The musical legacy left behind by Prince, who died on Thursday (Apr. 21), might be even richer than previously imagined.
In addition to the 39 studio albums the artist released, his Minnesota mansion is home to a vault of 26 albums’ worth of unpublished music.
“I’ve vaulted so much stuff, going way back to the ’80s, because I didn’t want people to hear it—it wasn’t ready,” the musician told the New York Post last year. “One day I’ll go back and finish it, and it’ll feel like no time has passed. To me, time folds back on itself.”
“It’s an actual bank vault, with a thick door,” Susan Rogers, Prince’s former sound engineer, told the Guardian in 2015 ahead of a BBC radio documentary about the stash of music.
Whether eager fans will be able to listen to the work is another matter. It is unclear who will inherit ownership of Prince’s Paisley Park estate, and Warner Bros.—with whom the musician was engaged in a decades-long battle over the rights of his work—and the estate will need to agree which tracks get released.
Prince’s prolonged dispute with Warner Bros., other music labels, and streaming services over artistic ownership was a defining feature of his career and legacy. To this day, only one Prince song is available on Spotify, after the artist pulled his catalog from major streaming services in 2015.
Crimes of the Art is a weekly survey of artless criminals’ cultural misdeeds. Crimes are rated on a highly subjective scale from one “Scream” emoji — the equivalent of a vandal tagging the exterior of a local history museum in a remote part of the US — to five “Scream” emojis — the equivalent of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist.
Royal Flush for Ace Gallery
Artists and collectors are demanding artworks, profits from their sales, or both following the takeover of Los Angeles’s bankrupt Ace Gallery by an accountant and bankruptcy trustee. The change of leadership happened earlier this month after Douglas Christmas, the gallery’s founder, failed to make a court-mandated $17.5 million payment to settle his debts. Verdict: Something tells me that, for Ace Gallery artists, there will be no Christmas this year.
Where’d My Picasso Go?
Manhattan billionaire Wilma Tisch is suing Miami-based art dealer Kenneth Hendel for attempting to sell her Pablo Picasso painting “Tête,” which she hadn’t realized had been missing from her home since 2009. Tisch’s lawyer believes her ex-maid stole the work and sold it to a man named Mahmoud Antar, who in turn offered it to Hendel. The latter consigned the work to Sotheby’s in 2013, but it never found a buyer. Verdict: When Picassos turn up missing, têtes will roll.
Dealer Arrested Over Bungled Prince and Murakami Sales
Gallerist Perry Rubenstein was arrested in Santa Monica, charged with three counts of grand theft by embezzlement, and held on $1 million bail over allegedly violating contracts and keeping proceeds from sales in three transactions. The first involves a Takashi Murakami scroll that Rubenstein sold to the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation for allegedly far less than the minimum price set by the seller. The other two cases involve Richard Prince works consigned to him by Creative Artists Agency co-founder Michael Ovitz; Rubenstein allegedly sold them for far less than the agreed-upon prices, keeping the proceeds for himself. Verdict: A cautionary tale to aspiring art dealers — don’t double-cross two of the biggest collectors in your city.
Studio Worker Got Rich Stealing “Afghan Girl”
Bree DeStephano, a former employee in photographer Steve McMurry’s Pennsylvania studio, pleaded guilty to selling stolen editions of his iconic “The Afghan Girl” photo and other images through a gallery in Colorado. In her plea bargain, she copped to making just $214,000 from sales of the stolen prints, though she was originally charged with flipping the photos for more than $600,000 (see Crimes of the Art #16). Verdict: What was DeStephano thinking? Only one person can profit from McMurry’s romanticized images of poverty.
On this week’s art crime blotter: a serial brain tissue thief strikes a museum, a suicidal man attacks a Picasso-inspired exhibition, and an art dealer's grandson sues a gallery over a $25 million Modigliani.
On this week’s art crime blotter: A €25-million Picasso painting is seized aboard a superyacht, the designer of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games logo is accused of plagiarism, and a hitchhiking robot is destroyed.
On this week’s art crime blotter: a trucker took down an Antony Gormley statue, vandals hammered a shiny public sculpture, and a Swiss dealer got in trouble for selling stolen Picassos to a Russian billionaire.
