heist

How the New Heist Movie ‘Inside’ Turns Art Into a Thief’s Worst Enemy


Welcome to the Art Angle, a podcast from Midnight Publishing Group News that delves into the places where the art world meets the real world, bringing each week’s biggest story down to earth. Join us every week for an in-depth look at what matters most in museums, the art market, and much more, with input from our own writers and editors, as well as artists, curators, and other top experts in the field.

In a new feature film called Inside, an art heist goes terribly wrong for a thief named Nemo.

Nemo is played by the world-renowned actor Willem DaFoe, well-loved by the art world already for his performance in the 2018 film At Eternity’s Gate, where he played Vincent van Gogh.

In the ultra-contemporary plot of Inside, Dafoe’s character Nemo is not a world famous artist, he is a rather anonymous robber whos after a self-portrait by Egon Schiele. The artwork is not where it is supposed to be inside the ultra-modern penthouse he’s just broken into. Carefully laid plans seem to be going awry. Precious minutes are lost. Then, the alarm system locks down, leaving Nemo sealed off from the world while in the center of Manhattan. If you haven’t seen Inside yet, be advised that there are spoilers scattered throughout this episode.

So, Nemo is now stuck in a resplendent box of glass, steel, and concrete, with little more than some exotic fish, luxury furniture, and a multimillion dollar art collection. On-screen alone for practically the entire film, DaFoe’s character begins to battle against the degradation of his body and spirit—to deal with the latter, the artworks in the apartment become something like a central character, as does Nemo’s own blossoming creativity.

The artworks in the apartment, which were carefully curated, drive the plot and deepen the themes. There is a 1999 work by Maurizio Cattelan, a large photograph of a man taped to the wall with tons of duct tape, sarcastically titled A Perfect Day. There is also David Horvitz’s 2019 neon that hangs over the character’s struggle, with a sort of torturous prescience: it says “All the time that will come after this moment.” To build out the idea of a real art collection, there are more emerging stars. Kosovan artists Petrit Halilaj and Shkurte Halilaj’s work for the 2017 Venice Biennale is worn by Nemo when the penthouse’s temperature drops. And a video work by Julian Charrière and Julius von Bismarck from 2016, which was filmed at the exclusion zone surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, is among the artworks in the film that conjure questions around humanity, planetary survival, and climate crisis—which is an undercurrent theme of the movie.

On this week’s episode, European editor Kate Brown speaks to the film’s director Vasilis Katsoupis and art curator Leonardo Bigazzi about this captivating and claustrophobic feature, which had its world premiere at the Berlinale film festival last month and is about to hit theaters in the United States.

 

Listen to more episodes:

The Art Angle Podcast: The Triumphant, Tragic Life of Nazi-Era Artist Charlotte Salomon

The Art Angle Podcast: Hito Steyerl on Why the Metaverse Has Already Failed

The Art Angle Presents: How Three Artists Envision What a Goddess Means Today

The Art Angle Podcast: Hilma af Klint Pioneered Abstract Art. But That Is Only Part of Her Story

The Art Angle Podcast: What Is Afrofuturism, and Why Is It So Relevant Today?

The Art Angle Podcast: Marc Spiegler on the Evolution of the Art Business (and Life After Art Basel)

The Art Angle Podcast: Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova on Art, Activism, and Vladimir Putin

The Art Angle Podcast: What Can the Art World Learn From an Occult Practitioner?

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Three Members of an Infamous German Crime Family Have Confessed to Participating in the Green Vault Heist


Three members of a prominent German crime syndicate have admitted to playing parts in the historic Green Vault heist.

The confessions came in a regional court in Dresden, where six suspects are on trial for their alleged participation in the night-time theft of $123 million worth of jewels from the city’s Grünes Gewölbe—or Green Vault—museum in 2019.

As part of sentencing deal, one of the defendants, Rabieh Remmo, admitted in a statement that he and an unnamed accomplice broke into the institution in the early hours of November 25, 2019, according to the Associated French Press. 

“My contribution to the crime was larger than I first said,” Remmo said, alluding to a partial confession he gave last year. “I was, myself, in the rooms of the Green Vault.”

Inside, Remmo and his partner used an ax to smash a vitrine holding numerous prized jewels, many of which date back to the late 1700s and were once owned by Saxony’s 18th-century ruler, Augustus the Strong, who founded the museum.

