers ex restaurant owners sex clothes store owners ex butchers they get the gas on Wilshire so like them I learned through practice for 30 years Eve Bouvier has been in the ideal place to learn the secrets of the market norm it's allowed in the art business every dealer wants to get hold of information all dealers thrive on information so they need it knowing which painting is up for sale who's overseeing it whether there's an inheritance whether there's trouble like a divorce everyone's after information being in the know is key in the art market and whether it's buying or selling everyone wants information thanks to the network he's built up the businessman has even opened a gallery on the cave Voltaire the antique dealers District one of Paris's most prestigious addresses he takes us there [Music] he wants to show us how well-established he is and how he buys and sells some of the most renowned names in painting and sculpture how are you good and you fine thanks you know very serious very I got your office ready coming up with us the gallery director greets us the gallery houses significant and very expensive works this marble sculpture of Eve is by Auguste Oda it's already been reserved by an Asian client yes always Shinar man it's an original piece in marble not a bronze of which several casts were made it's particularly beautiful and sensual her position her legs all express great sensuality we throw down as with all artists some of these works speak to you more than others everyone has subjects that particularly move you and this is a subject that moves me enormously farther on more famous signatures an ink drawing by Salvador Dali a Chagall and how about the Chagall is it for sale yes sure all these works are for sale and what's the price of the Chagall I can't tell you the price of the Chagall because a price is a very delicate matter so I can't tell you how I'm sorry there's lots of discretion regarding the prices it's not a fiscal discretion we just don't want to announce a price only for it to go up afterwards and have a person think he'd have been better off buying it earlier or that you might accept a lower offer just to close the deal so prices aren't really mentioned in the art market there are discussions and bargaining with prices higher and lower depending on the period so it's very hard to give a price art dealers don't like to give prices and don't publicize them according to inside information these works are worth several million dollars an art gallery with a view of the Louvre quite a showcase there you are but Eve Bouvier's good fortune is today's soured by a series of lawsuits [Music] in May 2015 an article about him appeared in Luke one entitled Ziya the billionaire and the cursed Picasso's it was a look into some of the darker practices of the art market the allegations made by Lacroix were such that the magazine was found guilty of infringement of privacy the hard-hitting article tells of a violent clash between Bouvier and one of the richest men on the planet a Russian Dmitri ruble of Lev seen here in this photo taken in his living room in Monaco the story goes back to 2003 when Eve Bouvier met the Russian billionaire a close friend of Prince Albert he's the owner of the soccer club AS Monaco Buchi and rebel of Lev hit it off immediately here they are at a costume party on the billionaire's private Greek island for ten years EBU VA helped his friend put together an exceptional collection of paintings and sculptures as compiled in this catalogue he acquired works by Modigliani go gun ho dong oh and wha and even Leonardo da Vinci plus some Picasso's in all 38 works for the mind-boggling sum of just over 1 million 800 million dollars but their friendship would come to a brutal end during a meeting in Monaco in February 2015 Yves Bouvier's attorney David Batum explains he started married woman yes the story started and the rather violent and unexpected way Eve OVA arrived in Monaco for what he thought was going to be a commercial meeting with his client of several years mr. Dimitri we believe left and as it was described in the press he walked into a trap appears because on reaching mr. Riebe Alam lives home instead of being greeted by his bodyguards the Monaco police were waiting for him they arrested him and detained him for the whole weekend the Russian billionaire had filed charges against Eve Bouvier he accused him of making exorbitant profits of a billion dollars at his own personal loss ruble of Lev claimed to have paid double what his collection was worth take for example this painting number 6 by Mark Rothko we managed to get a hold of the documents of the transaction Eve Bouvier bought it from wealthy landowners in the Bordeaux region for eighty three million five hundred thousand dollars a few weeks later as this invoice shows the painting was sold to an offshore company accent delight which belongs to the Russian billionaire acquired for eighty three point five million dollars the Rothko was sold for one hundred and forty million dollars Eve Bouvier's profit on the deal almost seventy million dollars [Music] with this Picasso flute player with naked woman the profit was even more staggering purchased on October 7 2010 for three and a half million dollars it was sold on to Dmitri ruble of Lev the very next day for 25 million dollars a profit of 21 million dollars in 24 hours Eve Bouvier's prophets were colossal but his attorney sweeps the accusations aside he believes there was nothing illegal in his clients profits and that the Russian billionaire should have been shrewder from a judiciary and legal point of view the case is sophisticated but basically RIBA Lavrov said to Eve Bouvier my friend you sold me paintings and other artworks of incontestable quality but