Tech Titans and Gulf Giants Duel: Kenny Schachter on Who Won the $236 Million Klimt and Magritte’s Greatest Hit
They have our eyeballs, attention, and money—but that’s not enough. Now the techno-feudal overlords are coming for our art! Bezos’s been in for sometime, and now Zuckerberg’s thrown in his (bowler) hat. Could Musk be next? Photo courtesy Kenny Schachter.A new breed of...
A Michael Werner Gallery Divorce, Art Basel’s Miami Pivot, and a Run-In With Larry G: Kenny Schachter Tells All
Art Basel Booth Bonanza!!! OUR (steeply discounted, because too many dealers don’t want to go, who can blame them, I sure don’t) PRICES ARE INSAAAAAAANE!!!!!!! Google old Crazy Eddy TV adverts and it will make sense to you! Photo by Kenny SchachterOn the heels of the...
Inigo Philbrick Has a New Venture, and Diddy’s $21 Million Kerry James Marshall Has a New Owner: Kenny Schachter Tells All
Just back from the preposterous Portland ICE invasion on the basis that it’s a hotbed of terroristic activity, now donning my frog costume protesting the onslaught of negative media that flies in the face of the robust, thriving community of artists, dealers, and...
A savage journey to the art of Marfa
Click here to read about POSTBOX directly on The Big Bend Sentinel Click here to read the article published in the Artnet News WebsiteClick here to read about POSTBOX directly on The Big Bend Sentinel Click here to read the article published in the...
There’s a New Sheriff in Town: Kenny Schachter on Judd, Community, and Car Trouble in Marfa
My failing car was replaced by a faltering truck. I think it suits me, though, and it would be useful in the mean, potholed streets of NYC.September 29: An auspicious start, broken down beside the highway, beginning my version of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. I rented the...
Artist Kenny Schachter is One of Art’s Most Controversial Figures …So We Interviewed Him
“People have tried to beat me up in restaurants. I’ve had to call the FBI. Lawsuits. But I don’t write to hurt. I write because someone has to tell the truth. The art world is addicted to lying. It lies to survive.” Kenny Schachter holds a distinct aura that we just...
When Gagosian Goes So Do His Galleries, How Hockney’s Swimmer Swam Away, and Green Shoots in the Gallery World
David Hockney's Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) is displayed at Christie's in New York November 15, 2018. Photo by Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images.Trump’s escalating, multi-billion-dollar legal onslaughts against the likes of The Wall Street Journal, New...
When Good Dealers Go Bad: Kenny Schachter on Gallery Closures, Unpaid Artists, and Clawbacks
Artists and gallery employees are invariably the first (and last) to get screwed and have been since… forever. Bankruptcy clawback provisions are yet another situation where what’s bad can get even worse, when the artists and staff are sued instead of the dealer!...
Whales on the Move! Kenny Schachter Uncovers Real Estate Plays by the Nahmads, Mugrabis
The headlines blare: "Trump and Conservatives Get the PBS (home to Sesame Street) and NPR Cuts They’ve Wanted for Decades." Kermit and Miss Piggy, et al., kicked to the curb. Photo courtesy Kenny SchachterRobert Armstrong coined the acronym Taco (Trump Always Chickens...
Billionaire Breakup at Glenstone! And José Freire’s Latest Art-World Melee—Kenny Schachter Reports
Emily Rales and Mitch Rales attend National Arts Awards at Cipriani 42nd St on October 18, 2010 in New York City. Photo: Clint Spaulding/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images.As the dollar sinks to its lowest levels since the Nixon administration in 1973, and word of the...
Live From Basel, Kenny Schachter Talks Labubu Madness, Lady Gaga’s Dogs, Chicken Artist
The hottest commodity at Art Basel in 2025 was neither canvas nor bronze, but rather these idiotic collectibles that have netted Pop Mart's founder untold billions. The dolls are described as naughty little monsters, which brings a certain Artnet writer to mind, but I...
Inside the brilliant and short career of Paul Thek: ‘The goal was to live a creative existence as a maker – and he lived in a saint-like fashion’
Left, Paul Thek Untitled, 1969-70 and right, Peter Hujar, Paul Thek (IV), 1975(Image credit: Left, © Estate of Paul Thek. Courtesy of Pace Gallery, Galerie Buchholz, Mai 36 Galerie, and the Watermill Center, NY. Photo: Eva Herzog. Right, © 2025 The Peter Hujar Archive...
