The Gallery Date: Episode 3 - Steve, Dick and Hairy Situations

SHOW NOTES

Welcome to The Gallery Date, a weekly date with Jenn Singer to chat about art and life and perhaps the art of life, all in bite sized, not-at-all fancy, but definitely savory episode nuggets!

It's our 3rd Date! Things are getting serious...

Jenn starts off this week's episode with a warning - she may use some very minor strong language and in her crazy art world news segment, she covers a figurative art controversy with a mention of a particularly perky part of the male anatomy.

In this episode, Jenn reveals:

• The Ballsiest Business Move She's Made
• Her Most Embarrassing Moment (spoiler alert - there's wayyy more than one!)
• A Dust Up By Students in London Over an Antony Gormley Sculpture

Link to the Crazy Art World News Story:
The Guardian: Antony Gormley’s ‘phallic’ statue may damage our reputation, say students

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TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to The Gallery Date. I'm Jenn Singer, founder of Jenn Singer Gallery. Thanks for joining me for our weekly date to chat about art and life and perhaps the art of life, all in bite-sized not at all fancy, but definitely savory episode nuggets. Let's mingle my friends.

Don't forget to press record, Jenn.

Hey there! Thanks so much for joining me today for our Gallery Date. I am so happy to see you again!

Oh my gosh, we are three dates in, so you know what that means? Mmm. I have a warning for you... on today's date. there is minor strong-ish language and we discuss figurative art. So perhaps don't listen or watch with kids in the room if you don't want them to hear any mention of a particularly perky part of the male anatomy.

All right, so you've been warned. No hate mail, please.

Also, three dates in! Things are getting serious here...

So let's get started with question number one.

What's the ballsiest move you've made in business?

Oh boy. Okay. This is a good one. Because 1. it took some cojones and 2. I'm naming names, which I don't normally do, but here we are.

So one of the ballsiest moves that comes to mind is that time that I cold called Steve Wynn to sell him a Picasso.

So a few years back I was working on selling this very important painting. It was a beauty. I won't name the piece because of NDAs, but it was amazing and you know on my contact list, I have some brilliant and very well established art collectors that I've worked with over the years, but he was not on my list and he popped in my head and I was like, THIS is the person. This is who I have to sell this painting to. So, I don't know if everybody knows who Steve Wynn is? It's Steve Wynn of Wynn Hotel fame, the resort and casino developer and one of the biggest art collectors, you know, before his empire fell in 2018 due to accusations of sexual misconduct including harassment, sexual assault, and coercion. Yeah that jerk. So this was before that story broke. And before I realized (I don't know how I didn't know this) but I didn't know he was like BFFs with Trump. Ugh.

So anyway, I did a little digging and I came up with his long time personal assistant's DIRECT phone number at their offices in Vegas. So I called and she answered and I asked for Steve. I was like, this is Jenn Singer calling for Steve Wynn, like you do, and told her I would like to discuss an available Picasso I thought he might be interested in. Of course he wasn't there. He was on a flight and she asked if I could leave a number.

Yes, please.

I kid you not, in less than 10 minutes, like less than 10 minutes later, Steve Wynn calls back from the plane.

Hey Steve! Just kidding. It did NOT go down that way. I was really in shock that he called back and he dove straight into a full-on, very impatient, "who are you? What's this piece? Give me all the details", interrogation. And as I had just done this on a total whim and did not plan on getting Steve Wynn on the phone, I did not expect that he would call back, and I definitely didn't expect that he would berate me, insult me, yell at me and then hang up the phone on me. He was in full-on bully mode. Maybe that's just how he works in his day to day life. I don't know. I mean I'm guessing probably considering who he surrounds himself with, but I was not prepared for his verbal assault. I just wanted to sell him the stinkin' Picasso. So in 2018, when all the news of his misogyny and horrible behaviors were all over the press, it was no surprise to me and I kind of love that the #metoo movement took him down. So I had the balls to get them on the phone, but he proved that only one of us was an actual dick.

Just trying to make money moves here, people!

