The Art Daddy's Weekly Daddy Wrap Up for 7/18/25
The Barns Are Burning, and So Are the Daddies. All the art daddy news that is fit to print.
Welcome back, Daddy. If you’ve felt a disturbance in the art world force — like a PR intern softly weeping into a linen napkin — you’re not wrong. The infrastructure continues to collapse in slow motion, and we’re here, spritz in hand, to document it all.
Hope you brought electrolytes and emotional boundaries, because the art world is once again in freefall — and this week, the flames are flickering over both legacy and linen.
This week, the exodus continues: another legacy player has left the chat. After nearly 40 years of whispery, power-suited advisory, Guggenheim-Asher is officially calling it quits. That’s right — the latest casualty in the Art Daddy Demise™ isn’t a gallery but an advisory firm so old-school they probably still used fax. If you’re keeping track at home, we’re inching toward full extinction status. Someone get the NEA on the line.
Meanwhile, it’s Upstate Art Weekend — the art world’s annual linen-drenched pilgrimage to the Hudson Valley. Everyone you know is in a barn pretending they’re not extremely online while quoting Wendell Berry and sipping nettle spritzers. And yes — someone’s definitely performing ancestral grief in a field again. Nature is healing.
Where are all the daddies going this weekend and beyond?
In its fifth year, Upstate Art Weekend is what happens when the Bushwick diaspora collides with Bard’s admissions catalog and a hefty trust. You’re not attending an art fair — you’re participating in a "place-based dialogue about materiality and land stewardship"... that happens to be curated by someone who used to manage brand activations for Hauser. Your ex is there. Your art consultant is there. Your ex who became an art consultant after learning to throw ceramics in a yurt is definitely there.
And while some of the programming is real, vital, and locally-rooted (shoutout to the Hudson Valley artists who’ve been holding it down since before "intentional community" became a grant category), let’s not pretend this isn’t also a moodboard in motion — a gentrified pastoral fantasy where sustainability is aesthetic and the kombucha costs $14. It’s the Hamptons with goats and better lighting.
Some key differences between the Hamptons vs. Upstate Art events.
Elsewhere in the chaos: Leo Braudy has been getting spicy. Leo Braudy — yes, that Leo Braudy — has been getting... chatty. After causing a minor stir in the advisory sphere earlier this season (more on that soon), he’s suddenly cozying up to The Art Daddy in the DMs. Is it damage control? Flirting? A soft launch of a brand pivot? Unclear. But something’s brewing, and we’re watching. Closely.
So to sum it up: the advisors are folding, the barns are curated within an inch of their lives, and the daddies are getting weirdly friendly.
Let’s get into it.
Gallery Exodus or Daddy Extinction? The Power Closures Keep Coming
Oh, the Daddy Die-Off continues—and not even the Hamptons breeze can cover the stench of generational collapse. First Tim Blum shutters his LA gallery, then Adam Lindemann calls it quits on Venus Over Manhattan, and now the grande dames of blue-chip art advising—Barbara Guggenheim and Abigail Asher—are imploding in a lawsuit so petty it makes The Real Housewives of Basel look restrained. What’s happening isn’t just a market correction; it’s a seismic ego recession. The old guard is either ghosting their galleries, suing their business partners, or quietly aging out of the Very Important Art Dinner circuit. One by one, the Daddies are pulling the ripcord, leaving behind a dusty trail of unpaid interns, unpaid invoices, and unopened Warhols.
Advisory daddies during happier times.
Yes, the art market is cyclical. Yes, people say this every time a fair flops or a mid-tier gallery closes. But this feels different. This isn’t about waiting out a season—it’s about the collapse of a persona. The idea that confidence, connections, and a navy blazer could carry you through decades of speculation and bad sculpture is crumbling. The Daddy figure—self-appointed taste-maker, emotionally unavailable deal-hound, half-curator/half-con man—is going extinct. The new economy doesn’t care how many Gagosian dinners you’ve been to. It wants receipts, not Rolodexes. And for some of these legacy players, that’s proving fatal.
So what now? The void left behind is being filled with crypto crash victims, trust fund hobbyists, and start-up bros who think curating is just code for “vibing.” Meanwhile, independent artists and writers are once again left to sweep the floor of a party they were never really invited to. Maybe that's the next frontier—not replacing the old Daddies, but refusing the premise altogether. Long live the Art Daddy (™) for documenting the extinction—one resignation, one shuttered storefront, one subpoena at a time.
Field Trip for the Privileged: Upstate Art Weekend and the New Pastoral Elitism
Upstate Art Weekend is now in its fifth year, and what began as a low-key summer highlight for Hudson Valley locals and city-adjacent art folks has blossomed into a full-blown institution. Founded in 2020 by Helen Toomer as a way to connect art spaces across the Hudson Valley during the pandemic, the event now includes more than 130 participants across counties — from artist-run spaces and nonprofits to galleries that closed their LES outposts and reopened next to a goat field in Germantown.
It’s branded as accessible, community-focused, and hyper-local. But let’s be honest: what Upstate Art Weekend really offers is a new kind of art world fantasy — a pastoral aesthetic escape valve for the burnout crowd. It’s a getaway for people who still want to perform being in the scene while pretending they’ve opted out of it.