The thieves stashed the jewels in a sack, then used a fire extinguisher to erase traces of their DNA at the scene. Remmo and his co-conspirator fled the scene with other accomplices, burned their getaway car in a parking garage, then drove to Berlin in a vehicle disguised as a taxi.

Defendants sit next to their lawyers at the Higher Regional Court in Dresden, eastern Germany on January 10, 2023, prior to a hearing in the trial over a jewelry heist at the Green Vault museum in Dresden’s Royal Palace. Photo: Jens Schlueter/Pool/AFP via Getty Images.

Authorities in Germany announced last month that they retrieved 31 items stolen in the Green Vault heist after being pointed to their location as part of a deal with the suspect on trial. Other historically significant objects stolen in 2019—including the 49-carat Dresden White Diamond—remain missing. 

“I didn’t keep the loot. I didn’t have access to it,” Remmo said in court. “I don’t know what happened to it. I did all I could to ensure that what was left came back to Dresden.”

Two other suspects on trial, Wissam and Mohamed Remmo, also confessed to aiding the robbery. In statements read by their respective attorneys, the men explained that they didn’t enter the museum but instead waited outside as lookouts. 

A fourth defendant is expected to present a statement of his own in court this week, as part of a sentencing deal. Another suspect rejected the deal, while a sixth and final suspect on trial claims he did not participate in the theft. 

The defendants, all members of the extended Remmo crime family, have been on trial since January 2022. They face charges related to aggravated gang theft and serious arson, according to Dresden’s public prosecutor’s office.

Last week, the court recommended jail sentences that ranged in time from four years and nine months to six years and nine months. Hearings will continue later this week.

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An Explosive Netflix Documentary About the $500 Million Isabella Stewart Gardner Heist Names the Gangsters Who May Have Done It


“This was a solvable crime,” Colin Barnicle, director of the new Netflix documentary series This Is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist, told Midnight Publishing Group News.

But more than three decades after the most expensive art theft in U.S. history, Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s stolen paintings are still missing, with their empty frames hanging on the walls of the Venetian-style palazzo.

Gone since the theft are $500 million worth of masterpieces by the likes of Rembrandt van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer, Edgar Degas, and Édouard Manet.

Along with his brother Nick, an executive producer on the project, Barnicle spent seven years investigating the infamous break-in, which has inspired everything from podcasts to books—both fiction and nonfiction—to an augmented reality art project.

“It took a long time,” he said. “We vetted every single theory, from the insane ones to the more probable ones, to find what we thought was the truest version of the event.”

Art thief Myles Connor, who was in jail at the time of the Isabelle Stewart Gardner heist, in <em>This is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist</em>. Courtesy of Netflix ©2021.

Art thief Myles Connor, who was in jail at the time of the Isabelle Stewart Gardner heist, in This is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist. Courtesy of Netflix ©2021.

Frustratingly, that “truest version” doesn’t offer the ending we all want to see: the paintings safely home at the museum.

But This Is a Robbery remains a satisfying entry in the ever-popular true crime genre, especially for those Gardner obsessives who have devoured every possible clue as to the paintings’ fate over the past 30-plus years.

The four-part series includes never-before-seen crime-scene photographs, and the first published photograph of Bobby Guarente, one of several Boston-area organized crime figures suspected of orchestrating the crime.

A crime scene photograph from the Isabelle Stewart Gardner heist, in <em>This is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist</em>. Courtesy of Netflix ©2021.

A crime scene photograph from the Isabelle Stewart Gardner heist, in This is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist. Courtesy of Netflix ©2021.

“Not even the FBI had one,” Barnicle said. “We got it through a family member who was very happy to help out, but had actually never heard that her loved one was linked to the Gardner museum robbery.”

“It just goes to show that these [artworks] could be in the home of one of the suspects and nobody would know about it,” he added. “I really think that the smaller works do have a very good chance of still being around, even just on someone’s wall.”

Barnicle is less optimistic about the fate of the museum’s most famous, instantly recognizable paintings—Rembrandt’s only seascape, The Storm in the Sea of Galilee, and Vermeer’s The Concert.

