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 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...
‘I Wanted to Be a Treasure Hunter’: Dealer Bernie Chase Tells All to Kenny Schachter About a Career Selling Cars, Jewelry, Art, and… Other Substances
Ronnie Wood and Bernie Chase attend a press conference for Wood's show, "Faces,Time And Places" in London. Photo: D Dipasupil / FilmMagic.Bernie Chase is an unorthodox, unconventional art-world inhabitant. To put it mildly. At 65, he dresses as age-inappropriately as...
Kenny Schachter Needed New Art Like a Hole in the Head at Art Basel, But Dug Up Plenty of Priceless Intel Instead
Guillaume Bijl and me at Art Basel Unlimited. Tthis guy is nuts—in the best possible way, and I love him and his art. Photo courtesy of Kenny Schachter.I started my Swiss sojourn two weeks ago in Zurich for a series of talks on, you guessed it, NFTs: their marketplace...
Slow Food: Kenny Schachter reflects on blockchain art’s past, present and future
With crypto in a state of turbulent flux, a demographic of nonfungible token (NFT) detractors in the fine art world might feel trigger-happy to, at last, declare the industry down for the count. Meanwhile, artist, critic, dealer, educator and outspoken NFT proponent...
Kenny Schachter on uniting the traditional and digital art worlds ahead of NFT ART DAY ZRH
Exploring the role of emerging technologies at NFT art day ZRT As the digital renaissance continues to reshape the art world, the annual NFT ART DAY ZRH conference returns to Zurich for its second edition to delve deeper into the burgeoning realm of NFTs, Web3, and...
Kenny Schachter fossilizes friends, fiends and foes in Slow Food, his solo-show at NFT Gallery in New York
Funny AI transcription of Interview with Kenny Schachter. May 2023. Image courtesy of Clare Gemima. Producing critical text for Artnet, (also known as mocking some new affluent endeavor of the art-rich) Kenny Schachter energetically provides more clues to his work...
Kenny Schachter Spills the Tea on New York’s Spooky Spring Auctions (Including the Art Consigned by His Mother-in-Law)
This is a reenactment of the way my mother-in-law installed her Alex Katz before I sold it nearly two decades ago to Michael Black on behalf of his client, Gerald Fineberg. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.Last week, for the first time in nine years, I disengaged myself...
Traditional artists and digital media pioneers face off in Kenny Schachter’s NFT Art Game
POP PRINCIPLE: THE NFT ART GAME Inspired by the art world’s knee-jerk hostility to crypto art, POP PRINCIPLE is a battle that pits key names in the traditional arts scene against pioneers in the digital realm to shed light on the rapid evolution of the creative...
Kenny Schachter’s New NFT Game Is an Art-World Battle Royale That Pits Traditional Artists Against Digital Creators
Kenny Schachter, Mike Winkelmann ("Beeple") (2023). Photo courtesy of Kenny SchachterKenny Schachter has had, shall we say, a challenging relationship with the art establishment. An artist (and Artnet News columnist) operating at the edge of new media, Schachter has...
Airmail: Kenny Schachter
Click here to read the article directly on the Airmail website
Kenny Schachter Pays a Mind-Bending Visit to Beeple’s New High-Tech Art Compound (Getting in Plenty of Trouble Along the Way)
Let’s get this party started! A new form of live art/entertainment/collectible: the NFT-J, making it rain money in real time. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.Imagine the scene in the 1986 film Caravaggio, the historical drama directed by the brilliant artist Derek Jarman,...
The Tickle Magazine Feature
The Tickle | Issue #79 | February 3, 2023 The Tickle is created and edited by Johnny Dean Mann ( @guyswily ) & Jess Britton ( @heyghostshoes ) Click here to read full issue directly on the objkt website
Kenny Schachter: The Hoarder IV
Kenny Schachter’s The Hoarder IV: Now Or Never sale will happen with Sotheby’s New York from December 12-20, 2022.Can you talk about the concept of Hoarder IV (already the fourth edition!) your sale at Sotheby’s—how did the idea get hatched? I lived in London for 15...
Sunglass Idiots! Slipper Thieves! Lawsuits! Kenny Schachter Braved the Existential Vortex of Art Basel Miami Beach to Get the Goods
From my ongoing series “Idiots Wearing Sunglasses at Art Fairs.” Okay, so they’re not all idiots; but an affectation is an affectation, and looking at art like that is asinine even if your name is Pharrell. Photos courtesy of Kenny Schachter.“The Nausea has not left...
Art Without Substance book
The Meta-Future — A poem about the history of the metaverse
You’ve probably seen a lot of articles about the metaverse, but how many poems have you read on the matter? As the art world ponders the future of the metaverse, NFT evangelist Kenny Schachter charts the line from the 19th-century’s stereoscopes to tomorrow’s VR...
This art & cars exhibition in New York is unsafe at any speed
While the artist, art dealer, collector and journalist Kenny Schachter is known for his highly opinionated – and sometimes painfully honest – commentaries and columns about the art world, we have come to know him as a die-hard petrolhead and car buff since we first...