On this week’s art crime blotter: nude Eiffel Tower performance lands artist in jail, a Jaume Plensa sculpture goes missing in Montreal, and a family wants its $100-million Monet back — even if it's fake.
On this week's art crime blotter: Brothers trying to offload fake Goya get conned, gallery manager siphons off $450,000 from Botero sale, and French thieves make off with the King of Siam's crown.
On this week’s art crime blotter: Jonathan Meese acquitted in Nazi salute dispute, Picasso works disappear in transit, and Charles Saatchi sues Saatchi Art for Saatchi name.
May 12, 2015
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A girl lounges on the bottom row of otherwise empty bleachers, cupping her tired head in her hand. She’s got perfectly manicured eyebrows and killer cat eyes. In other words, she’s a conventionally beautiful teen, one who seems to simultaneously value self-grooming and self-expression. Her slouchy jacket looks like it was snagged straight from the set of “Freaks and Geeks”; her bracelets look well-worn, and well-loved.
The scene is from a photo taken by teen photographer Remi Riordan, who shoots in the gritty, journalistic style that juxtaposes the loveliness of its subjects. It’s a style that’s been proliferated by young women photographers lately, including the girls collected together in “Babe,” an anthology curated by Petra Collins, stuffed full of glitter and goop. The crimson color of menstrual blood and the soft, pinkish hue of girly accessories are represented in equal measure.
The aesthetic is having a moment — one Dazed recently labeled “Tumblr feminism,” which sounds more dismissive than it should. The objective is to normalize girlishness and femininity, demanding that women be seen as equals regardless of whether they embody masculine ideas of success.
At the helm of the trend? Teens, of course. To support their artistic work, curator Brittany Natale organized “Teen Dream,” an exhibition showcasing painters, photographers, mixed-media artists and writers under the age of 21 — Riordan’s ethereal photos among them.
Natale says she was inspired by her mother and grandmother to curate the show. Both were aspiring artists whose careers were impeded by domestic responsibilities. Of her mother, Natale said, “I remember sitting on the kitchen table of our Queens apartment watching her watercolor or wood-burn after she got home from work or on the weekends […] I constantly was thinking what would have happened if the art world back then was more supportive and encouraging of young female artists starting at a young age? What would have happened if my grandmother and mother, and countless other women, didn’t have to deal with the incredibly heavy societal pressures on women to get married, have children, be complacent.”
The exhibition includes work by other photographers like Leemer Morse, who captures subjects posing unconventionally in domestic spaces, and Genevieve Nollinger, who stages shadowy, half-lit scenes with herself as the subject, cataloging her relationship with an eating disorder. By including these images in the show, Natale hopes to diffuse the stigmatization surrounding the topic.
Another artist, Alyson Z. Williams, uses her work to normalize aspects of feminity that are perceived of as icky at best, and deeply inappropriate at worst. In one painting, she depicts a pair of underwear hung on a doorknob, soaked in period blood. Williams said in her artist statement, “I have been trying to think of a less odd way to say this, but it’s just like ‘That red — that’s my red! And that’s me! And that’s my life!’”
Natale feels that Williams and other young women like her are better at expressing the feeling of what it’s like to be a young woman today, especially when the work projects confessional themes. While artists and photographers who aren’t young women have worked to illustrate the aesthetic, Natale believes the effect isn’t quite the same.
“I think that modern teen girls are uniquely capable of capturing the aesthetic of modern girlhood today, similar to how women who may have been teenagers in the ‘70s are uniquely capable of capturing the aesthetic of girlhood during that specific period,” Natale said. “I think each female that has gone through their teen years carries within them forever the experiences that they have collected during that time. Experiences are not totally fleeting, they are something that lives within us even long after they have happened, something that inevitably shapes our whole being.” Below is a sampling of artists featured in “Teen Dream”.
The French billionaire art collector François Pinault announced today (27 April) that he plans to open a new museum in the heart of Paris to show his collection and stage contemporary art shows. In a deal struck with the city, Pinault will take over the historical Bourse du Commerce (commodity stock exchange) building, which is close to the Louvre. The opening is scheduled for the end of 2018. Pinault, who announced the news with his son, François Henri Pinault, and the Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, said that he would cover the costs. François Henri Pinault, the chief executive of luxury group Kering, said that the family company Artemis will "continue to ensure the passionate dream" of his father.
