Wet Paint: Art World’s Favorite Restaurant Shut Amid Vermin Infestation, Jerry Saltz Dragged On Instagram, & More Juicy Art-World Gossip

Every Thursday afternoon, Artnet 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 nfreeman@artnet.com.

BOTTINO BUST

There are many legendary art haunts in New York, but none loom
larger than Bottino, the Italian restaurant that’s
been feeding Chelsea’s art stars for more than 20 years. It is, and
has been called many times, the “Cheers of the art world,”
perennially packed with wine-drunk power lunchers during the day
and the martini-swilling collecterati by night. It is so frequently
chosen as a post-opening dinner spot that it’s become almost a
tired cliche. “If your gallery dinner is at Bottino your dealer
secretly hates you and is trying to figure out how to drop you from
the program,” one insider wrote on Twitter late last year. But even
if it’s a little tired, it’s still a standby for pre-opening drinks
and snacks, and its place in the gallery-verse firmament is
secure—not only was Matthew
Marks an angel investor, the space was discovered by
Barbara Gladstone. It was previously a hardware
store run by Irish gun-runners to the IRA.

And so, in the midst of perhaps the busiest art week in New York
City, gallery-hoppers strolling Tenth Avenue were stunned to see
the doors shut on Wednesday—the opening day of the
Armory Show. “NOTICE:” read a sign affixed to the
door. “Closed by order of the commissioner of health and mental
hygiene.” On Thursday, a source within the health department told
Wet Paint that there was “sufficient evidence of vermin present to
warrant classification as an infestation.” And as word spread about
the closure, several dealers said they stopped making Bottino their
go-to lunch option after several had problems with food poisoning.
This could be an ignoble end to the restaurant, which just resigned
its lease last year—even a brief closure is often enough to cripple
a restaurant into closing for good. Calls to the restaurant
Thursday during peak lunch hours were not answered, messages were
not returned, and the owner, Danny Emerman, did
not respond to an inquiry.

SALTY ON SALTZ

Jerry Saltz, the New York magazine art
critic, has gained notoriety and fame due to his surprise
Pulitzer Prize win, his role on
Bravo’s Work Of Art, and his social media
following—he’s got 392,000 followers on Instagram
and 519,000 on Twitter. But he’s also made some
enemies over the years, tangling with the critic brigade on Twitter
and getting himself booted from Facebook in 2010
for posting offensive images. In 2018, he apologized for posting an
image implying that Sean Hannity and
Donald Trump were engaging in intercourse after
some found it homophobic. And now he seems to have riled up a few
more. After an artist posted on Instagram a picture of Saltz in a
gallery in front of a painting of a penis with the tag “two dicks,”
followers responded with tales of Saltz, which the artist promptly
added to his feed. One said “Can confirm, said he’d ‘write me a
letter of recommendation’ if I let him into the Deutsche
Bank wealth management lounge at Frieze.”
Another said this: “ya I’m sure u have stories lolz i unfollowed
years ago when he DM’d me starting w ‘hey doll’ re: the woman’s
march.” Saltz declined to comment.

MEET YOUR MEME-MAKER

Once a tightly held secret, it’s been pretty common knowledge
since June that the person behind the
astoundingly popular art-meme account
@JerryGagosian is Hilde Lynn
Helphenstein, the Los Angeles art dealer who ran the
now-closed HILDE gallery in South Los Angeles.
Over the summer, she was outed by the muckraking Instagram account
@itstimetostopnow, and Artnet’s Kenny
Schachter disclosed last week that she was trying to get
him to put work by Steve Hash (an artist perhaps
better known as Ally Hilfiger’s husband) in his
booth at the Felix Art Fair at the Hollywood Roosevelt in LA. And
now, Helphenstein is shedding the mask completely as she makes a
grand debut on the New York circuit during Armory
Week. She’s been spotted throughout the fairs and
openings, and Thursday, she’s hosting a soiree at swank macaron
house Ladurée in Soho, making her mark on the
scene. Finally, the people have the chance to meet the woman behind
the meme.

BREAKING: GALA FUN

Anyone who’s been to an art-world gala knows that they can be
pretty dry affairs. It’s hard to get good catered food, you’re
seated next to a total snooze, and worst of all, the speeches go on
forever. Do we really need someone to introduce the introducers?
How long is this video montage gonna be? And so on. And that’s why
it was so refreshing that the Bronx Museum 2020
Visionary Duos Gala kicked off with a decidedly bumping DJ set in
which Daddy Yankee’s Donde Mi No Vengas
blasted through the grand ballroom at Capitale.
Master of Ceremonies Larry Ossei-Mensah asked that
everyone “Drink. A lot.” Even the speeches were pretty great,
especially when Bronx Borough president Rubén Díaz
Jr spit a few bars off the dome. Let’s see Bill de
Blasio do that! And then, Desus and Mero,
stars of their Showtime talk show, got up to talk
about how going to the Bronx Museum as kids helped inspire them to
be the wacko-genius comedians they are today. As the Bodega
Boys would say it: That same energy.

POP QUIZ

Congratulations to last week’s Pop Quiz winner: art advisor
Meredith Darrow, the founder and owner of
Darrow Contemporary! She successfully identified
the work pictured as Willem de Kooning’s
Standing Figure, as seen on the lawn of collector’s
Maja Hoffmann’s home in Zurich,
which was designed by Marcel Breuer. Pop Quiz will
return next week.

WE HEAR…

Bob Gober is angry at the MoMA
after a picture was sent to him showing his iconic Untitled
Leg (1989–90) disconnected from the wall … Andy
Hall acquired Tracey Emin’s giant
sculpture I lay here for you (2018) and is installing
it in Schloss Derneburg, the castle in Germany he
bought from Georg Baselitz … Jeff
Koons made a very unexpected cameo as a face in the crowd
during “Well Groomed,” the HBO documentary about the world’s
biggest dog-grooming festival that takes place in Hershey,
Pennsylvania … Shepherd Fairey endorsed
Pete Buttgeig—the day before he dropped out of the
presidential race …

SPOTTED

Bella Hadid at Independent,
checking out works by Nick Doyle at the
Reyes Finn booth, all of which sold for $10,000 to
$18,000 *** The banana man himself Maurizio
Cattelan at Independent rocking a shirt that just says
“GERMS” *** Gagosian senior staffer Derek
Blasberg rocking a short that just says BLASBERG in the
Bernie Sanders font *** Sterling
Ruby studio manager Tyler Britt being
feted on his leap day birthday at Monkey Bar ***
artists Jamian Juliano-Villani, Borna Samman, Sam
McKinnis, and Korakrit Arunanondchai at
Honeys in Bushwick to celebrate
Sebastian Black’s opening at Clearing and
Liu Susiraja’s opening at
Ramiken at a party hosted by Clearing’s
Olivier Babin and Ramiken’s Mike
Egan ***

PARTING SHOT

The post Wet Paint: Art World’s Favorite Restaurant Shut
Amid Vermin Infestation, Jerry Saltz Dragged On Instagram, & More
Juicy Art-World Gossip appeared first on artnet
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