Cut from their frames, the paintings were likely rolled up by the thieves, almost certainly damaging fragile centuries-old paint. And it is difficult to imagine the canvases being stored under optimal conservation conditions in the years since.

Rembrandt, Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1633). Courtesy Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Rembrandt van Rijn, Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1633). Courtesy Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

“We heard at one point they were in a basement and they got flooded and ruined,” Barnicle said. “I don’t hold out much hope for the larger ones, honestly.”

But after sifting through all the clues and theories, Barnicle does believe he has identified the men who were likely responsible for the robbery.

Despite rumors that the paintings are in Ireland, Barnicle rejects theories involving the IRA.

“They wouldn’t have wanted the art,” he said. “They were working on a peace treaty. The U.S. was privy to those talks, and it would have been a real bad move.”

Anne Hawley, then director of Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. at the time of the heist, in This is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist. Courtesy of Netflix ©2021.

Anne Hawley, then director of Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum at the time of the heist, in This is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist. Courtesy of Netflix ©2021.

Instead, the documentary points the finger at Boston crime boss Carmello Merlino, thought to have orchestrated the heist on behalf of Guarente and Bobby Donati.

One of the two fake cops who broke into the museum that morning—uttering the series’ title line, “this is a robbery”—was almost certainly George Reissfelder, according to the film.

The other, Barnicle said, was probably one of several associates named in the documentary: David Turner, Charlie Pappas, or Lenny DiMuzio. (Turner is still living, but the FBI said in 2013 that it knew who the robbers were, and that both men were dead.)

Persons of interest in the Isabelle Stewart Gardner heist, as seen in <em>This is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist</em>. Courtesy of Netflix ©2021.

Persons of interest in the Isabelle Stewart Gardner heist, as seen in This is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist. Courtesy of Netflix ©2021.

But definitively identifying the thieves doesn’t bring back the paintings—and most of the men linked to the crime have been dead for years, if not decades.

Sadly, the trail seems to run cold with Bobby Gentile, who is suspected of having come into possession of the works before his close friend Guarente died of cancer. But an FBI search of his property came up empty—aside from a handwritten list of the paintings and their black market value—and Gentile has continued to deny knowledge of their whereabouts, even on his apparent death bed.

Other possible sightings of the paintings, including one linked to noted art thief Myles Conner—who carried out another art heist with Donati and is interviewed in the series—are dismissed as red herrings.

Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in This is a Robbery: The World's Biggest Art Heist. Courtesy of Netflix ©2021.

Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in This is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist. Courtesy of Netflix ©2021.

Despite a hefty $10 million reward for information leading to the works’ return up for grabs, no one has come forward to claim it.

“I’m pretty sure those who have knowledge of the crime or some of the art are weighing the possibility of $10 million and, you know, 10 years in jail,” Barnicle said.

The filmmaker hopes that may change thanks to the publicity that comes with a high-profile Netflix series.

“Like the series, don’t like the series,” Barnicle said, “it’s the biggest wanted poster you could hope for for these pieces of art.”

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An Amateur Anthropologist Found a 17th-Century Coin That May Solve the Mystery of an Infamous Pirate Heist


A small trove of 17th-century Arabian coins has been unearthed in various locations across New England. They may help solve a centuries-old mystery surrounding a heinous ocean heist and the nefarious band of pirates who perpetrated it.   

Jim Bailey, an amateur anthropologist and metal detectorist, discovered the first coin at a Middletown, Rhode Island fruit farm back in 2014. Research later proved that the coin was minted 1693 in Yemen, making it the oldest object of its kind ever discovered in North America, according to the Associated Press. Its presence was a major surprise, since evidence shows that American colonists didn’t travel to the Middle East until decades later.  

Since 2014, some 15 Arabian coins have been discovered around the northeastern United States. And Bailey has developed a novel theory as to how they ended up there. 

Writing in the Journal of the American Numismatic Society, the anthropologist posits that the seamen arrived with Captain Henry Every, an English pirate who ransacked a royal ship carrying Muslim pilgrims from Mecca back to their home to India. Every then fled to the American colonies, Bailey suggests, where the pirate took on a new role as a slave trader—and may have even introduced the first enslaved peoples to Rhode Island.

Every and his crew tortured and killed those aboard the ship, called the Ganj-i-Sawai, before making off with a huge load of gold and silver that belonged to the Indian emperor Aurangzeb. After the incident, King William III of England offered up a major bounty on the crew—launching what is widely considered to be the first international manhunt. 

