Well, it’s the unofficial last weekend of summer because apparently August is fucking over. Consider this Daddy’s unofficial August exit interview. I’m not emotionally prepared to call summer dead yet, but the calendar has other plans. Daddy did make it to the Hamptons several times. I am still recovering from my upstate excursion. I briefly experienced the delusion that August might continue indefinitely and I would never again have to operate according to an academic calendar or an art fair VIP preview.
Unfortunately, next week I have to lock the fuck in on multiple levels. School is starting. The art world is back on its bullshit. September is coming, and I can already tell somebody’s fucked this up. Openings are multiplying. Invitations are appearing. People are returning from wherever they have been pretending not to work for the last month. And Daddy once again has to be there to bear witness to all of it.
Meanwhile, this week we lost multiple cultural and artistic icons, including Dolly Parton, Yayoi Kusama, and Tim Curry, which frankly feels excessive. At this point, we need to put half the women in the art world from Kusama’sgeneration into witness protection immediately. Nobody answers the door. Nobody attends an opening. Agnes Denes and Yoko Ono both get burner phones and a new identity. We are not taking any more chances.
And while we’re at it, can someone please explain something to me: how does Julian Schnabel get to be out here on what feels like his eighth wife with a child young enough to be his grandson, making films, and apparently painting with rain, and Yayoi Kusama dies? What kind of actuarial system is running the art world?
And despite the fact that August may be ending, apparently the news cycle has decided to go out screaming. There are shakeups at Phillips, CJ Hendry is back at it, Magnus Resch allegedly starts school next week but is currently climbing a mountain in Germany, and Jeff Magid apparently received what can only be described as a posthumous job review from Yayoi Kusama.
Also new this week: Art Daddy Special Interests, a new part of the newsletter where Daddy takes one extremely specific art world issue that has lodged itself in my brain and refuses to leave until I have subjected all of you to it too. For our inaugural installment: why the fuck is Independent 20th Century happening inside Sotheby’s? An art fair inside an auction house inside a former museum. It is institutional nesting. It is market infrastructure. It is, somehow, a fucking art world turducken. Daddy has thoughts.
And then there is Rhossi. My sea turtle twin remains in Texas while I remain spiritually in the tank beside him as we both prepare for institutional reentry. His is eventually the Gulf of Mexico. Mine is CUNY. At present, it is unclear which environment is more hostile.
So consider this our final little August dispatch before everything starts again. The fluorescent lighting is coming. Summer Daddy is being forcibly decommissioned and September Daddy is being returned to active duty against my will. Somewhere, a gallery assistant has just scheduled an opening for the exact same night as twelve other openings. Somewhere else, a publicist is typing “hope you had a restful summer” before asking me to be in Chelsea at 9:30 in the fucking morning. Daddy did have a restful summer. Please respect that by never contacting me again.
Unfortunately, I have bills. Stockpile the Whispering Angel, grab a pond of Round Swamp salad, whatever flavor you prefer, turn off your notifications and locate something black to wear. September is coming and apparently we all have to participate.
Let’s get into it.
Art Daddy Remembers Yayoi Kusama
Yayoi Kusama died on August 14 in Tokyo at 97, and the news was announced this week of her passing. There very few artists whose death can genuinely make you ask what contemporary art looks like without them. Born in Matsumoto, Japan, in 1929, Kusama came to New York in 1958 and entered an art world that was overwhelmingly male, white and not exactly waiting around for a Japanese woman with hallucinations and an obsession with dots to tell everyone what was next. She made Infinity Nets, phallic soft sculptures, performances, happenings and entire environments. She never married, had an intense relationship with Joseph Cornell, and in 1966 crashed the Venice Biennale with Narcissus Garden, filling the lawn with 1,500 mirrored balls and selling them for $2 each until organizers made her stop. Truly, Daddy behavior before Daddy was even born.