The Paradox of NFT Curation
Credit: Museum of Contemporary Digital Art (MoCDA) in Decentraland, 2022. Courtesy of MoCDAThe Web3 fantasy of an art market shorn of mediators is proving a mirage. With the pandemic compressing our experience of art into a digital plane, NFT marketplaces upended the...
The world’s first crypto war and NFT fundraising, designboom hears from Kenny Schachter
CONFLICT & CRYPTOCURRENCY Russia’s invasion of ukraine is being described as the largest military attack in europe since world war II. it’s also being called the world’s first crypto war (first by the washington post) as both countries are using cryptocurrency to...
Kenny Schachter on How the NFT Community Is Organizing to Raise Funds for Ukraine in Record Time
Work by Mieke Marple. Courtesy of the artist.By nature I am not a political animal—the art world is treacherous enough. Sure, I did take a couple of jabs at the buffoon formerly known as our president, but recent events in Ukraine have led me to pursue a different...
Kenny Schachter & Morton St Partners: Unsafe At Any Speed
Devon Dikeou, “WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?”: Unsafe At Any Speed, 1991 Ongoing, 18 x 24 inchesRecently opened exhibition “Unsafe At Any Speed,” curated by omnipresent artist, writer, curator, and dealer, Kenny Schachter, is a return not only to his curatorial New...
Kenny Schachter: “The art world is a fucked-up place”
Photo: Kenny SchachterThe new show is called Metadada, a play on the word metadata. What can visitors expect? I think for me the show is really a snapshot and an analysis of NFTs, of technology and art and the convergence of all of these fields. In a way it’s an...
The Rules Don’t Apply To Me Syndrome
Kenny Schachter Wades Through the Booze-Soaked NFT Mecca of Miami Beach—and Wishes He Could Escape to the Metaverse
Adam Lindeman as Chromie Squiggle Remember last month when I wrote that I was done writing for a while? Well, I lied (if you can’t contradict yourself…). You didn’t think I’d actually give up this platform, did you? If you hadn’t heard, I returned to Miami Basel this...
R.I.P. Kenny Schachter, Lousy Art Salesman and O.K. Market Journalist, Who Went Down Bringing You This New York Auction Recap
Kenny Schachter in the process of shedding his skin as a journalist. Photo: www.KennySchachter.artThis is a twist on Arthur Miller, where the salesman in fact comes to terms with his new identity and the concomitant change effectuated by it. In other words, dear...
Who Is Behind Art Forger Wolfgang Beltracchi’s New Crypto Project? Kenny Schachter Unmasks the Top NFT Creator in His First-Ever Interview
Some of the Salvator Mundi NFTs from Wolfgang Baltracchi's new NFT collection "The Greats."In January 2021, a long-germinating NFT project titled Hashmasks officially launched. The series of 16,384 unique collectible NFTs was the first meaningful follow-up...
Kenny Schachter Surveys the Highs and Lows of Art Basel and Scolds Art Snobs for Dismissing NFTs (Which He’s Selling a Lot of, by the Way)
Creative destruction: blowing up the bridge between old and new—the traditional art world and the world of NFTism.The art world knows one word, above all others, and that is “no.” No, you can’t buy this (the illusive waiting list); no, you can’t do that, or say… just...
Kenny Schachter Gets Clued Into an Ultra-Secret $130 Million Frida Kahlo Auction and Wades Through the NFT Swamp
It’s raining men, and money in Frida’s case.Before I resume with more of the crypto content you’ve come to expect from me of late (apologies in advance), here’s some juicy meatspace fodder to chew on. Author Luis-Martín Lozano spent 30 years ferreting out all 152...
Schachter-istically outspoken
Death be not proud (it is bound to happen soon er or later) Video still © Kenny SchachterGuess the riddle! He is a direct, simple, and honest person – sometimes harsh – but infinitely enjoyable. Although he doesn't take himself too seriously, he is deathly serious...
In the Wild West of NFTs, Kenny Schachter Rubs Shoulders With Jay-Z, Crypto Grifters, Dodgy Doppelgangers, and Some Very Pricey Socks
Owning Gary Vaynerchuk NFTs are like buying a few of Tony Robbins teeth and gaining a seat in his mouth. I’d prefer Tony’s molars than a one-on-one mentoring session with GaryVee. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.With unprecedented levels of cataclysmic events afoot, both...
In the Wild West of NFTs, Kenny Schachter Rubs Shoulders With Jay-Z, Crypto Grifters, Dodgy Doppelgangers, and Some Very Pricey Socks
Owning Gary Vaynerchuk NFTs are like buying a few of Tony Robbins teeth and gaining a seat in his mouth. I’d prefer Tony’s molars than a one-on-one mentoring session with GaryVee. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.With unprecedented levels of cataclysmic events afoot, both...
After Years of Ridicule, Kenny Schachter Has Kissed and Made Up With Zombie Formalist Lucien Smith. Here, They Talk Art, Drugs, & the Market
No rain here, just healthy living in S-chanf, Switzerland. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.The painter Lucien Smith, born in April 1989, crashed out of the gate in a hurry—only to suffer an equally swift, though less desirable crash of an altogether different variety. In...