I think that the margins you took are far too high in regard to what I believed our relationship to be so it's a trial concerning the enriching of Eve Bouvier which has no legal grounding we tried to contact the Russian billionaire Dmitry ruble of love he preferred not to comment Eve Bouvier was indicted in Monaco in February 2015 for fraud and complicity in money laundering the investigation is still ongoing but in the Reba love-love collection there were two other paintings that would cause trouble in September 2015 the billionaire posed with these two gwacious which like the rest of his collection he bought from Eve Bouvier the Russian is beaming with joy he thought he had done good business with these two portraits of shekinah Picasso's last wife Spanish woman with a fan and woman arranging her hair but an unexpected figure came along to spoil the party Catherine who done one of Picasso's Eris's Jacqueline's daughter she found a complaint for theft and suspected Ibuki of being involved in the fencing of the two paintings sold to rebel of Lev along with 58 drawings a judge in Paris issued an international warrant for Bouvier's arrest the art dealer was suddenly being sought by police forces all over the world here is Katherine Utah with Pablo Picasso and her mother back then they lived in the south of France on the hill of Musha in an old farmhouse called notre-dame de vie Picasso lived and painted there for 20 years or so in the 14th district of Paris we're going to meet Pepita du Pont [Music] this former journalist was Jacqueline Picasso's confidante she wrote about their relationship in a book and she witnessed the scale of the artists body of work Pablo worked all the time Cocteau described him as a standing man he never ever stopped I often said to Jacqueline it's not possible I always got the impression even though he was no longer there that every time I arrived at notre-dame de vie there were new works because there were so many of them it just wasn't human on the artist death in 1973 then on Jacqueline's death 13 years later almost 2,000 paintings 7,000 drawings and 1,200 sculptures were officially recorded in order to pay the inheritance duties part of the work was given to the state something known as payment in you this is the payment in lieu after Jacqueline Picasso's death her daughter Catherine Newton gave all this to France instead of paying inheritance duties and how many works were there 47 paintings loads of drawings 24 sketchbooks 245 edgings 19 ceramics and a puppy akale by Georges Braque so everything else belongs to Madhumita right personally there are 47 paintings here at Jacqueline's house I saw hundreds and hundreds I couldn't give you an exact figure I'm not an accountant I really couldn't say Picasso's body of work was enormous some of his works went unrecorded after the painter died they were probably hidden away during the inventory for the inheritance that is what this report suggests by the director of the Picasso Administration who represents the family's interests it is likely that certain works escaped the inventory as they had been hidden by Jacqueline this is thought to be the case for the too disputed paintings accused of being involved in the theft of the two portraits eboo V defends himself and declares that he did indeed pay Katherine you done her lawyers apparently asked him to pay money not directly to the Picasso heiress but to a trust fund an offshore company based in a tax haven modulus welly called an email I received the banking details of the trust in Liechtenstein from the law firm in Geneva called FB T which is Madame towns law firm having already done business with them I was certain it was them nobody doubts that good support so my company in Liechtenstein paid the money into the trust fund the trust to prove his claims he shows us this document which is apparently the receipt for payment for the two portraits eme I invest Bouvier's company paid 8 million dollars to nobly Oh trust based at the central bank in vaduz capital of Liechtenstein but the name of Katherine you done doesn't appear but investigators discovered that noble Oh trust belonged to a certain katherine bleh living a true george black in paris the address was no longer her residential address but bleh was none other than the married name of Kathleen knew Tom behind the offshore company it was indeed the picasso heiress who received the payment from eve Bouvier and in front of our camera the art dealer went even further it's a sophisticated scam for tax fraud when you own a shell company that acts as a cover and you use your married name when it isn't actually your current name and an address that isn't your residential address when you give that kind of information inuktun Stein or in Switzerland it's already a faking of titles that's the first qualification after that when you benefit from other people's help to set up the system it becomes organized-crime when you play cash ping pong between one company and another it's money laundering or tax fraud Eve Bouvier had to pay several million dollars in bail to have his international arrest warrant lifted and still facing an indictment for fencing stolen goods the art dealer has made new accusations regarding the Picasso heiresses financial scams Chavez Jr I bought a work of art by Picasso at Sotheby's painter and his model da wanted the work because the model was certainly her mother so I sold it to Madame utas company anumita for one hundred and seventy thousand dollars EBU VA sold this Picasso drawing painter and his model to Katharine Newton once again no mention of her name the money was paid to an offshore company in Panama this time alpamayo while the drawing turned up at the Geneva Freeport I sold the work to Madame Putin's