gallery yenta
by Anastasia Aukenstein

Hello, everybody! Where shall we start? 
Let's begin with Jasper Johns, whose new 
retrospective at MOMA, Oct. 20, 1996-Jan. 
21, 1997, makes him the triumphant Pop 
painter of the hour (especially now that 
the Warhol Rorschach blots at Gagosian [to 
Oct. 19], have posthumously turned Andy 
into a Color Field painter). Tongues are 
wagging about how Johns actually charged 
MOMA a fee to reproduce images of his works 
in his own catalogue! I don't know how 
much, but somebody said $90,000! (Or was 
that $60,000? Who knows for sure?) There's 
something brilliant about the way a museum 
can take public money and turn it into 
private gain! You know the catalogue is an 
affordable $32.50 (paper), but you can find 
a complete Johns bibliography and 
exhibition history at MOMA's Web site 
Speaking of Johns reproductions, the 
shocker of the hour is that the artist has 
refused to grant rights to reproduce images 
of his works in the new Thames & Hudson 
study of his art by celebrated scribe Jill 
Johnston. Apparently he didn't like her 
interpretation of his work--as expressing a 
gay esthetic. Some of us think that this 
relatively recent expansion of 
copyright law allowing artists to control 
the reproduction of their pictures has gone 
too far! Come to think of it, phooey, who 
needs to look at the silly pictures 
anyway.
On Oct. 10, tout le art world hustled over 
to West 21st Street in Chelsea to attend 
the opening of Paula Cooper's grand new 
space. The architectural conversion from 
garage to gallery was carried off 
beautifully. We were surprised to notice 
Alissa Friedman from the AC Project Room 
welcoming the crowd in her new role as 
Paula's right-hand. A better choice I can't 
imagine--they could be sisters, both slim, 
brunette and dressed in black. Alissa says 
she'll continue to run her gallery over 
there on Renwick Street. (Note to self: be 
sure to drop in this week!) Later that 
night, tragedy struck, but only after we 
left, of course. John Weber collapsed and 
an ambulance had to be summoned. We 
understand that he was a bit dehydrated and 
was back on his feet the next day.
John, take care of yourself!
As long as we're on the subject of Chelsea, 
let's note a few new developments over 
there. Weber says he's moving to West 22nd 
Street across from Morris Healy. Bill 
Maynes and Stefan Stux have signed leases 
in a new 20th Street gallery building. 
Print expert Deborah Ripley-Solway, 
uptown blue-chip man Richard Feigen 
and even alternative space White Columns 
are eyeing space there. With its 
clean white spaces, it's the only address 
in the area that you don't have to drop 
$100,000 just to move in. Also looking in 
Chelsea: Max Protetch, who says he pays 
extravagant amounts to move things up to 
the second floor at 560 B'way, and Marian 
Goodman, whose lease is up in 18 months. 
If you never went to the Arnulf Rainer 
Museum across from Dia Center for the Arts 
on West 22nd Street, it's too late now. Dia 
founder Heiner Friedrich's pet project has 
closed. The three-year lease expired and it 
wasn't renewed. Dia is moving in the 
permanent collection. Work continues on 525 
West 22nd, future home of Lisa Spellman's 
303 and a new gallery opened by Eric 
Oppenheim, son of Dennis. And the Baer Faxt 
reports that Robert Miller alums Howard 
Read and John Cheim are opening a temporary 
office in Larry Gagosian's old space at 521 
West 23 Street. Their new space will be 
ready in six to eight months. One bit of 
bad news: Room, Richard Dickens' intimate 
gallery on Thompson Street that had 
garnered glowing reviews last season, won't 
be moving to Chelsea as planned; the 
gallery's accountant has absconded with the 
bank account, over $500,000! Richard says 
he's searching for new investors.
Here's a good one. British ad man and art 
megacollector Charles Saatchi is buying 
Alex Katz, en masse and wholesale. We hear 
that Saatchi, famous for launching the 
careers of Damien Hirst and many other 
members of the Brit hooligan school, has 
purchased 18 paintings from Marlborough--
via transparencies! Artworld sources put 
the price in the range of $1 million, which 
offhand strikes us as a bargain! Katz 
actually fits right in with the Saatchi 
holdings, which includes everyone from 
Lucien Freud and Philip Pearlstein to 
Stefan Balkenhol and Eric Fischl. 