Then Kusama did something the art world rarely allows women to do: she disappeared from its center and came roaring back. She returned to Japan in 1973, voluntarily entered a psychiatric hospital in 1977 and continued making work from a nearby studio while much of the Western art world moved on without her. By 1993, she was officially representing Japan at the Venice Biennale she had once crashed. By 2014, White No. 28 sold for $7.1 million, then an auction record for a living woman artist. In 2022, Untitled (Nets) sold for $10.5 million at Phillips. Imagine going from being told to stop selling your mirrored balls for two bucks to watching your paintings sell for eight figures. That is not a comeback. That is a haunting.
And yes, by the end there were pumpkins, dots, infinity rooms, fashion collaborations, merch and enough selfies to fill several circles of hell. But none of that changes the fact that Kusama spent nearly seven decades making strange, obsessive, sexual work about repetition, accumulation, infinity and obliteration until the rest of the world finally caught up. Somehow a woman whose work was so consumed with making the self disappear became one of the most recognizable artists alive. Daddy cannot think of a more perfect contradiction. Yayoi Kusama spent a lifetime contemplating infinity. Turns out 97 years still wasn’t long enough.
Back to School Wellness Check: Rhossi and Daddy
It is time for another wellness check on Daddy’s emotional support sea turtle, Rhossi, because unfortunately both of us are currently being evaluated for institutional reentry. After nearly two years of rehabilitation in Wales, our boy finally returned to Texas on August 10 and settled into a 10,000 gallon seawater tank at Houston Zoo.
On August 11, Rhossi underwent his big back to school physical, where he was declared strong, extremely well fed and, with love, “a little bit overweight.” Please understand that adult Kemp’s ridley turtles can weigh around 70 to 100 pounds. Rhossi, currently 46 pounds, is apparently not too large for turtlehood. He is simply carrying a little study abroad weight after two years in Wales. Unfortunately, scans also revealed lingering pneumonia, so his release into the Gulf of Mexico has been postponed while he remains under observation. He is otherwise active, vigorous, swimming and apparently having the institutional reentry experience Daddy would personally prefer.
Meanwhile, Daddy is also preparing to be released back into an institution after an extended period away. I have updated the syllabus. I have answered the emails. I have attempted to remember how Brightspace works. Rhossi has lingering pneumonia and a 10,000 saltwater tank. Daddy has CUNY and a boxed Sauvignon Blanc. We are both managing our conditions differently.
So as of August 28, Rhossi is carrying a little study abroad weight, swimming in his pool and has been medically advised to remain there. Daddy has wine and would also like to remain in a pool, but apparently has to go teach. His destination is the Gulf of Mexico. Mine is a classroom under fluorescent lighting with a faculty ID and approximately 50 students. Daddy continues to believe Rhossi got the better deal.
Daddy About Town
Daddy About Town is Daddy doing what Daddy does best. Think TMZ meets Art Daddy, but with better sources, better writing, and more analysis. This isn’t press-release culture or anonymous rumor dumping. It’s what’s overheard at gallery dinners, openings, bathroom lines, fairs, after-parties, and anywhere people start talking once they think the room is safe.
Libbie Mugrabi’s Hair Extension Lady Is Here
Apparently Libbie Mugrabi’s Southampton mansion is scheduled to be auctioned from the steps of Southampton Town Hall today, which is an objectively incredible sentence. The house, which Mugrabi received in her divorce from art dealer David Mugrabi, was listed for $25 million in May, dropped to $19 million, and is now facing a court ordered auction with bidding reportedly starting at $11 million over a $3.5 million loan dispute. Libbie, however, says the auction is “fake news” and that she is refinancing.
But Daddy’s favorite part is what happened when Page Six called her about potentially losing the mansion. Libbie Mugrabi had to get off the phone because her hair extension lady had arrived. She then apparently attempted to put the hair extension lady on the phone with the reporter. I’m sorry, but if someone calls to ask whether your multimillion dollar Hamptons mansion is about to be auctioned on the steps of Town Hall and your response is essentially, Daddy has to go, my extensions are here, you have achieved a level of art world composure I can only aspire to. Anyway, the auction is scheduled. The refinancing is allegedly happening. The extensions are definitely happening. Daddy will be monitoring all three.