company alpamayo a panamanian company then I delivered the work to her lawyer at the Geneva Freeport Madame Utah has her own storing their hello yes she has it's rented by her lawyers and you personally deposited the work at the Freeport no no it traveled from Sotheby's in London to Geneva and was placed in madame who danced orem at the Freeport which is managed by her lawyers and do you know what's inside no I've never been in there we contacted Catherine Newton's lawyer for a response to Eve Bouvier's serious accusations here is her reply madame boutin does not wish to communicate or to participate in any sort of broadcast [Music] locked away secrets and shady financial setups are nightmares for French tax inspectors and customs officers we questioned a customs investigator a specialist in fraud and the trafficking of cultural assets faced with such scams he recognizes his powerlessness okay you set up a shell company which is fairly easy to do you register its address somewhere far away from the eyes of the French administration you export the object to a Freeport you do the deal and the financial product from the transaction as it's linked to company X registered in some friendly country disappears totally from the eyes of our administration whereas the beneficiary of the operation is indeed a resident of our country and should pay tax but with the Freeport they won't we meet up again with EBU VA with all of his indictments he's earned a shady reputation but after 30 years in the business he's as tough as nails every year in May he heads to Basel in Switzerland for the biggest Art Fair in the world Art Basel he flies in a private jet for which he pays fifty thousand dollars a year despite his tangles with the law he wants to be in the right places Basel is the biggest annual Art Fair in the world especially for 20th century and contemporary art and to be there is a must all the dealers and people in the art world meet in Basel during those four days it'll be interesting for us to see how you get along with the other dealers I had lots of good relationships with other dealers the only thing is with your camera there they might be a little bit shy why is that regarding my personal situation they certainly won't want to be seen on film with me so they'll avoid you like the plague no because if no one's around we'll go for a coffee have a chat slap each other on the back but with a camera there they'll avoid me because they don't want people to know they're friends with me and yet barely off his private jet we soon see that his controversial reputation causes fewer problems than predicted [Music] there you are miss mr. Lorenzo how are you just fine how are you his first appointment is with one of the art fairs founders Lorenzo Rudolph both men have businesses in Singapore and are good friends if you fill me meet on bond I've had half of my bank accounts in the world closed in general conditions but UBS which I've been with since I was a kid say I'm no longer welcome but politely they just closed the account and cancelled my credit card I've had 50 bank accounts closed down when you're in trouble people clear off at lightning speed there's no feeling in this business absolutely I know that it's a lion pit and if they could they don't wash their hands of you oh yes 4,000 artists exhibit their works at Art Basel it attracts the general public but more importantly the biggest players on the international art market gallery owners collectors and curators of the world's museums accompanied by his art consultant 16 Eve Bouvier is here to check out the new trends most of the works on show come from the storerooms of the Geneva Freeport some 250 kilometers away EBU VA is here to show his fellow professionals that he's still in the game and is still to be taken seriously how are you oh great my business is booming - so pleased to see you same here how you doing wonderful great hey hey how are you great to see you I'm fine bye and good luck with the jungle thanks but at one stand one man goes out of his way to ignore a Bouvier did you work too much is it the stock exchange the man on his cell phone is David naman clearly troubled by our camera Ibuki a quickly calls his assistant to go reassure him when you see David Nam and alone tell him not to worry I won't let them use any footage of him but he has no rights regarding our footage it's just I saw him flee the camera and I don't want him to worry David na mod isn't just anyone he's the man with 300 Picasso's the head of one of the most powerful families in the art world the NA mods renowned dealers here's their stand at Art Basel Mobile's by Calder mirros Fontana's Picasso's and also a Roy Lichtenstein and a Jean Dubuffet all of them stars of modern art the new mod collection is valued at almost three billion dollars thousands of works most of which are stored at the Geneva Freeport maybe the reason David nammed prefers to be discreet is because one of the paintings he owns is causing him problems with the law the story started here in the Paris archives in 2011 with this man James Palmer he is a Canadian private detective who specializes in finding art looted from Jews by the Nazis one day while rummaging in the Paris archives he came across a file on a certain Stetten er a Jewish antiques dealer the man was dispossessed of all his assets during World War two after the liberation of Paris he found a claim to recuperate his patrimony the documentation is contained in this box it was here in the Paris archives that we found a document that referred to the quest of mr. Oscar stetner for his stolen painting the information that we found was that Oscar stetner had been despoiled of a number of personal items carpet for example a portrait of him as a young man