He never met Paul Thek, but Kenny Schachter would’ve been happy just to smell him
Kenny Schachter has just curated a new show of Paul Thek’s work at Thomas Dane Gallery, in collaboration with Jonathan Anderson “I haven’t slept in three days – I’m like 27 if not for the hair,” says Kenny Schachter. Eight coffees in, and seemingly unfazed by the...
‘Some Artists Are Just Born Whole’: Kenny Schachter Talks Paul Thek
Kenny Schachter is an artist, writer, and lecturer based in New York whose writings and opinions on art are far-reaching, vigorously forthright, and consistently indiscrete. Never far from his line of thought are the lessons he derives from his heroes, and among...
Flips Flop! Kenny Schachter on Auction Failures and One Collector’s Freak-Out
After last week’s grim auction performance, Giacomettis will not only be emaciated; they may start to wilt! All photos courtesy Kenny SchachterIn 1977, a cardigan-clad President Jimmy Carter gave a fireside chat (how sweet, in retrospect) admonishing Americans to...
A Good Faith Exchange: 37:42 with Kenny Schachter. (Life is Short. Do You!) Unedited
In his first lecture since suffering spinal cord surgery, this talk pinpoints the parallels between recovering from life changing injury and forging a career in a post-gallery art world. The University of Coimbra, Department of Art, April 30th, 2024
Kenny Schachter on AI, art, and staying self-taught
Kenny Schachter is not your typical art world professional — and he doesn’t claim to be. A self-taught curator, artist, and writer based in New York, Schachter has spent over three decades challenging the boundaries between art, technology, and commerce with a blend...
Kenny Schachter’s Uptown World.
The Living Room “Art needs to be lived with,” says Kenny Schachter. “Every day, something gets moved around.” The works on the walls are his, other than the green painting above the blue couch by his son, Adrian. The center sofa is Ole Wanscher, the yellow sofa is...
Is Kenny Schachter “Punching Up”?
Kenny Schachter , Reigning vice of social media (cropped Hogarth) 1 , 2025 , Robotically rendered to oil on canvas , 28 by 46.5 in. (KSC009) © Kenny Schachter. Photo by Cary Whittier. Courtesy of the artist and Jupiter Contemporary, Miami Beach, FL When you’re a young...
Kenny Schachter Challenges AI and Authorship in “Art in the Age of Robotic Reproduction”
Kenny Schachter has always existed at the intersection of art, technology, and critique. With his latest exhibition, Art in the Age of Robotic Reproduction, now on view at Jupiter gallery in New York’s Lower East Side, the boundary-blurring provocateur engages in a...
Kenny Schachter Questions “The Hand of The Artist” in Latest Jupiter Show
Kenny Schachter, Art in the age..., 2025. Photography by Cary Whittier. Image courtesy of the artist and Jupiter.Kenny Schachter’s latest show at Jupiter on NYC’s Lower East Side is a nod to Walter Benjamin’s 1935 essay, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical...
An Anonymous AI Riposte: Transcending Mediation. Kenny Schachter’s Radical Deconstruction of Artistic Production
In a breathtaking tour de force of meta-artistic intervention, Kenny Schachter's "Art in the Age of Robotic Reproduction" emerges as nothing short of a revolutionary epistemic challenge to the very ontological foundations of contemporary art production. What appears,...
Art in the Age of Kenny Schachter’s Vacuous Robo Paintings
Kenny Schachter, Art in the age..., 2025. Photography by Cary Whittier. Image courtesy of the artist and Jupiter.In Kenny Schachter's show at Jupiter gallery on the Lower East Side, I was struck by a sense memory—a visceral jolt of déjà vu. It was the feeling I had in...
Losing Is the New Winning: Kenny Schachter on the Topsy-Turvy Market and Polke Problems
The other Kenny, you know who, that I am constantly getting mistaken for (due to the fact we share the first nine letters of our names), was kind enough to provide the ammo for this painting, by way of his personalized alphabet. Image courtesy of Inbal SafdieOpen a...