Meanwhile, back on our side of the ocean, 
the Colby Art Museum in Colby, Me., just 
opened its new facility the other day with 
a huge display of the trove Katz donated to 
the school.
Can we talk about the New York Times? 
Roberta Smith, who is certainly the most 
influential critic writing in America 
today, celebrates her 10th anniversary on 
the Times staff this month. 
Congratulations, Ro! By the way, the Times 
did a great job last week reporting the 
story of $15 million in new acquisitions of 
two major Pop icons, James Rosenquist's 
room-size F-111 and Warhol's original 
Campbell's Soup suite. Now, Times super-
reporters, would you mind finding out where 
the money for this buying binge is coming 
from? We say they're selling from the 
collection, but which works? Hey, does MOMA 
have any Renoir nudes left?
Tom Sokolowski is shaking things up at the 
Warhol Museum, bringing the spirit of Andy 
back to Pittsburgh. He's arranged shows of 
younger artists working in the Warhol 
tradition, including video virtuoso Alex 
Bag.
Speaking of museums, the Whitney Museum has 
renamed its floors in honor of some of its 
big supporters, with their names spelled 
out on the wall over the elevators in 
beautiful new brass letters. Top floor is 
the Emily Fisher Landau Galleries, and two 
others are named after the Peter Norton 
Family and Ann & Joel Ehrenkranz. The 
second floor is still available! 
Remembering a Nayland Blake piece from some 
years ago, I think David Lee Roth should 
sponsor it! I also hear that the Whitney 
let go of all the nice young interns who 
were working for free on the upcoming 
Whitney Biennial. The museum apparently has 
so many paid employees that it couldn't 
find anything for the free help to do. 
Hmmm. 
I probably shouldn't be saying this, but I 
was at a dinner party a few months ago and 
Jeffrey Deitch told me that he was thinking 
of naming his new space on Wooster Street, 
former home to Canal Lumber, Anal Lumber! 
Such a bad boy!
Scalping Derrida? The Drawing Center's 
lecture series on MOMA's Antonin Artaud 
show, featuring such continental luminaries 
as Jean Baudrillard, Susan Sontag, Juliet 
Kristeva and Jacques Derrida, is completely 
sold out. The gallery is fretting that some 
clever art-lover will forge tickets to get 
in. It would serve the deconstructivists 
right, is my feeling.
Here's a note for you painters, if any of 
you have learned to work your computers yet 
so you can read my dulcet words. Frank 
Bernarducci, the former East Village art 
dealer who's now selling up a storm at 
Fischbach (and who also pens our serial 
novel, The Acquisition), recently told my 
artist boyfriend that the perfect size for 
a painting that will fit over a couch is 32 
by 66 inches. Go write it down! I wonder 
what the perfect color is? If you ask me, 
fushia will go with anything.
Red dots. Goodness me, is anybody selling 
any art? Marian Goodman should make $2 
million on her Richter show, mostly small 
abstractions. Goodman sold a goodly number 
of the Gabriel Orozco "Atomist" series 
computer prints of soccer players overlaid 
with abstract oval patterns; they go for 
$8,000 to $12,000. Down the block, 
Marlborough is selling the heck out of 
Botero--20 pictures are gone and the show 
isn't even open yet. What do those things 
sell for, $200,000 or more? Those 
mysterious John Alexander swampscapes at 
Marlborough moved very briskly also, at 
prices up to $40,000, they tell me. Those 
big, rusty looking Nevelson-like box 
constructions at Mary Boone, made by that 
nice young Brooklyn man Leonardo Drew (he 
showed at Thread Waxing Space and was in 
the last Carnegie International) were much 
in demand--how much were they? $24,000? I 
can't remember. Downtown, Jack Tilton sells 
everything he gets by Fred Tomaselli, 
$3,000-$8,000. Boesky Callery sold out Lisa 
Yuskevitch's candy-colored girlie paintings 
for $8,000-$12,000. Also selling well were 
works by the Belgian painter Luc Tuymans at 
David Zwirner, for $8,000 to $20,000. What 
did they say about Cara Walker at Wooster 
Gardens? They sold an entire suite of works 
for $55,000? That's a good price for a 
young artist! And at Fischbach, all they do 
is sell art; Susan Jane Walp's exquisite 
little still lifes, for instance, are 
almost all sold, at $3,500.
There must be something more, I'm sure. 
Oops, look at the time. Gotta go! See you 
next month. 

ANASTASIA AUKENSTEIN is a student of the 
New York art world.