A new entity will manage the Paris museum alongside its Venice spaces, the Palazzo Grassi and the Punta Della Dogana. As chairman, Pinault will be assisted by the former French culture minister Jean-Jacques Aillagon. Martin Béthenod, the current director of the Venice spaces, will now oversee the institutions in both cities.
Tadao Ando, the Japanese architect who has designed all of Pinault’s projects—along with two young French architects, Lucie Niney and Thibault Marca—will head the renovation of the building. They will work with the conservation architect Pierre-Antoine Gatier who will be in charge of protecting the historical monument.
Pinault has long wanted to open a space in Paris. In 2005, plans were abandoned for an Ando-designed museum in the outskirts of Paris frustrated by delays and with the local authorities. Today, the site on an island on the Seine is still a wasteland.
“I have long nurtured the dream of an international network, based in Europe, where works, projects, ideas and views could be exchanged. With this new site, my dream is on the way to becoming reality,” he says.
Pinault, 79, says that he made this choice with his children “in order to ensure continuity”. He said that he wishes that his descendants “continue the adventure” in 50 years’ time.
The city council has been in discussions with Pinault about the project for months. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry has agreed to transfer the ownership of the site to the city in exchange for another building. The former Bourse du Commerce will then be leased to the Pinault foundation for 50 years.
Although close to Les Halles, few Parisians have been inside this 40m-wide circular hall, surrounded by 24 arches and topped by a cupola almost as large as the Pantheon’s in Rome.
It was erected by Nicolas Le Camus de Mézières in the 18th century to store corn and flour, before being remodelled at the end of the 19th century to house the Commodity Stock Exchange.
Pinault’s museum should open at the same time as two palatial hotels in this central district, one in the former central post office, the other one built by LVMH-founder Bernard Arnault in the art deco Samaritaine department store. In 2014, Arnault opened the Frank Gehry-designed Fondation Louis Vuitton in the Bois de Boulogne.
Off the Beat and Into a Museum: Art Helps Police Officers Learn to Look
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New York City police officers sizing up Manet’s “Mademoiselle V. ... in the Costume of an Espada” (1862) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times
To teach people how to notice details they might otherwise miss, Amy E. Herman, an expert in visual perception, likes to take them to museums and get them to look at the art. Recently she escorted a group of New York City police officers to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and asked them to describe some of the things they saw.
They did their best. “This seems to be a painting of some males with horses,” one officer said of Rosa Bonheur’s mid-19th-century work “The Horse Fair,” a scene of semi-chaos as horses are driven to market. He tried to abide by Ms. Herman’s admonishment to avoid words like “obviously.” “It appears to be daytime, and the horses appear to be traveling from left to right.”
Another pair of officers tackled Picasso’s 1905 “At the Lapin Agile,” which depicts a wilted-looking couple sitting at a French bar after what might have been a long night out. “They appear to have had an altercation,” one observed. The other said, “The male and female look like they’re together, but the male looks like he’ll be sleeping on the couch.”
The officers asked that their names not be used because they were not authorized to speak to reporters. They said that they did not know much about art — their jobs allow little opportunity for recreational museumgoing — and Ms. Herman said she preferred it that way.
“I’ve had people say, ‘I hate art,’ and I say, ‘That’s not relevant,’” she said. “This is not a class about Pollock versus Picasso. I’m not teaching you about art today; I’m using art as a new set of data, to help you clear the slate and use the skills you use on the job. My goal when you walk out the door is that you’re thinking differently about the job.”
A painting has many functions. It’s a cultural artifact, an aesthetic object, an insight into a time and a place, a piece of commerce. To Ms. Herman, it’s also an invaluable repository of visual detail that can help shed light on, say, how to approach a murder scene. “It’s extremely evocative and perfect for critical inquiry,” she said in an interview. “What am I seeing here? How do I attach a narrative to it?”
Before unleashing the officers in the galleries, she talked to them in a classroom in the Met’s basement. She put up a slide of “Mrs. John Winthrop,” a 1773 portrait by John Singleton Copley. The painting, showing a woman sitting at a table holding little pieces of fruit, is considered a masterpiece of fine detail — the intricacy of the lace trim on the lady’s gown, the rich decorations on her hat. But there’s a detail that’s so obvious, or maybe so seemingly irrelevant, that most people fail to mention it in their description.