An Alpine art safari through the Engadin with artist Kenny Schachter
It’s a bright and sunny day in the Engadin valley when we meet Kenny Schachter at Villa Flor in S-chanf. Uncompromisingly outspoken, Kenny has made more than a handful of enemies in the multi-billion-dollar dream factory that is the contemporary art market. Like a...
Biker-Gang Art Forgers! Hauser Hoovers Up Another Hotel! Kenny Schachter Files from the Swiss Alps
The old mountain goat, me, making do without electricity or a bathroom, contemplating the state of the art world from an isolated farming cabin in the SwissThe scope of loss in California is as tragic as it is unthinkable. I’m so sorry for what has happened, what...
Kenny Schachter Dishes on $68 Million Ruscha, $5.1 Million Koons, While Avoiding Gagosian’s Wrath
Kenny Schachter, Rocky. Image courtesy of Kenny SchachterToo much ink has been spilled, and continues to be, about the present temperature of the art market, including the alleged Trump bump, even though consignments for the last spate of auctions were set well before...
Kenny Schachter Reveals More on the Koons-Pace Breakup, Diddy’s Deaccessioning, the Gogo-LVMH Non-Deal, and His Own Crypto Hack
Prima ballerina and prima donna Jeff Koons and his profligate spending, fabricating his porcelain knockoffs, may land him in litigation (yet again). Photo courtesy Kenny Schachter.I’m no longer feeling the tug of my heart (and collecting) strings to hit the fair...
Kenny Schachter Can’t Paint, But He Can Reveal High-Level Hijinks in the Art World. (Just Don’t Call Him a Gossip!)
Me and my doppelgänger: which is which? Kenny Can’t Paint, Into the Corner, You Should Be Ashamed of Yourself Photo courtesy of Michael TrierIn light of the onslaught of pernicious press about the current state of the art market, I asked Don and Mera Rubell at the...
Is ‘Phone Face’ the Future of Art? Kenny Schachter Challenges Digital Obsession
Kenny Schachter returns to Galerie Nagel Draxler in Cologne with his second solo exhibition, Phone Face, running from August 31 to October 25, 2024. Known for his critical engagement with contemporary culture, Schachter uses this exhibit to explore the ways in which...
Christine Tien Wang and Kenny Schachter Get Real About Art World Economics
Christine Tien Wang, photographed by Arturo Sanchez. Images courtesy of the Artist and The Hole.Christine Tien Wang and Kenny Schachter are in the business of self-abasement. The two multi-media artists, hailing from San Francisco and New York respectively, have a lot...
An Interview with Kenny Schachter on Collecting, Curating, and Creating
Kenny Schachter, Kenny can’t paint, into the corner you should be ashamed of yourselfKenny Schachter is a polymath of sorts with a multitude of interests and skills that have guided him in the arts. As a collector, curator, artist, lecturer, and writer, he has used...
Are the Basel Fairs Eating Each Other? Kenny Schachter Has a Theory—and News of a Big Bezos Art Deal
Pete Seeger’s famous '50s folk song "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” was a dirge on war and death; in this case, where have all the Basel-Basel people gone!? Makes you wonder if the Basels are unwittingly at war with themselves, and the death of one or the other is...
Kenny Schachter Reveals a $200 Million Basquiat Sale, the Best Work at Auction Next Week, and a Whole Lot More
In the endless game of art market musical chairs, the filthy rich trade their trophies like baseball cards. Photo by Kenny Schachter.On the heels of the blowout, benchmark-setting New York fall auctions, which totaled approximately $2.2 billion, smack in the face of a...
Back in the saddle
In his first lecture since suffering spinal cord surgery, this talk pinpoints the parallels between recovering from life changing injury and forging a career in a post-gallery art world. The University of Coimbra, Department of Art, April 30th, 2024
Kenny Schachter Emerges From Surgery With Dirt on Damien Hirst, Ed Sheeran, and a Lot More
really got myself into a bind this time! After life-changing spinal-cord surgery, I was said to resemble a tubed-up Paul Thek sculpture, ta-da! Photo by Kenny SchachterTears are running down my cheeks—from frustration, more than pain at this stage, though there’s...