and also a painting by Mowgli Annie and an important painting yeah that was looted from mr. stetner during the war the Canadian detective began his investigation he discovered that the antiques dealer Stetten er had made his claim for restitution in 1946 but well before the liberation the painting had already been sold by the Vichy authorities for the sum of sixteen thousand francs since then it disappeared particularly because its description is so vague the document only indicated that it was a painting signed by Modigliani portrait of a man the detective had no idea what the painting looked like he had to find a photo of it at all costs by consulting papers kept in the Paris archives James Palmer came across a clue this telegram it states that Stetten er had sent the Modigliani to the venice bienalle of 1930 i traveled the venice personally and went into the archives there and to the venice biennale archives i saw mr. stetner x' painting in a photograph James Palmer was delighted he'd found it this photo taken at the 1930 venice bienalle shows 12 paintings on the wall of the room dedicated to midi Yanni 10 portraits of women and two of men the one on the right was already identified and well-known the painting in the middle however the one of a seated man is more mysterious so now you've got reference to mr. Stanner owning the painting you've got reference to portrait of a man and you have a photograph that's the exact same painting that is now illustrated or described as the seated man finally James Palmer knew what the painting looked like but where had had gone he searched everywhere activated his contacts toward the auction rooms archives and museums and after a few weeks bingo he found a trace of the painting here in London in the catalogue of an auction held at Christie's in 1996 [Music] the painting was entitled seated man with a cane but who owned it it was acquired by a shell company based in Panama International Art Center whose registration document is seen here its rightful owner is unnamed and yet Palmer refused to give up and finally discovered another lead to finding the true owners over the years the work appeared in a number of catalogues and every time alongside the name of one of the most prestigious galleries in the world the Helena Maud gallery in New York run by the daughter of the family patriarch we ran into at Art Basel James Palmer decided to write to her well the lawyers for our client contacted the Helena mad gallery and hailing him out of New York and they were ignored which is not right it's not proper so I think after about a month or so they wrote him again and again they were ignored and eventually there was a response and the response was essentially you're suing the wrong people you should be suing the International Art Centre and we have nothing to do with that James Palmer was not taken in by her response he filed a lawsuit against the Helena mod Gallery in New York but once again the lawyers denied that the family were the owners of the painting here is their statement to the court in New York it's international Art Center and nobody else not the Helena Maud gallery nor David na Maud that bought the painting at an auction held at Christie's things stopped dead there until 2015 and the leaking of the Panama papers extraordinary a document published by the journalists revealed that behind the panamanian company international art center was the renowned art dealer David na Maud so he was a shareholder of the company that owns the Modigliani painting despite his constant denials the detective had scored a point now he just had to find out where Modigliani's seated man was in storage he had a bright idea maybe it was in the Geneva free port where the naman family kept the major part of its collection the Swiss judiciary issued a search warrant for the nomad storerooms in April 2016 and discovered the Holy Grail the much sought-after painting it's hard to say if it was hidden or not but it was kept very discreetly in the free port where there are the Nomad family are estimated to have about three to four billion dollars worth of art or about four and a half thousand works of art in their little room in the Freeport the painting claimed to have been looted was well and truly in the nomads storeroom in the Freeport a revelation that caused an uproar the heirs of the antique dealer stetner have now filed a claim for the restitution of the painting we contacted the nomads after several attempts they finally agreed to open up their storeroom at the Geneva Freeport and to show us the painting in an exhibition room we would never meet the art dealers themselves but they did acordes an exclusive viewing of the painting a very solemn moment the work was handled with great precaution it is estimated at about twenty million dollars today [Music] the family Swiss lawyer would tell us their version of the story the painting itself doesn't pose a problem it's the fact that within the framework of the american court case it's impossible to affirm that the painting belongs to the nammed family because they're only the indirect owners legally it belongs to International Art Center which they are shareholders and that's something that's well known throughout the art dealing world allow to clear his clients even further the lawyer even raises doubts that the painting ever belonged to the Jewish antiques dealer Stetten er mr. Stettin er was a dealer so it is possible that he was the owner but that he sold it at the venice bienalle in which case that would prove that his descendants claim is false another possibility is that as a dealer he exhibited the painting on behalf of one of his clients who wished to remain anonymous and this is yet to be disproved by the opposing party we had