But by then, the pirates had disappeared—or so we thought. Researchers have now dug up old records showing that a ship called the Sea Flower, believed to have been operated by Every’s men, arrived in Newport, Rhode Island in 1696 with four slaves. 

It’s believed Every and his crew abandoned their previous ship for the sea flower after the robbery. They sailed down to the Bahamas to acquire slaves before heading back up north.

“There’s extensive primary source documentation to show the American colonies were bases of operation for pirates,” Bailey told the AP.

“It seems like some of his crew were able to settle in New England and integrate,” Sarah Sportman, state archaeologist for Connecticut, added. “It was almost like a money-laundering scheme.”

Experts are in the midst of examining the coins and researching their histories. But so far, evidence suggests that Bailey’s theory is correct. Indeed, an amateur with a metal detector may have solved one of the world’s most famous mysteries.

“For me, it’s always been about the thrill of the hunt, not about the money,” he said. “The only thing better than finding these objects is the long-lost stories behind them.”

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Embattled Dealer Accused of Brazen Heist, Frieze NY to Open for Vaccinated Fairgoers, & More Juicy Art World Gossip


Every week, Midnight Publishing Group News brings you Wet Paint, a gossip column of original scoops reported and written by Nate Freeman. If you have a tip, email Nate at [email protected]

 

BUSINESS NOT BOOMING

The pandemic year in America has not been especially kind to Robert Blumenthal. Last March, the collector-turned-dealer entered into a legal entanglement with Derek Fordjour, claiming that the in-demand artist—who just last month solidified his blue-chip status by joining David Kordansky Gallery out West in addition to his New York reps, Petzel—owed him $1.45 million after a 2014 deal in which Blumenthal paid $20,000 for 20 works fell apart. Perhaps the then-young artist was grateful for the funds at the time, but those $1,000 Fordjour paintings now go for $250,000, and Blumenthal said he only received 13 of the 20. So, apparently, Fordjour owed him seven more—at 2020 rates.

But in July, Blumenthal’s attorney exited the case, claiming he hadn’t been paid. The status of the case is now unclear. But Blumenthal’s got even bigger problems: A former partner is accusing him of stealing artworks. Blumenthal, on the other hand, claims he was simply taking what was rightfully his.

Robert Blumenthal. Photo: Patrick McMullan.

Robert Blumenthal. Photo: Patrick McMullan.

In a video sent to Wet Paint, the dealer Ford Phillips—who founded East Projects with Blumenthal in late 2019, but no longer works with him—can be seen entering his apartment on March 1 for what he says is the first time since November. “Robert Blumenthal has been here trying to steal artwork,” Phillips says in the video. “All the lights are on—typical. The place is a fucking mess.”

In another image given to Wet Paint, police can be seen in the apartment filing a report.

Phillips’s lawyer confirmed that his client had contacted the Art Loss Register and “the appropriate authorities… to resolve the issue.” (“The unfortunate reality is my client did work on various projects with Robert Blumenthal,” the lawyer said. “However, Robert never had a formal interest in my client’s business.”)

The police investigating the alleged theft. Photo courtesy a tipster.

Sources said Phillips was missing work by artists including the hotly in-demand Ivy Haldeman—who makes pastel-washed surrealist scenes that often feature hot dogs come to life—and others who had been featured in the last solo show at East Projects, which was curated by the London-based advisor Bjorn Stern.

Another artist whose work is said to be at large is Godwin Champs Namuyimba, the Ugandan artist who has seen his market rise over the pandemic. Three works in the last six months have doubled their high estimates at auction, selling for mid-five figures and gaining momentum.

Blumenthal, for his part, says he merely claimed what belongs to him. “This is simply a shakedown by someone who is financially desperate and trying to take what isn’t his,” he told Wet Paint. “I took the work to protect my financial interest as Ford was threatening to sell the paintings and keep the money.” He shared an email that appears to confirm his purchase of a work by Haldeman, which he says is now in “the townhouse Ford and I shared together.”

