Wet Paint: Inigo Philbrick’s Reality TV Star Girlfriend, Claws Come Out at Art Basel Miami Beach, & 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.

SWINDLER’S GAL PAL A REALITY STAR

Where in the world is
Inigo Philbrick? As lawsuits naming
the dashing young
jet-set art dealer pile
up—filed by multiple parties who accuse him of withholding art and
funds into the tens of millions—even his lawyers have begun to
abandon him, reportedly claiming that he
has “failed to fulfill his
obligations.” His assets
have been frozen and he has yet to make a single appearance in
court or any public comment about his predicament. His eponymous
galleries in London and Miami also appear to have shuttered. But
while this (potential) Bernie Madoff of the
art world is MIA, our investigations are not a total loss: we found
his girlfriend. Sources have confirmed that the paramour of the
on-the-lam dealer-turned-alleged scammer is Victoria Baker
Harber, an English socialite who found fame by appearing
for years on the popular British reality show “Made in
Chelsea.” 

For the uninitiated: “Made in
Chelsea” is a super trashy guilty pleasure in the mold of “Jersey
Shore” or “The Hills,” but set in upper-crust London society.
Having been raised in a wealthy family—and having partied with the
family of retail billionaire Sir Philip
Green—Baker Harber joined the show in 2011, and she
quickly became a fan favorite for her expensive taste and tendency
to stir up drama. How? She feuded constantly with the show’s
ostensible “star” Millie Mackintosh, and got into
spats with other cast members, such as Cheska
Hull, who Baker Harber once called—to her face—a “fat
fucking turkey.” (Happy Thanksgiving!)

These days, Baker Harber’s off
TV, but still in the spotlight, running a Miami boutique space
called, appropriately, the Space. Messages sent to the email
address listed on her Twitter account—which has an
inigophilbrick.com domain—were not returned. And while she wasn’t
able to answer any questions about where her beau may be,
apparently her father has a house in the Bahamas, which would be a
pretty convenient place for a fugitive dealer to hide out for the
time being. Just saying. 

BASEL GETS CRABS

If you’re reading Wet Paint
right now, there’s a good chance you’re flying southward next week
for Art Basel Miami Beach. And there’s also a
chance that you’ve got plans to have a long celebratory meal at
Joe’s Stone Crab, the exemplary watering hole and
high-end seafood emporium that’s been serving up plump meat from
primo locally caught crustaceans since 1913. But perhaps you didn’t
know that, in addition to the classic spot on the southern tip of
the island, this year there will be a new pop-up outpost of Joe’s
inside the Miami Beach Convention Center, home to
Art Basel, steps away from the new Meridians sector. The 100-seat
space is a near facsimile of the classic location, with even the
photo murals reproduced and waitstaff whisked in from the original
location. And while it may not have the 100 years of history of the
original, dining at the pop-up will save you the time spent in
Miami traffic trying to get down to Joe’s from the fair. So, if you
see someone sporting a plastic bib in the aisles, now you know
why.

KANYE MUSE MIAMI-BOUND

The artist Vanessa
Beecroft has in the past few years become known primarily
for her collaborations with Kanye West. Last
weekend, they unveiled a new collaboration at the Hollywood Bowl: a
religious-awakening spectacle called “Nebuchadnezzar” that was billed as an
opera, though the
New York Times classical music editor said it
“wasn’t really an opera, and
it wasn’t really good.” Oh well! Now, Beecroft is heading to Miami to debut
another performance, and like many artist-led events during Art
Basel Miami Beach, there’s a corporate tie-in. Here, it’s the
Italian sportswear brand Kappa, and Beecroft is
presenting an “exploration and interpretation” of the brand’s
famous logo, which depicts a naked man and a naked woman sitting
back to back. It’s unclear if the born-again Kanye will be making
an appearance, especially given the week’s sinful reputation for
over-the-top excess. (Wait a minute…)

NO FAIRS FOR KIEFER

One person who’s decidedly
not making an appearance down in Miami is the artist
Anselm Kiefer, who told the
Guardian this week, with regard to art fairs, “They
destroy art. They destroy it.” Now, that’s just Anselm being
Anselm, but more surprising was the revelation that the artist has
a set a diktat that restricts any of his galleries from bringing
his work to any fairs, ever. Could that actually be a set-in-stone
policy?

Reps for Larry
Gagosian and Jay Jopling—whose
White Cube gallery in London opened a Kiefer show
this week—didn’t get back to us, and a rep for Thaddaeus
Ropac said he couldn’t be reached. But Lia
Rumma, which reps Kiefer in Milan and Naples, did respond,
and confirmed that Kiefer has a strict no-work policy at
fairs.

“All the galleries that
represent Kiefer directly, like us, respect his willingness not to
bring his works to the at fairs, in the booth space open to the
public,” Paola Potena, the director of the
gallery’s Milan space, told us in an email. “This concerns both his
primary and secondary market works. As far as I remember, this
indication has been given since ever and we will continue to follow
it, until Kiefer wishes so.”

But while Kiefer can control his
production, he can’t tame what’s already out there in the market.
That’s why the only place you’ll be likely see Kiefer next week in
Miami is at the Ben Brown Fine Arts booth—they’re
bringing a 12-foot-by-9-foot Anselm Kiefer painting from
2009–10.

WE HEAR…

… Celebrity chef Bobby
Flay has desperately been trying to buy work by
Gerhard Richter … Izabela
Depczyk, who just stepped down as CEO of
Paddle8 and was once the CEO and publisher of
ARTnews, led a strategic investment by her family office
in MCH Group, the parent company of Art Basel that
has suffered from financial setbacks in
recent months … and a certain Lower East Side dealer
smuggled stacks of cash back from
Paris’s FIAC in sculptures he had shown at
the art fair, and got away with it.  

SPOTTED

*** Matthew
Barney and Neville Wakefield having an
early dinner at the Odeon in Tribeca
*** Arthur
Jafa and Tara Subkoff, who we revealed to
be a couple in this column a few
weeks back, waiting for a table at Lucien ***
Eric N. Mack celebrating the opening of his show
at Chinatown gallery Jeffrey Stark with a dinner
upstairs at Bacaro, while artists such as
Dan Colen and Andrew Kuo were
honoring the late downtown fashion designer Ben
Cho with dinner downstairs.

PARTING SHOT

The post Wet Paint: Inigo Philbrick’s Reality TV Star
Girlfriend, Claws Come Out at Art Basel Miami Beach, & More Juicy
Art-World Gossip appeared first on artnet News.