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Art Advisor Lisa Schiff Hit With ‘Ponzi Scheme’ Lawsuit After an Adrian Ghenie Art-Flipping Deal Goes Awry

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High profile art advisor Lisa Schiff has been hit with a lawsuit by two clients and longtime friends: real estate heiress Candace Barasch, and Richard Grossman.

The plaintiffs allege that Schiff, who runs the New York-based Schiff Fine Art advisory, owes them $1.8 million ($900,000 each) related to the sale of a painting by sought-after Romanian artist Adrian Ghenie. Barasch and Grossman filed a complaint in New York State Supreme Court on May 11. The causes of action are breach of contract, conversion, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and conspiracy.

The complaint appears to be yet another example of flipping art for profit gone wrong.

In addition to the money purportedly owed, the plaintiffs accuse Schiff of operating a “Ponzi scheme.” Their filing outlines Schiff’s alleged lavish spending, including a $25,000 a month New York apartment, international first class travel with concierge services and limousines, vacations at five-star hotels, and shopping sprees in New York and Europe for designer clothes and jewelry.

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Meanwhile, the plaintiffs claim, Schiff doesn’t have the money she owes them. Knowledge of Schiff’s personal spending was allegedly gleaned from extensive travel and personal friendship with the advisor, the pair asserts.

Schiff’s attorney John Cahill declined to comment. Wendy Lindstrom, the attorney representing Grossman and Barasch, said “it is disgraceful that Schiff, who was trusted professionally and personally, exploited that trust.”

In April 2021, Schiff alerted Barasch and Grossman that a Ghenie painting, Uncle 3 (2019), was available for purchase. After discussions, including with Grossman’s spouse, who is not identified by name, they agreed to buy the work. The original purchase price is not disclosed in the court documents, however Barasch took a 50 percent share and Grossman and his spouse each acquired a 25 percent interest. Neither took possession of the work; it was shipped to a storage unit in Delaware.

Ghenie is a sought-after painter who is represented by mega-gallery Pace. His paintings evoke the torqued imagery of Francis Bacon portraits. “These figures, largely derived from mid-twentieth-century historical sources, appear in haunting interiors as dreamlike or cinematic vignettes,” the artist page on the Pace website reads. Ghenie appropriates tropes from slapstick film in his “Pie Fight” paintings, which mash up figuration and abstraction. The record for a Ghenie work sold at auction is $10.3 million for Pie Fight Interior 12 (2014), sold at Christie’s Hong Kong in May 2022.

In November 2022, Bartsch and Grossman agreed to a resale of the artwork, entering into the deal, to be brokered by Schiff, via oral agreement. They agreed to sell the work for $2.5 million and split the proceeds, after a commission to Schiff of ten percent of the price, or $250,000.

According to the complaint, the deal went through Sotheby’s Hong Kong and the work was delivered to the auction houses’s York Avenue headquarters in December 2022. Sotheby’s declined to comment.

In January, $225,000 of the sale proceeds were wired to Grossman and Barasch (a total of $450,000), and Schiff took her commission at the time, according to the complaint. Schiff promised to disburse the additional $1.8 million ($900,000 each) to the investors on March 26.

However, prior to March 26, Schiff “requested an additional thirty days to make the payment, asserting the delay was an accommodation to the purchasers in Hong Kong, but assuring Plaintiffs that the purchasers were not backing out of the sale, and guaranteeing that the $1.8 million payment would be made,” the complaint says. 

By early this month, when neither client had received the balance of promised purchase price, they texted Schiff that they were frustrated with the delay. According to the complaint, Grossman had made it clear that “these proceeds were intended and necessary for the support of Grossman’s elderly in-laws, specifically for the cost of moving them from the hospital into an assisted living facility.” At that time, Schiff responded that she was “working on it….” the suit says.

However, on May 8, “Schiff conceded to Plaintiffs that the money owed to them from the sale of the Ghenie painting was gone,” the complaint asserts.

Grossman contends Schiff revealed this at a final in-person meeting. “For the first time, Schiff told him she did not have the money owed to Plaintiffs, and to call her attorney—and then walked away from him.”

Grossman and Barasch are demanding that Schiff return the $250,000 commission earned on the deal, plus interest, as well as “damages of least $2.05 million plus interest.”

 

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Turner Prize shortlist includes art showcasing Scottish Sikh community

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A Scottish artist who uses cars, worship bells and Irn-Bru in her work is among the nominees for this year’s Turner Prize.

Glasgow-born Jasleen Kaur’s work reflects her life growing up in the city’s Sikh community.

She is up for the prestigious art award, now in its 40th year, alongside Pio Abad, Claudette Johnson and Delaine Le Bas.