Meanwhile, he is unhappy with the way his estranged business partners have handled the work of Champs Namuyimba, who Blumenthal says is being included in the next Venice Biennale. After the trio planned to buy 25 works by the artist jointly, Phillips and Stern began “putting [them] directly at auction which is not the way I would go about building an artist career,” he said. “I hope we can resolve this, but I am not going to just let people steal from me.”

A billboard by Sayre Gomez, presented by Robert Blumenthal Gallery in 2017. Photo courtesy Robert Blumenthal Gallery.

The East Projects website no longer lists Blumenthal as a partner, and his own gallery on the Bowery, simply called Blumenthal, has not had a show since 2018. Sources say, however, that there is an intriguing development in his personal life. After a divorce that landed him some unflattering coverage in Page Six, Blumenthal is newly engaged to Olivia Wheat, stepdaughter for former Credit Suisse chairman and CEO Allen Wheat.

Mazel tov to the happy couple! Let’s hope all this mishigas gets sorted out before the wedding.

 

FRIEZE THAWS FROZEN PLANS FOR NEW YORK FAIR

The Shed in Hudson Yards. (C. Taylor Crothers/Getty Images)

Here’s a fun parlor game to play with dealers while dining outside as temperatures creep up: What will the actual first art fair be in the After Times? Many have their money on Art Basel in Switzerland, now delayed to September, and lack of rooms at the Drei Könige indicates a certain amount of confidence that there will be, um, something on the Messeplatz come fall. But flights are not booked, and Wet Paint hears that one prominent gallery owner is telling staff that a trip to the Rhine come fall is not exactly likely. If the last year taught us anything, trying to predict stuff like this so many months out is pretty worthless. (An Art Basel rep says the fair is still scheduled for September.)

But perhaps the plan for springtime has finally become clear—at least stateside. Europe has been in and out of lockdown since last fall, but New York’s numbers have been looking pretty dang promising since the start of 2021, knock on wood. Which is why, despite rumblings of its demise, Frieze New York is indeed going ahead with plans for its scaled-back fair, travel restrictions and general logistical headaches be damned.

In a letter to exhibitors obtained by Wet Paint, the fair says it plans to hold its mini expo at The Shed, the art center at Hudson Yards, and claims it has the pledged support of “all relevant authorities, medical consultants, collectors, and our participating galleries.”

Frieze will not look like this in May. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Getting in won’t be a cakewalk. All exhibitors, staff, and attendees need a negative PCR test—that’s a PCR test, not a rapid test—before they can enter, which means full quarantine in the days while you wait for the results. That, or proof of vaccination. Once you jump that hurdle, you’ll enter a facility geeked-out with an extra fancy ventilation system, a large space that will be sparsely populated at all times due to the timed ticketing system. Naturally, masks are required. Daily health checks will monitor the temperature of staff, exhibitors, and attendees.

And just to be extra careful, Frieze has established a “medical advisory team” that will oversee “an app to manage daily declarations, appointments for testing, private records of test results and/or proof of vaccination, as well as details for contact tracing.” Sounds like a party!

Frieze declined to comment beyond the email.

 

POP QUIZ

Excellent work on last week’s quiz, dear readers. So many of you knew that the work was Black Monolith, for Okwui Enwezor (Charlottesville) (2017–20) by Julie Mehretu, which is currently on view at the New Museum in its fantastic show, “Grief and Grievance: Art & Mourning in America,” conceived of by Enwezor before his death. Thankfully, it’s up until June—fingers crossed that some vaccinated non-New Yorkers can swing through town in the next few months to see it.

But identifying the owners proved a little trickier. The Mehretu is owned by Henry Kravis, the billionaire founder of investment firm KKR & Co., and his wife, the philanthropist Marie-Josée Kravis. (The wall text at the New Museum doesn’t mention that Henry Kravis was a prominent Trump donor who was once in the running to be secretary of the Treasury, though in November, Kravis did urge Trump to accept the results of the election and begin the transition, so, I don’t know, all is forgiven? Is that how this works?)

Henry Kravis and his wife Marie-Josee Kravis arrive at the White House for a state dinner April 24, 2018. (Photo by Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images)

We had more than 10 correct responses, so here’s the first batch that landed in the inbox with a fully correct answer: Brussels-based curator Louis-Philippe Van Eeckhoutte; collector and patron Scott Lorinsky; Dan Desmond, executive director of the Blue Rider Group at Morgan Stanley; Pace Gallery’s Danielle Forest; Cyprien David, exhibition coordinator at Gagosian, Geneva; Los Angeles dealer Harmony Murphy; Kelly Long, curatorial assistant at the Whitney; Darrow Contemporary founder Meredith Darrow; self-described “Wet Paint fan” Cullen McAndrews; and the art historian and critic Phyllis Tuchman.