only a few minutes to film the painting but as the handlers turned the work around we happen to film something on the back that we only noticed later this label from the 1930 venice bienalle the owners name had been crudely erased and it looks like that of Stetten er [Music] a clue to which the detective never had access and which could be crucial for the next stage of his investigation the Canadian detective is convinced the Geneva Freeport could be housing other works of dubious origin well I think there's a high probability that many other paintings in the Freeport were probably looted and probably rests there today that have not seen the light of day for many decades and I believe they're there and I think that it would be very interesting if the public were made aware or at least the art industry were made aware of what those paintings are so so that you know if the Prosecutor's Office is Switzerland for example were to provide us with information on all those paintings we could pretty quickly tell them which ones were stolen pretty quickly for the Swiss art dealers lawyer there's no point in dreaming no one will know for years what's really stored in the Freeport there's no inventory you'll never obtain an inventory of all the works in the Freeport it's top secret and how many three hundred three thousand three hundred thousand so it's a commercial secret yes absolutely our French customs investigator is of the same opinion even if he's on the other side of the fence [Music] lipof reports notably Geneva our old friends are French customs a huge amount of assets enter and leave the Freeport and the secret dream of all customs officers is to find out what's really inside who it belongs to and the some of the deals done they don't want us to know who's selling what to whom that's where the Freeport comes in it covers up deals which are naturally discreet commercially discreet but also discreet because they concern fraud in Geneva the modigliani case hit the headlines the Freeport authorities quickly became concerned about bad publicity so in June 2016 they called an emergency press conference all representatives of the main Swiss media's were invited [Music] started on the floor were the president of the Geneva Freeport and his general secretary both men seemed self-conscious rejecting all responsibility regarding the supposed owner of the painting David naman even if his claims to ownership seem to be legally correct they are nonetheless dubious and merely add to the hubbub surrounding this case ownership of the painting was hidden that's clear it's not the only one but at least we and the American judiciary know where the work actually is so all that really bothers people is the terms hidden yes the work was hidden but it is deposited and it will be restored to whoever the judiciary decides but what other secrets are really hidden in the Freeport in Switzerland some official authorities have become extremely concerned we managed to obtain this report from the Swiss Federal Audit Office it unequivocally denounces the opaqueness of the Geneva Freeport irregularities regarding inventories an absence of traceability of merchandise errors in stock accountancy and recurrent problems which occurred during controls our French customs officer includes laxity on the part of the Swiss administrators that oversee business conducted in the Freeport Sean point in a French logistics zone like wasa shell de Gaulle Airport administrators can visit and circulate freely they have up-to-date information on what comes in what stocked what goes out and can even intervene during the storage process in Geneva it's the opposite less info on what goes in and out and on what's inside that includes the Swiss authorities they see the Freeport as being outside of their territory extraterritorial it's in their country at the same time it isn't so secrets are kept which is what the art dealers want but also what the fraudsters want with your ship old automotive come the food in response to widespread criticism the recently appointed president of the Geneva Freeport a magistrate known for his integrity is supposedly fighting the good fight calling for much stricter regulations as it stands federal legislation demands that the owner be named but not the financial beneficiaries what we want is an extra space on the customs form to be filled out specifically indicating the name of the financial beneficiary but that's not the case yet no of course it isn't but we hope that things will change and in time they always do very slowly in Switzerland for sure but no slower than in countries that aim a lot of criticism at us this man is aware that there is still a long way to go but having agreed to make concessions on its banking secrecy will Switzerland also finally agree to open the doors of the world's biggest safe you

Channel: Best Documentary

Views: 420,403

Rating: 4.8583913 out of 5

Keywords: art business, art documentary, documentary 2019, bbc documentary 2019, business, documentary, freeport, diamond, luxury, millionnaire, investigation, full documentary, bbc documentary, investigative documentaries 2019

Id: 5TSE2TcMduc

Length: 47min 12sec (2832 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 01 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Heterarchic_Webs]

The art world, especially the secondary market, has a lot of secrets, considering who runs it, it's not a shocker. But.. for younger / newer artists, it's important for them to realize that this is an industry--a big one--and it has the characteristics of any other big industry. Including corruption.

[u/busymakinstuff]

Ludicrously dramatic, it's a fancy storage space. Why is it strange that people don't want their private information made public? Shrug.