Turner Prize jury chairman Alex Farquharson described it as a “fantastic shortlist of artists”

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Works by the nominated artists will go on show at London’s Tate Britain gallery from 25 September.

They will receive £10,000 each, while the winner, to be announced on 3 December, will get £25,000.

In a statement, Farquharson said: “All four make work that is full of life.

“They show how contemporary art can fascinate, surprise and move us, and how it can speak powerfully of complex identities and memories, often through the subtlest of details.

“In the Turner Prize’s 40th year, this shortlist proves that British artistic talent is as rich and vibrant as ever.”

The shortlisted artists are:

Pio Abad

Pio AbadPio Abad
[Pio Abad]
Pio Abad's installationPio Abad's installation
[Hannah Pye/Ashmolean]

Manila-born Abad’s solo exhibition To Those Sitting in Darkness at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford included drawings, etchings and sculptures that combined to “ask questions of museums”, according to the jury.

The 40-year-old, who works in London, reflects on colonial history and growing up in the Philippines, where his parents struggled against authoritarianism.

The title of his exhibit is a nod to Mark Twain’s 1901 essay To the Person Sitting In Darkness, which hit out at imperialism.

Jasleen Kaur

Jasleen KaurJasleen Kaur
[Robin Christian]
Jasleen Kaur's installationJasleen Kaur's installation
[Keith Hunter]

Kaur is on the list for Alter Altar at Tramway, Glasgow, which included family photos, an Axminster carpet, a classic Ford Escort covered in a giant doily, Irn-Bru and kinetic handbells.

The 37-year-old, who lives in London, had previously showcased her work at the Victoria and Albert Museum by looking at popular Indian cinema.

Delaine Le Bas

Delaine Le BasDelaine Le Bas
[Tara Darby]
Delaine Le Bas's installationDelaine Le Bas's installation
[Iris Ranzinger]

Worthing-born Le Bas is nominated for an exhibition titled Incipit Vita Nova. Here Begins The New Life/A New Life Is Beginning. Staged at the Secession art institute in Vienna, Austria, it saw painted fabrics hung, with theatrical costumes and sculptures also part of the exhibit.

The 58-year-old artist was inspired by the death of her grandmother and the history of the Roma people.

The jury said they “were impressed by the energy and immediacy present in this exhibition, and its powerful expression of making art in a time of chaos”.

Claudette Johnson

Claudette JohnsonClaudette Johnson
[Anne Tetzlaff]
Claudette Johnson's installationClaudette Johnson's installation
[David Bebber]

Manchester-born Johnson has been given the nod for her solo exhibition Presence at the Courtauld Gallery in London, and Drawn Out at Ortuzar Projects, New York.

She uses portraits of black women and men in a combination of pastels, gouache and watercolour, and was praised by the judges for her “sensitive and dramatic use of line, colour, space and scale to express empathy and intimacy with her subjects”.

Johnson, 65, was appointed an MBE in 2022 after being named on the New Year Honours list for her services to the arts.

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Turner Prize: Shortlisted artist showcases Scottish Sikh community

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Turner Prize shortlist includes art showcasing Scottish Sikh community

Jasleen Kaur's installation
Jasleen Kaur’s installation includes a classic Ford Escort covered in a giant doily

A Scottish artist who uses cars, worship bells and Irn-Bru in her work is among the nominees for this year’s Turner Prize.

Glasgow-born Jasleen Kaur’s work reflects her life growing up in the city’s Sikh community.

She is up for the prestigious art award, now in its 40th year, alongside Pio Abad, Claudette Johnson and Delaine Le Bas.

Turner Prize jury chairman Alex Farquharson described it as a “fantastic shortlist of artists”

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Works by the nominated artists will go on show at London’s Tate Britain gallery from 25 September.

They will receive £10,000 each, while the winner, to be announced on 3 December, will get £25,000.

In a statement, Farquharson said: “All four make work that is full of life.

“They show how contemporary art can fascinate, surprise and move us, and how it can speak powerfully of complex identities and memories, often through the subtlest of details.

“In the Turner Prize’s 40th year, this shortlist proves that British artistic talent is as rich and vibrant as ever.”

The shortlisted artists are:

Pio Abad

Pio Abad
Pio Abad's installation

Manila-born Abad’s solo exhibition To Those Sitting in Darkness at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford included drawings, etchings and sculptures that combined to “ask questions of museums”, according to the jury.

The 40-year-old, who works in London, reflects on colonial history and growing up in the Philippines, where his parents struggled against authoritarianism.

The title of his exhibit is a nod to Mark Twain’s 1901 essay To the Person Sitting In Darkness, which hit out at imperialism.