The Ranch Is Fighting With East Hampton, Again
Daddy regrets to inform you that The Ranch is once again fighting with East Hampton over zoning. Apparently zoning at The Ranch is a contact sport, because the last time this shit got interesting was when two grown art world men started shoving each other over fucking land use. This time the town is suing Max Levai’s Montauk art space over Matt Johnson’s Meditating Figure, a nearly 60 foot tall man made from 12 shipping containers currently sitting cross legged on the property. East Hampton says the sculpture is actually an unpermitted structure sitting on agriculturally restricted land and wants it removed. The Ranch says, essentially, hello, that is art. Daddy says apparently the greatest threat facing the Hamptons in 2026 is a giant man achieving inner peace.
Longtime Daddy readers may remember that zoning at The Ranch has previously required police involvement. In 2023, neighboring collector and dealer Adam Lindemann was arrested for trespassing and harassment after allegedly showing up at The Ranch during a private event and shoving Levai in the chest with both hands. According to reporting at the time, the dispute involved zoning issues at The Ranch, and witnesses said Lindemann asked Levai, “What are you going to do about it, fat boy?” Lindemann denied the shove and dismissed the entire thing as a “nothing fracas.” Three years later, East Hampton itself has apparently entered the group chat. (Hi Adam. Thanks for reading.)
So now we have Max Levai, the Town of East Hampton, a 60 foot meditating man, agricultural zoning, a previous arrest, an alleged two handed shove and one of the greatest insults ever delivered during a Hamptons art world property dispute. Meditating Figure is currently still sitting there peacefully. Everyone around him seems to be losing their fucking minds. And Daddy believes he may be the most emotionally regulated person involved.
Meanwhile, Magnus Resch Is on a Mountain
While half the art world spent this week posting tributes to Yayoi Kusama, Magnus Resch apparently had more pressing cultural information to disseminate: his trekking route through Germany. Magnus posted a Reel from a mountain, complete with the route, because while one of the most consequential artists of the last century had just died, and this ``Yale School of Management professor needed us to know exactly where he was walking.
Honestly, I almost respect it. Jeff Magid responded to Kusama’s death by inserting himself into the memorial narrative. Magnus responded by apparently not acknowledging it at all and continuing uphill. Two men. Two approaches to the death of an enormously important woman artist. One says, “Here is my proximity to her.” The other says, “Here is my proximity to the summit.”
And remember, Magnus starts at Yale next week, where he will apparently be teaching a class that includes MFA students. So while his future students are presumably processing the death of Yayoi Kusama, one of the most important artists to ever fucking do it, Professor Resch is somewhere in Germany posting his trekking route. Perhaps this is the first lesson. Art is temporary. Personal branding is forever.
This Week in More Groundbreaking Journalism From Daniel Cassady
This week Daniel Cassady brough us “Larry Gagosian Isn’t Losing Much Sleep Over the Great Wealth Transfer.” Groundbreaking. The peg is Larry Gagosian, aka Lare Bear, who was asked at the Parrish Art Museum what happens when aging Boomers die and their heirs inherit their collections. Could all that art hitting the market depress prices? Lare Bear isn’t worried. Lower prices might simply create “a buying opportunity.” Thank you, Lare Bear. We have discovered a sale.
From there, Daniel assembles the Avengers of the art world market. Bloomberg, Deloitte, ArtTactic, Marion Maneker, Tim Schneider, Visa, the $1 trillion art inheritance estimate and the $93 trillion Great Wealth Transfer are all summoned to establish something Daddy has been saying for years: old rich collectors are going to die, their already rich children are going to inherit their Picassos, Warhols and Monets, and many of them will want to sell. The Great Wealth Transfer may be less a Great New Collector Opportunity than a Great Consignment Opportunity. Rich people, despite tremendous effort, remain mortal.
Headlines
CJ Hendry Has Entered Her Indoor Family Entertainment Era
Because apparently turning an Upper East Side gallery into what Daddy previously described as a fucking Gymboree for UES moms and their ten year old collector children was not enough for one August, CJ Hendry is already back at it. We literally just survived the bead pit, an enormous room filled with millions of plastic beads that turned an art exhibition into indoor playtime, and now Hendry is increasingly entering her indoor family entertainment era with the production logistics of a small nation state.