Okay question number two. What's the most embarrassing thing you've done? Mmm. Okay. Well, there's way more than one I can tell you that. I mean there was this one time that my mother signed me up for The Bachelor. I did NOT know she was going to do this and they actually called me and asked me to submit an audition video, which for some crazy reason I actually did. So that embarrassing video might just be waiting at ABC's Bachelor's offices somewhere, you know, just waiting to haunt me in my life. So there's that. You know, if you're really lucky, I might just reveal some of those nuggets from that video at some point, but only if you're lucky and only if you share The Gallery Date with your friends and anyone you think might be interested - we need way more subscribers before I'll share that probably really embarrassing footage.

Anyway, so also there was this one time that I was working at an art gallery, and we were working an art fair in New York. And this is really early on in my art selling career and I saw this adorable little old lady admiring a piece that was from the late 1800s and I asked her if she had any questions and she looked at me and she said "I'm an antique" and I said, "Awww, you're not an antique, you're a treasure"!

She looked at me in horror! Her jaw hit the ground. Luckily, the impact of the crash did not dislodge the dentures, and she walked away as quickly as her little ol' legs would take her.

Well, it turns out she said "It's an antique", NOT "I'm an antique".

Absolutely mortified.

Ughhh, I cringe at me.

You know, the key to life is staying hydrated and being kind. Just be kind. Don't be a dick.

All right carry on…

Oh, it's time for some Crazy Art World News. Now, as I mentioned before, if the kids are around and you don't want them to hear about a particular piece of male anatomy, then it is time for them to leave the room. Ready? Okay.

So today's Crazy Art World story is brought to you by The Guardian. The headline reads "Anthony Gormley's 'Phallic' Statue May Damage Our Reputation, Say Students"

"Imperial College London motion says students should have been consulted on work due to 'obvious' erect penis interpretation." The artwork at the heart of the dispute started by the Student Union is called "Alert". It is a 20 foot high sculpture of cantilevered steel blocks that are meant to resemble a human figure squatting and is scheduled for installation in the University's Dangoor Plaza in South Kensington this summer.

The British sculptor, Anthony Gormley, says "the sculpture represents a figure balancing on the balls of the feet wild squatting on its haunches".

But t sounds like the Student Union is absolutely horrified. They don't want the sculpture and they've said it may "hurt the image and reputation of the college because of its obvious interpretation of a person bearing their erect penis".

The student's concerns with appearances and, god forbid!, what people might think continue: "While the artist's intended form may evoke our community of scientific research, the phallic interpretation does not. The name 'Alert' could also be understood as referring to the statues' phallus being erect" the Union said. The students are also annoyed that they weren't consulted about the installation...

I don't even know what to say about that...

They add that "while there is nothing inherently wrong with phallic imagery in art, the phallic interpretation's preoccupation with the penis could be considered inappropriate for a grand public display".

Okay pause.Ummm...I'm sorry. Who has the preoccupation with the penis in this story? It's not the artist, I can tell you that. All right, continue.

Gormley said he wanted to "explore the correlation between people and their environment".

He says "through the conversion of anatomy into the architectural construction, I want to reassess the relation between body and space," he said. "Balancing on the balls of the feet while squatting

on its haunches and surveying the world around it, the attitude of the sculpture is alive, alert and awake".

Okay, if you're listening to the audio podcast, please be sure to check out this video on thegallerydate.com to see this amazingly graphic diagram I'm showing right now of the two interpretations of the 'Alert' sculpture - on the left hand side, it shows the artist's intention for the sculpture and the right hand side, just next to it, is the students interpretation. The Student Union actually created this graphic to support their argument and I actually can't believe The Guardian published. It's really hilarious. Anyway, speaking to The Art Newspaper, the research postgraduate at the University who submitted the Student Union motion said that he doubted it would affect the installation of the sculpture and I quote, "I think that this is not the sort of thing that the college would... pull out of…or listen to students about".

Interesting choice of words from someone offended by their own misinterpretation of an artwork, isn't it? Consider that.

All right, here's a fun fact about Imperial College London.

It is a public research University in London that grew out of Prince Albert's vision for an area of culture including the Royal Albert Hall and the V&A Museum, the Victoria & Albert. Yeah THAT Prince Albert.

Anyway, loosen up kids! Can't you see that it doesn't look like either of those things?! When I look at your beautifully drawn illustration, all I see is a duck! Quack!

Okay, that's a wrap! Thank you so much for tuning into The Gallery Date. Join me for our date every Wednesday for a bite-sized episode on thegallerydate.com. Thanks again for joining me and I'll see you soon.

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