Jasleen Kaur

Jasleen Kaur
Jasleen Kaur's installation

Kaur is on the list for Alter Altar at Tramway, Glasgow, which included family photos, an Axminster carpet, a classic Ford Escort covered in a giant doily, Irn-Bru and kinetic handbells.

The 37-year-old, who lives in London, had previously showcased her work at the Victoria and Albert Museum by looking at popular Indian cinema.

Delaine Le Bas

Delaine Le Bas
Delaine Le Bas's installation

Worthing-born Le Bas is nominated for an exhibition titled Incipit Vita Nova. Here Begins The New Life/A New Life Is Beginning. Staged at the Secession art institute in Vienna, Austria, it saw painted fabrics hung, with theatrical costumes and sculptures also part of the exhibit.

The 58-year-old artist was inspired by the death of her grandmother and the history of the Roma people.

The jury said they “were impressed by the energy and immediacy present in this exhibition, and its powerful expression of making art in a time of chaos”.

Claudette Johnson

Claudette Johnson
Claudette Johnson's installation

Manchester-born Johnson has been given the nod for her solo exhibition Presence at the Courtauld Gallery in London, and Drawn Out at Ortuzar Projects, New York.

She uses portraits of black women and men in a combination of pastels, gouache and watercolour, and was praised by the judges for her “sensitive and dramatic use of line, colour, space and scale to express empathy and intimacy with her subjects”.

Johnson, 65, was appointed an MBE in 2022 after being named on the New Year Honours list for her services to the arts.

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Claudette Johnson’s art for Cotton Capital nominated for Turner prize

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Claudette Johnson has been nominated for this year’s Turner prize for her work, which includes a portrait of the African-American slavery abolitionist Sarah Parker Remond commissioned as part of the Guardian’s award-winning Cotton Capital series.

Pio Abad, Johnson, Jasleen Kaur and Delaine Le Bas will compete for the £25,000 prize, while the nominated artists will each collect £10,000 as the prize returns to Tate Britain for the first time in six years.

Colonialism, migration, nationalism and identity politics are the key themes running through the 40th edition of the Turner prize, which the jury described as showing contemporary British art “is appealing and dynamic as ever”.

Alex Farquharson, the director of Tate Britain and chair of the Turner prize jury, said this year’s nominees were exploring ideas of identity and would be exhibited from 25 September, before the jury’s final choice.

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He said: “This year’s shortlisted artists can be broadly characterised as exploring questions of identity, autobiography, community and the self in relation to memory, or history or myth.”

Four paintings of people on grey gallery wall

The Turner prize, regarded as one of the art world’s most prestigious awards, is presented to an artist born or working in Britain for an outstanding exhibition or presentation of their work over the previous year.

Abad was nominated for his solo exhibition To Those Sitting in Darkness at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, with the jury commenting on the “precision and elegance” of his work, which takes its title from a Mark Twain poem of a similar name that critiques American imperialism the Philippines, his homeland.

The show also contains references to the Benin Bronzes, after Abad discovered that the punitive expedition of 1897 – during which British troops sacked Benin City and looted thousands of objects, of which about 900 are in the British Museum’ – set off from his home, Woolwich, in south London.

Red Ford Escort in gallery with doily on top

Johnson was nominated for her solo Presence exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery, which the Guardian said “brilliantly questions depictions of non-white figures by such revered painters as Gauguin and Picasso”. She was also recognised for her New York show, Drawn Out, at Ortuzar Projects, which included her Redmond portrait.

She is the latest black female artist who emerged in the Black Art Movement of the 1980s to be recognised by the Turner prize, following in the footsteps of Lubaina Himid (2017 winner) and Veronica Ryan (2022), while Ingrid Pollard and Barbara Walker have both been nominated.

The jury said Johnson had been nominated because of the “renewal of her practice”, after she stopped making work in the 1990s, and the fact she was still “taking risks and trying new forms of practice”.

Kaur’s work in the exhibition Alter Altar, which was shown at Tramway in Glasgow, features sculptures and soundscapes, including a red Ford Escort covered in a huge doily, which references her father’s first car and ideas of migration and belonging in Britain.

Long painted drapes and seated figure

Kaur grew up in Glasgow’s Sikh community in Pollokshields, and the jury said the exhibition was a breakout show that was “generous, celebratory, moving and alive to timely issues, speaking imaginatively to how we might live together in a world increasingly marked by nationalism, division and social control”.

Le Bas’s work, shown at the Vienna Secession exhibition, was described as a “response to social and political turmoil” and includes immersive performance art with theatrical costumes and sculptures.

Farquharson said there was a chance the show may travel to Bradford during its City of Culture year, following the precedent set by Coventry, which hosted the awards in 2021, although that was still “to be confirmed”.

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