“Everyone sees that this is a woman with fruit, and 80 percent miss the mahogany table,” she said. (They also miss the woman’s reflection in the veneer.)
Ms. Herman also displayed a pair of slides featuring reclining nudes: Goya’s “The Nude Maja” (1797-1800) and Lucian Freud’s 1995 “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping,” who is very fat. Ms. Herman asked the group to compare the pictures. “Most cops, when I ask this question, say it shows someone before and after marriage,” she said.
Several officers raised their hands.
“Uh, the woman at the bottom is more generously proportioned,” one said.
“She is morbidly obese,” said another.
“Right!” Ms. Herman said. “Don’t make poor word choices. Think about every word in your communication.”
Ms. Herman, who has a new book out, “Visual Intelligence: Sharpen Your Perception, Change Your Life,” came to her vocation in a roundabout way. She worked first as a lawyer, did not like it, took a job in the development office at the Brooklyn Museum and then moved to the Frick Collection. Earning a master’s degree in art history at night at Hunter College, she eventually became head of the Frick’s education department.
There, inspired by a program in which Yale medical students studied works of art to better observe their patients, she helped devise a similar program for the Frick. Eventually she moved beyond medicine. She has been offering the courses full time as her own business since 2011; her clients include federal and local law enforcement agencies across the country, as well as medical students and business executives.
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Amy E. Herman, an expert in perception, guiding a group of New York City police officers in a class at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times
Steve Dye, chief of police at the Grand Prairie Police Department in Texas, brought in Ms. Herman recently to talk to a group of officers from the region. He said her presentation was invaluable in showing the officers how to better observe and document their findings accurately and free from bias.
“Some of the works of art she showed us, we wouldn’t notice the finer details,” he said. “And we’re supposed to be professional observers.”
When forced to deconstruct paintings in group settings, people from different professions tend to respond differently.
“The law enforcement community is much more forthcoming,” Ms. Herman said. “Cops will outtalk you every time. Doctors and medical students are much more inhibited. They don’t want to be wrong, and they never want to show that they are ignorant about anything.”
The New York Police Department is one of Ms. Herman’s most important clients. She tailors her presentations to her audiences, and they are on the regular training curriculum at the detective bureau and the training bureau at the Police Academy; other divisions use her services from time to time. In general, her program is voluntary rather than mandatory.
“Amy reminds officers to explore outside the box,” said Police Officer Heather Totoro, who added that the program helped officers in training because of its “uniqueness and power.”
“She taps into officers’ unique sixth sense, teaching them to tell her what they see, not what they think.”
Law enforcement officials tend to view the works through the lens of the job: Who has done what to whom? Where is the perp?
“Sometimes they’ll say, ‘We have an E.D.P. here’ — an emotionally disturbed person,” Ms. Herman said. Once she showed some officers El Greco’s “The Purification of the Temple,” which depicts Jesus expelling the traders and money-changers amid turmoil and mayhem.
“One cop said, ‘I’d collar the guy in pink’” — that would be Jesus — ‘“because it’s clear that he’s causing all the trouble.’”
Among the works she finds most interesting as a learning tool is Vermeer’s exquisitely ambiguous “Mistress and Maid,” a 1666-7 portrait of a lady seated at a table, handing over (or being handed) a mysterious piece of paper. “There are so many different narratives,” she said. “The analysts come away asking more questions than answers — ‘Who’s asking the question? Who’s doing the talking? Who’s listening?’ The cops will say, ‘It’s a servant asking for the day off.’”
She also likes “House of Fire,” a 1981 painting by James Rosenquist that has three absurdist parts: an upside-down bag of groceries, a bucket under a window shade, and a group of aggressively thrusting lipsticks. “It’s really conducive to good dialogue,” she said. “How many times do officers have to make order out of chaos? So many times in our work we come across things that don’t have a coherent narrative.”
The officers in the class seemed impressed, both by Ms. Herman and by their grand surroundings.
One officer said that she had learned “how to sit down with colleagues and deal with the fact that you can perceive things so differently from each other.” It was her first trip to the Met, or indeed to any art museum.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” she said. “It’s very Thomas Crown-ish, isn’t it?”
Artists and collectors 
Manhattan billionaire Wilma Tisch 