Mere Mortals at Phillips New York gives us trading cards, claw machines, collectibles and merch. We have gone from bead pit Gymboree to Pokémon in a matter of weeks. At this point, Hendry isn’t mounting exhibitions so much as slowly constructing her own acid trip art world version of FAO Schwarz, where the children are collectors, the toys have secondary markets, and somebody has presumably spent six months figuring out crowd control.
And honestly, I respect the commitment to the bit while remaining fascinated by where the fuck this ends. First the bead pit. Now claw machines and trading cards. The natural conclusion of CJ Hendry’s indoor family entertainment era is obviously a literal Chuck E. Cheese in a strip mall somewhere deep on Long Island, complete with an animatronic artist, a ticket counter and a prize wall where 40,000 points gets you a limited edition print. Daddy will be drinking Pinot Grigio out of a plastic cup while someone explains that the ball pit is actually about democratizing collecting.
Phillips Is Having an Identity Crisis
Apparently August could not end peacefully because Phillips is having a full blown identity crisis. On one hand, CJ Hendry is downstairs building the art world’s answer to indoor family entertainment. On the other, senior leadership is heading for the exits. Miety Heiden, who is basically Phillips OG status at this point, and Jonathan Crockett, chairman for Asia, are both leaving next month, joining Scott Nussbaum, Vivian Pfeiffer, and other senior figures who have recently departed. Miety has been there since 2017, helped build the private sales business and PhillipsX, and sat on the four person executive leadership team. When half the executive leadership team starts disappearing while someone else is installing claw machines, Daddy starts wondering whether anyone has checked on Phillips emotionally.
And this is all happening after a strong May in New York, which somehow makes the plot more confusing. The modern and contemporary evening sale brought in $115.2 million with fees and sold every offered lot. So we have a white glove sale followed by a summer in which seemingly everyone with a senior title has remembered they left the oven on somewhere else. Phillips says it has experienced leadership in place and is focused on continuity and the next generation. Fine. Maybe this is a changing of the guard. Maybe the auction house is simply entering a new era. But between the executive departures, PhillipsX, Dropshop, claw machines, trading cards, and whatever else is being wheeled through the front door, I am increasingly unclear whether Phillips knows if it wants to be an auction house, an experiential retail concept, an art fair, or a very expensive place to spend a Saturday with your children.
There is, however, one beacon of institutional stability. I regret to inform you that Henry Highley remains at Phillips and, more devastatingly, remains married. Daddy checked. Henry has been there since 2008, so at this point I assume he is load bearing. Phillips could lose another three executives, turn the lobby into a ball pit, install a prize counter, and rebrand the entire operation as Phillips Family Fun Center, and Henry Highley would still emerge from the rubble in a beautifully tailored suit asking if anyone would like to go one more bid. Daddy wishes Phillips the best of luck with whatever it decides it wants to be when it grows up.
Apparently Everyone Just Discovered the Global South
The great art market migration toward the Global South continues. Frieze Abu Dhabi just announced 84 galleries for its inaugural edition this November, making Frieze the latest Western art world behemoth to realize that perhaps the future of the market does not exclusively live between New York, London, Paris, and Basel. The new fair is actually evolving out of Abu Dhabi Art, which spent 17 years building a collector and gallery ecosystem in the region before Frieze arrived with its name on the door.
Sotheby’s has been expanding in Abu Dhabi. Art Basel Qatar arrived in Doha this year. Meanwhile Art Dubai has spent twenty fucking years building a fair explicitly positioned around the Global South while everyone else apparently just discovered the map. Now Frieze is arriving in Abu Dhabi, and the broader direction of travel could not be clearer. The money, collectors and institutional power are shifting, and the giant Western art brands are following them. The Global South did not suddenly become important because Frieze and Basel showed up. They showed up because it was already important.
Anyway, at this rate Daddy is going to wake up in 2028 to Frieze Poughkeepsie, presented by Deutsche Bank, with a Focus section in the fucking train station.