A hearty congrats to all!

Here’s this week’s clue: Name the artwork and its owner!

Winners will get hats—the next batch is coming in very soon… so send your guesses to [email protected]!

 

WE HEAR…

A work by Issy Wood set to be auctioned on Fair Warning. Photo courtesy Instagram.

Loïc Gouzer’s Fair Warning will be offering a dazzling work by the master Issy Wood Sunday, and it’s expected to go for big, as Wood’s work is impossible to get—even if you are world-famous art podcaster Russell Tovey!—and has never before appeared at auction … Longtime Bowery stalwart The Hole is branching out to a second location, right in the heart of the new gallery mecca in Tribeca … Rapper Ja Rule is doing NFTs now—look, this gimmick is already entering its Fyre Festival era, do we still have to pretend to care? … Ramiken founder Mike Egan is taking off his art dealer hat and putting his artist hat back on with a solo show at Meredith Rosen Gallery inspired by that eternal muse, Lana Del Rey … I feel like we’ve written this a few times but now Indochine is actually reopening March 30 … Josh Kushner and Karlie Kloss have brought another grandchild of former jailbird Charlie Kushner into this world … Greek shipping heirs Theo Niarchos and Eugenie Niarchos have opened a new gallery in Los Angeles with a show or works by Max Ernst …

A detail of Tony Matelli’s Caesar, set to be shown in Mexico in April. Photo courtesy Winter Street Gallery.

… Winter Street Gallery, the Martha’s Vineyard space founded by dealers George Newall and Ingrid Lundgren, will be popping up in Mexico City—there’s a lot going on in Mexico City in April, people—with an outdoor sculpture show featuring Carl D’Alvia, Al Freeman, Tony Matelli, Kayode Ojo, presented alongside Galería Hilario Galguera, and the grand opening is April 27 … Beloved East Village art dive Sophie’s, a place very close to your scribe’s heart, reopens today, along with its sister bar Josie’s, and we will see all you vaccinated folks at the pool table, get ready to lose … There may not be art fairs quite yet, but all the collectors down in Palm Beach can attend the billionaire-stuffed island’s International Boat Show, which, according to a release, is very much happening at the end of March very much in person, as there ain’t no online viewing room that can replace the smack of sea breeze taken in deckside …

 

SPOTTED

Good morning New York let’s get those non-fungible tokens! Photo courtesy Instagram.

*** Sotheby’s CEO Charlie Stewart, who was last seen drinking a fancy bottle of red with Kevin Love, on his businessman tip—this week on the Instagram stories, Charlie made sure to post proof that he got to the office early *** A large swath of the downtown set descending upon the Bushwick-based Pegasus Prints for a group show arranged under the auspices of Lucien Smith’s non-profit Serving The People *** Anton Kern director Brigitte Mulholland celebrating artist Hein Koh’s carrot-themed paintings at the gallery’s Tribeca window with, um, carrot cake, what else *** King Of All Media Chris Black taking a break from pumping out episodes of How Long Gone (which he hosts with Jason Stewart) to shoot pre-grammy pictures of Phoebe Bridgers wearing custom Thom Browne in a Los Angeles backyard ***

Phoebe Bridgers in Thom Browne. Photo by Chris Black.

*** A number of artists and writers celebrating the one-year anniversary of Dr. Clark, which had the distinction of opening on exactly the day the city’s restaurants shut down ***  The new LA set at Gigi’s, a Hollywood spot that on-the-town west coast tipsters tell us has attracted a continuous flow of models, artists and musicians, and everybody’s smoking constantly, which is great *** Artists Lily Gavin and Barry Keoghan screening films at the Gucci Bookstore on Wooster Street in Soho *** Bella Hadid hanging out by the big KAWS thing outside the Seagram Building *** Speaking, if anyone could put Lil Baby in touch with Per Skarstedt—Lil Baby, ladies and gentlemen, would like to buy some KAWS ***

 

PARTING SHOT

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