Wet Paint: Art Advisor Philippe Ségalot Wants You to Meet His Baby Horse, Spencer Tunick Has a Risqué Zoom Scheme, & More 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.

EQUINE ADVISER

What fun skills have you learned
during quarantine? Maybe you’ve mastered the art of making a french
omelet? Memorized some new poems? Or
maybe you’ve pivoted from selling paintings to billionaires and to
personally delivering horse babies on a farm? It appears that art
advisor Philippe Ségalot has made such an
unorthodox switch. The man who once snuck into Art
Basel days early after enlisting a
Hollywood makeup artist to disguise him into a
balding exhibitor has now gone full-on farmhand in rural Normandy,
France. Last week, he posted a picture of a newborn filly that he
evidently midwifed from a mother horse. “The Magic of Life,” he
captioned it. How does one go back to sneaking into art fairs after
something like that!

STILL DOIN’ IT NUDE

One artist whose practice has
been undoubtedly disrupted by the age of hyper-cleanliness and
social distancing is Spencer Tunick. The American
photographer’s entire output consists of gathering large numbers of
people together to stand completely naked for mass photo shoots.
Sometimes, they would even stand close enough to touch each other
or—gasp—shake hands! Certainly, Tunick won’t be able to
get away with that ever again—or at least, not for a very long
time. But he’s pretty quickly found a way to keep on making art
involving a lot of people in their birthday suits (without having
to worry about that pesky Instagram
censorship). He’s calling the project “Stay Apart
Together,” and he’s asking people in isolation to all come
on video chat at the same time, making the same pose. When shown as
a grid, it creates the illusion that the people are together and,
voilà, it’s a Spencer Tunick for the COVID era. One small
difference: They’re naked apart from their
masks. 

FALL FROM TASTE

Ana Mendieta
didn’t get enough acclaim as an artist during her lifetime—which,
of course, was cut short in 1985 by a fall from the high-rise
apartment she shared with her partner, the minimalist sculptor
Carl Andre. (The artist was acquitted of murder
charges in 1988 when a judge said guilt was not proven beyond a
reasonable doubt.) But in the years after her tragic death, her
work has been shown prominently at Galerie Lelong
in New York, the Brooklyn Museum, and in the new
rehang of the Museum of Modern
Art. 

And yet there are some artists
and scholars who don’t exactly see her work in the same way—a
reality that was on full display during a frank discussion in
Facebook comments last week. The critic and professor Lane
Relyea took to his profile to update followers about how
he’s adapting to teaching remotely. Explaining that he was teaching
“Art Since 1960” over Zoom, Relyea joked about how
he would start the lecture: “Okay class today is about minimalism,
boxes in different industrial materials, you might need an extra
cup of coffee for this one…” Fellow professor Martin
Patrick commented below, saying that he has trouble
teaching minimalism mostly because of what he called “the
Andre/Mendieta question.” And that’s when Jorge
Pardo, the MacArthur Genius
Grant-winning artist repped by Friedrich
Petzel in New York and Victoria Miro in
London, chimed in. “most generative work mendieta
ever did was getting herself thrown out the window….” Pardo
said. 

Careful before you post during quarantine, folks—Wet
Paint is spending a lot of time online.

POP QUIZ

Let’s cut to the chase here. The
pint-size artist in the
picture I posted last week was none other than Cady
Noland, an artist who was social distancing long before it
was cool. I thought the fence and the cowboy hat might have
made it too easy, but just five loyal readers got it right. Because
it’s such a small number, we’ll name everyone: University of
Minnesota professor Gregory Smith; Hassla
Books founder David Schoerner; gallery owner
Jeffrey Deitch; dealer Neal
Meltzer; and Luhring Augustine co-founder
Lawrence Luhring. Congrats to the
winners!

Here’s this week’s quiz. Who is
the rock legend in the photo, and what is the artwork in the upper
left corner? 

Usual rules apply this time—just
the first respondent wins. So get it in quick: email your Wet Paint
proprietor at nfreeman@artnet.com. Apologies in advance that management can’t
respond to all submissions; if you win, you will know!

WE HEAR…

Christie’s sold
an Andy Warhol photo via
Instagram DM just hours after it posted it on its
feed … After Jordan Wolfson signed and inscribed a
copy of his book for the married critics Jerry
Saltz and Roberta Smith, they promptly
sold it the Manhattan bookstore The Strand—where
it was picked up by Artnet News columnist Kenny
Schachter … Parker Ito recreated a
show that was supposed to be up at LA gallery Chateau
Shatto in the backyard of his dad’s place …
Antwaun Sargent, the critic and curator, will
partner with Gagosian to contribute regularly to
its print quarterly as well as put together four gallery
exhibitions; his first interview is with photog Roe
Ethridge in conjunction with the artist’s debut in
Gagosian’s Artist Spotlight viewing room … 

SPOTTED

*** Lindsay
Lohan sharing with her 8.3 million followers on Instagram
a still from the Richard Phillips work Lindsay
Lohan (2011) after the film was screened by Kino
Süd, an online viewing initiative put together by Basel
gallery Weiss Falk *** Konrad Fischer
Galerie in Berlin installing a show of new work
by Thomas Schütte that will actually open in
real life, to real people in public, on Saturday *** an artist
named Mitchell Johnson buying a very pricy ad
to take out the full back cover of the New York Times
Magazine to try and sell a landscape painting for
$20,000 *** Artist Eliza Douglas appearing in one
of the mysterious caption-less Balenciaga
Instagram posts—scenesters have been trying to figure out who’s
behind the account for over a year ***

PARTING SHOT

The post Wet Paint: Art Advisor Philippe Ségalot Wants You
to Meet His Baby Horse, Spencer Tunick Has a Risqué Zoom Scheme, &
More Art-World Gossip appeared first on artnet News.