Is the NFT Moment Over? Far From It. Kenny Schachter Surveys an Art World Remade by NFTs (and Damien Hirst’s Elusive New Money Man)
The elusive Joe Hage. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.I was at a gallery the other day when someone cast a glance in my direction and said to a friend, “Isn’t that the NFT guy?” Yes, I may very well be that—but it doesn’t mean I’m not still privy to meatspace scoops every...
Are NFTs a Shrinking Market… or the Next Amazon? Kenny Schachter Wages War With Crypto-Cynics and One Incomprehensible NFT Terrorist
NFTs have made Kenny Schachter's life... interesting. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.Joshua Decter is a “writer, curator, theorist, educator, and editor” who really, really loathes NFTs, so much so he has been engaged in a months-long, cross-platform attack against me on...
Kenny Schachter on the NFT Scheme He Cooked Up With Jerry Saltz to Make Some Big Money (for Charity), and Why It Made Jerry… Less Than Ecstatic
Professor Kenny Schachter Is Here to Teach You More About NFTs (and Put the Crypto Critics in Detention)
That’ll be Professor Nifty to you. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.I am urgently trying to scratch together enough fiat money—you know, old-fashion paper currency made legal tender by government decree—to buy my house, which is weighed down by an antediluvian hoard...
Storming the ‘last bastion’: Angst and anger as NFTs claim high-culture status
It’s as immutable as a transaction on the blockchain: Nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, have permanently made their mark on art history. While the movement has some members of the arterati swooning at the notion of unwashed digital hordes laying siege to their domain, the...
Are NFTs the Next Tulip Bubble? Kenny Schachter Doesn’t Care—and He Sold His Own Grandma on the Crypto Web to Prove It
Bubble, bubble, toil and no trouble (on the horizon). Some will go up, many will go down, but NFTs are here to stay! Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.It took the world centuries to stop talking (and thinking) about the artiness of art and denigrate the discussion to the...
What’s a ‘Rug Pull’? Here’s Kenny Schachter’s Handy Glossary of NFT Terms for Newbie Crypto-Art Converts
It all makes sense, trust me. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.For all you luddites (including me, only a few months ago) who are new to the world of crypto art, here is a partial glossary of NFT terms—one that will undoubted need updating before this is even posted....
Kenny Schachter Gets Sucked Into the Surreal NFT Vortex… and Makes a Fortune Overnight in the New Virtual Art Market
My second drop on Nifty Gateway—woohoo, I reinvented myself in late middle age. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.While writing this, I’m on WhatsApp chatting to a friend, listening to (yet another) Clubhouse talk drone on, and participating in a group discussion on...
Happy New Year? Kenny Schachter on His Money-Losing Auction, Battles on the Homefront, and the Art of Swiss Excess
Can I help you find something? Kenny Schachter presiding over his Sotheby's sale. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter.How can you make a small fortune in art? Start with a big one. I’m paraphrasing Victor Gauntlett, a onetime owner of the perennially cash-strapped sports car...
Gram today, gone tomorrow? Kenny Schachter predicts Instagram’s future in 2021
Veteran dealer, writer and avid Instagram user Kenny Schachter gives us his predictions for the art world's favourite app Courtesy of Kenny SchachterIt is that time when everyone scrabbles predictions for the year ahead—but after the left-field unpredictability of...
The Great Stink
Paul Thek, Untitled (Meat Cable), 1968-69. Wax on steel cable with two turnbuckles. 168 x 3 x 2 1/2 in. Photography by Veli-Matti Hoikka. Courtesy of Hannah Hoffman, Los Angeles. © The Estate of George Paul Thek.I got COVID this autumn, not after taking fourteen...
Kenny Schachter Is Back, Baby! And He’s So OVR It. (But Has Plenty to Say About the Ron Perelman Selloff)
The time is now! For the auction houses to have a more representative staff. Until then, maybe Anthea Hamilton will lend some of her mannequins. Illustration courtesy of Kenny Schachter.I hope this article finds you and your family safe in these strange and...
Remembering the beautiful melancholy of Matthew Wong
Matthew Wong's The Realm of Appearances on show at a preview of Sotheby's contemporary art evening auction on 29 June in New YorkI’d like to share a few thoughts concerning Matthew Wong and the recent auctioning of four of his works since his recent premature death in...
Are TV Art Auctions the New Televangelism? In a World Gone Mad, Kenny Schachter Tunes In to Watch the Fast and Furious Flipping
There's no accounting for dumb. Illustration courtesy of Kenny Schachter. *This story has been updated with a correction. Please see the full correction appended at the end. As the beaches swell with sardined sun worshippers and pathetic partygoers, and as COVID...
Kenny Schachter Has Some Choice Words to Say About Inigo Philbrick’s Arrest, and Now Turns His Attention to… Donald Trump
I can’t say I’m happy about this, but it doesn’t mean I can’t have a laugh—I did get Inigo’d don’t forget. Courtesy of Kenny Schachter. We sure live in some fucked up times. Take New York City alone, in which the mayor, Bill de Blasio, is overplaying his hand in...