Wet Paint: Mary Boone Angles for Early Release From Coronavirus-Ridden Prison, Nancy Pelosi’s Art Collection Revealed, & 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.

BOONE’S COVID JAILBREAK 

American prisons have become dangerous breeding grounds for the
highly contagions coronavirus, and according to the New York
Times, more than 1,300 cases were tied to prisons as of
Wednesday, a figure that is probably undercounted due to a lack of
testing. One of the most infected hotspots at the moment is the
Federal Correctional Institution in
Danbury, Connecticut. Last week, there were nine
confirmed cases, which has since ballooned to 50. As a result,
Attorney General William Barr said on March 26
that on a case-by-case basis, those incarcerated at FCI Danbury,
among select other prisons, could be removed and placed in home
confinement if they are elderly or have existing health conditions.
Since then, the Bureau of Prisons has placed 566 inmates from
Danbury in home confinement—but we still don’t know the fate of one
famous inmate: Mary Boone, the legendary art dealer who is
serving time for tax fraud and is not expected to be released
until 2021.

Boone is 68, placing her among those most at risk of having a
serious reaction to coronavirus infection. Under the current rules,
each inmate is evaluated individually based on a series of
discretionary factors including age, health, history of good
behavior, and the security level of the jail, with the most home
confinements granted to low- and minimum-security prisons like
Danbury.

But by all accounts, she is still behind bars for now—though
sources say a number of supporters are trying to petition to get
her out. A database lists Boone’s current location as FCI Danbury,
and when reached at his Upper East Side apartment, Robert Fink, her
attorney during the 2019 trial, said he did not know whether she
had been placed in home confinement. A spokesperson for the BOP
told Wet Paint that “for privacy and safety and security reasons,
we do not release information on an individual inmate’s specific
transfer or conditions of confinement.”

MADAME SPEAKER, MOTION TO REVEAL THAT
PAINTING

One fun game to play during the global pandemic is to try and
guess the paintings in the background when talking heads go live on
TV from their art-filled homes. It’s kind of like looking at what
part of the bookshelf your coworker consciously put in the frame
while Zooming in for a meeting—like, did you really
read Finnegans Wake? Anyway, dealers such as
Mitchell Algus and Matthew Higgs
have been on Instagram diligently pointing out what art is
installed behind those who go on TV to either offer shallow words
of reassurance or horrify a sheltering-in-place nation.
Richard Haass, the former president of the
Council on Foreign Relations, set up the frame to
include his soothing monochrome by the Scottish painter
Callum Innes, while former Treasury
Secretary Lawrence Summers has a perfectly fine blue
Joan Miro print. And on Tuesday, Speaker
of the House Nancy Pelosi went on Rachel
Maddow while sitting in front of a large, yellow-washed
expressionist painting. After Higgs put it on Instagram, several
guesses were thrown out—could it be the work
of Richard Diebenkorn? Or Elmer
Bischoff, who lived in San Francisco,
which is in Pelosi’s district? Nope. The Chicago artist
Wesley Kimler commented on the post to say it was
his. “Looks nothing like a Diebenkorn in its entirety,” he
added.

OPEN IN IOWA

The state of Iowa has yet to call for a full shelter in place,
and as of right now, a number of businesses are still open—much to
the ire of citizens who think that Republican Governor
Kim Reynolds isn’t doing enough to stop the spread of
the novel coronavirus. In response, she held a press conference
Monday and announced that, starting this week, all malls, bowling
alleys, ice skating rinks, and other places where socialization
happens would be officially shuttered. And while museums are listed
on the must-shutter list, art galleries are not. That’s good news
for at least one Iowan: Eneas Capalbo, who runs
the Iowa City gallery The National
Exemplar, which had a space in New York’s Chinatown before
moving West in September 2019, kicking things off with a
Nate Lowman show. Capalbo was planning to open a
presentation of new work by Adam McEwen on
April 1 and—unlike any other gallery in the United States with
April exhibitions—open the show they did. “Only show to open in the
whole country!” he said. That may be true, but cheekily enough, the
show comprises one of McEwen’s works that riff on the old “Sorry
We’re Closed” sign, and is installed on the outside, telling
passerby (and there are some passerby, apparently) to stay away.
“It’s kind of like when Cattelan did his window
gallery in Chelsea,” Capalbo said. The sign says “Sorry
Ravi Shankar” to honor the 100th anniversary of
the late sitar master, who would have become a centenarian April
7.

PHOTO LEGEND’S FINAL SHOT

Its been over a week, and the legendary photographer and
glamorous Factory-era icon Peter
Beard is still missing on
Montauk. He was last seen on March 31 at 4:30
p.m., and local authorities have been on the hunt with K9 units,
ATVs, and GPS field grid mapping—all to no avail. Now, the local
art community is giving up much hope of finding the legendary
photographer alive. Half Gallery owner
Bill Powers, who’s currently on Montauk riding out
the coronavirus crisis, got married in Beard’s backyard and got to
know him while conducting a few long-form interviews. But he’s,
sadly, not hopeful about Beard. According to Powers, given the
artist’s dementia, “I can’t imagine he’d get too far on foot.” The
gallerist was trying to stay positive, even while assuming the
worst. Says Powers: “Maybe he was destined to go like
Amelia Earhart. Poof. Gone. Or maybe he’s on one
last bender. Legends never die.”

POP QUIZ

I am very proud to say that no one answered last week’s Pop Quiz
correctly. That means the winner is… Wet Paint! I can’t tell you
the location of the Urs Fischer—but maybe, if
someone’s able to get it in the future, I’ll pull back the curtain
and make a big reveal.

For now, here’s a fresh one. These two works are in the
same institution. What are the works, and what is the specific name
of the museum that they are in?

Former Pop Quiz winners include Nobel laureates, Fields Medal
winners, renowned astrophysicists… and lowly gallery directors
bored in their homes. First person to answer all parts of the
question correctly gets a shout-out in a future column.

SPOTTED

*** Artist Heji Shin posting a glorious photo
of her drinking a beer with critic Camille
Paglia at one of those glorious places that we used
to go to—what were they called?—oh right, bars ***
Artist Elizabeth Jaeger giving a nice cooking
lesson by making some brown butter and sage pasta over the
Houseparty app *** Sotheby’s
CEO Charlie Stewart snagging a case of wine from
his auction house’s own wine store, getting high on his own supply
a week after Sotheby’s announced that 12 percent
of its workforce has been furloughed ***

WE HEAR…

Nicolas Party is working with
RxArt to make work for the Children’s
Hospital Los Angeles … Todd von
Ammon is temporarily moving his fabulous Washington, DC
gallery von ammon co. online with a show of video
works by the likes of Darren Bader, Tabor
Robak, Violet Dennison, and Alex
Bag that opens April 18 … Sam McKinniss,
the preeminent portraitist of this warped and bizarre pop-culture
moment, announced during his takeover of the Almine
Rech Instagram account that he’s self-isolating by making
painters of Keiko the Whale and watching
Tiger King…

PARTING SHOT

The post Wet Paint: Mary Boone Angles for Early Release From
Coronavirus-Ridden Prison, Nancy Pelosi’s Art Collection Revealed,
& More Art-World Gossip appeared first on artnet
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