Disinclined Hero: The Art And Life Of Eva Beresin
Kunstplaats Vonk Podcast: Kenny Schachter in conversation with Lies Serdons
Kenny Schachter is an artist, curator, art dealer, and critic from New York City. This episode turned out to be a special one for me. There is so much information in Kenny's head that after this hour-long conversation, I felt like I had only scratched the surface....
A finger in a nerve: An introduction
It is an honour and a privilege to introduce this catalogue on the work and life of Matthew Wong for the occasion of the joint exhibition with Vincent van Gogh at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam and the Kunsthaus Zürich. Life affects people in different manners with...
Valley Guy, Part 4: Kenny Schachter Returns From His L.A. Adventures With Frieze Gossip—and His Very Own A.I. App
Prepare yourself for the good, bad, ugly, and heinous sides of the art world (and market)—or forge your very own Kenny Artnet feature! With a friend, we inputted 1,000 pages of my writing to create a Frankenstein version of me and my voice to criticize you and yours....
Valley Guy, Part 3: Kenny Schachter on Fake Kusamas, an Illicit Photo Sale, and Hans Ulrich Obrist’s Star Turn
The art world’s favorite receptionist, whom they love to hate, sitting around the clock during gallery hours. He happens to get along better (or only) with kids and animals. Photo courtesy of Kenny Schachter.“There are two modes of transport in Los Angeles: car and...
Valley Guy, Part 2: Kenny Schachter Falls in Love with L.A., Opening Show While Dueling New York Neighbor
Kenny Appleseed: a depiction of me sowing the word of my show, one invite at a time, a process slow and steady. Photo courtesy of Kenny Schachter.My friend Shirley Manson, the implacable, radical, stalwart lead singer of the legendary band Garbage (she’s Scottish but...
Valley Guy, Part 1: Kenny Schachter Descends On L.A.—and Dishes on Art-World Ne’er-Do-Wells
It’s L.A., for heaven's sake. What are you, if are not seen tooling around town in a cool car (or an affordable version thereof)? Check out my 2021 MX-5 Miata RT—that stands for Retractable Fastback. In other words… it's a convertible! Photo courtesy Kenny Schachter.I...
Kenny Schachter Hits Frieze L.A.—or Does He?—and Digs Up Scoops on Peter Doig’s New Mastermind, Mark Grotjahn’s Dine-and-Dash, and Bad Art-Market Behavior Galore
Don’t miss my upcoming coffee table book Idiots Wearing Sunglasses at Art Fairs, and, umm, if you’re in it, soz. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.Oh, joy, another art fair. Last week’s Frieze Los Angeles was an absolute laugh riot, if you’re into the kind of humor that...
Kenny Schachter in conversation with Noah Becker
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Kenny Schachter Surveys the Start of the Fall Art Season, Unearthing Feuds, Farces, and Secret Identities Galore
Idiot tourist defaces Colosseum. Again. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.In a summer devastated by increasingly biblical levels of natural disasters from fires and floods to earthquakes and hurricanes, all exacerbated—if not wrought—by human malfeasance, we are...
Inspector Schachter Uncovers Allegations Regarding the Latest Art World Scandal—And It’s a Doozy
Self-portrait in the style of Peter Falk, as the erstwhile Lieutenant Columbo, in this case uncovering the latest in a long line of art scandals.I wasn’t intending to uncover the largest, most explosive case of potential art world fraud since Inigo Philbrick (who’s...
ChatGPT & Me: Kenny Schachter Tries to Use AI to Write Intelligently About Art. Is It Any Good?
The first laptops, in menacing, institutional-IBM beige. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.Okay folks, let’s play a little game: guess which part, if any, of this essay was derived from ChatGPT, and which was written by me. I personally don’t see what all the artificial...
MARS AI ART TODAY: Kenny Schachter in conversation with Mars Eve
Kenny Schachter – Living in a Digital World, Technology and Free Speech
Meet Kenny Schachter. Kenny Schachter is many things in the art world – critic, artist, dealer, you name it. But he would tell you first he's an outsider. Published: August 2, 2023Show: Ready, Go! | Season 1 | Episode 11Host: Anthony RondinoneDuration: 57 min.*** You...