Gone are the days of sweating through a Gagosian booth in Miami next to a crypto bro; now it's about browsing reclaimed-wood galleries in Birkenstocks while sipping small-batch iced matcha. The vibe is “spiritual” minimalism and family compound chic. It’s a little bit Marfa, a little bit Brooklyn flea, and very much Bard grad rehabbing a barn with generational wealth and a toddler named Fern who eats hand-foraged snacks and refers to Helen Frankenthaler as "Auntie Helen."
Sure, there are real moments of community and legit local artists involved — and yes, places like Foreland in Catskill or Elijah Wheat Showroom have done serious work to build programming that centers regional practices. But we’d be delusional to pretend that this whole thing isn’t also a consolidation of a new kind of classed aesthetic: a slow art, heirloom tomato, Blue Hill-at-Stone-Barns form of privilege. One that speaks the language of sustainability, collaboration, and "slowness" — but still depends on second homes, flexible work-from-anywhere creative jobs, and access to both cultural and literal capital.
Meanwhile, many artists and spaces who've been in the region for decades — those who didn’t arrive post-2020 lockdown with a portable sauna and a “vision” — are still fighting for visibility and institutional support. It’s hard to build local arts infrastructure when every former brownstone-owning Bushwick couple is buying up a barn and applying for NYSCA grants with words like “ritual,” “regenerative,” and “stewardship” in the mission statement.
Compare this with the Hamptons Fine Art Fair, a Botox-and-boat-show bonanza under a white tent on land that’s triple-booked with real estate expos and pickleball clinics. It’s gauche, sure — but it knows what it is. Upstate Art Weekend, by contrast, wants it both ways: rustic and refined, radical and resale-value friendly, earnest and in-the-know. There, “authenticity” is currency, but only if it’s mood-board ready and can be captured in natural light.
Still, the Hudson Valley’s appeal is real — the landscape is stunning, the communities are layered, and there is a different energy than you’ll find at your average art fair. But the risk is that this becomes just another extension of NYC’s orbit — a chic suburb with a more photogenic alibi. And when every exhibition is framed by wildflowers, river stones, and a bespoke hand-thrown ceramic mug, it’s worth asking: is this a community, or just a curated weekend?
Let’s not confuse proximity with investment. If we’re going to celebrate Upstate Art Weekend as an alternative, we have to ask: alternative to what — and for whom?
Tell Your Dad
In my new Substack series, Tell Your Dad, I’m creating a space for art-world gossip, hot tips, and spicy takes. Got something that needs to be called out? Think a show, scandal, or power play deserves more attention than the usual outlets are giving it? This is where it happens. Send your tips to theartdaddyy@gmail.com or slide into my DMs @theartdaddy_.
DMs, Drama, and Dubious Art Fairs: Is Leo Braudy the Art Daddy’s Newest Muse?
What started as a light roast over bad lighting and worse curation at the Hamptons Fine Art Fair (a misnomer if there ever was one—think less Art Basel, more Rest Stop with Framing Options) has evolved into something… unexpected. Leo Braudy, the man once spotted loitering beside someone older than Warren Buffett at the Young Collectors VIP tent (??), is now deep in the DMs with the Art Daddy. And baby, he’s chatty. We’re not saying he’s love-bombing, but the messages are giving... think monologue with a splash of Mid-Atlantic thirst.
And honestly? We’re a little bit into it. Leo’s got stories. He’s got tea. And while we’re still raising a well-plucked brow at his advisory firm (is it real? Is it vibes? Is it AI-generated branding copy?), the man knows how to gossip and we respect that. Plus, when someone’s willing to unpack the slow-motion implosion of the Hamptons "fair" with you in real time, you pay attention. That’s intimacy, darling. That’s trust.
Daddy’s new chat bff on IG.
Is this the start of a full-blown parasocial slow burn? A delulu Daddy mentee moment? Or just an extremely online art-world DM dalliance that will fizzle faster than a Gagosian group show with no resales? Only time—and maybe a drink at the Sunset Tower—will tell. For now, we’re enjoying the banter and letting Leo orbit the Daddy solar system. Carefully. Casually. But with just enough intrigue to keep things spicy.
When Art Advisors Attack™
This week, the art world’s gloved claws came all the way off: Barbara Guggenheim and Abigail Asher—co-founders of the once-vaunted advisory firm Guggenheim Asher Associates—are now suing each other in a full-blown Upper East Side art divorce. Think Succession meets The Real Housewives of Gstaad. Guggenheim claims Asher siphoned off $20.5 million and started a rival firm behind her back. Asher says Guggenheim used the business as a personal piggy bank—Bentleys, funeral costs, and (allegedly) encouraging her to use sex to close deals. We’re not saying it’s giving Epstein’s art wing, but… the filing does mention “sexual coercion,” “private islands,” and “client manipulation.” Daddy is screaming.
Guggenheim and Asher before the lawsuit.
This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
Once the go-to advisors for celebs and corporations alike (Spielberg! Coca-Cola! Clearly taste is relative), the duo is now torching whatever trust was left in the whisper-network world of high-stakes art dealing. Billionaires: blink twice if your collection was used as collateral for a tax write-off and a trip to Little Saint James. It’s a reminder that behind every tastefully hung Richter might be a decades-old grudge, an NDA, and a line item for “champagne seduction.” The art world isn’t just broken, darling—it’s eating itself in couture. More on this as it self-destructs in real time.
Art World Headlines
ADAA Pulls the Plug — and the Old Guard Unplugs With It
After 35 years of orchids, restraint, and quiet wealth cosplay, the Art Dealers Association of America has canceled its 2025 edition of The Art Show. Officially, it’s a “pause.” Unofficially? It’s giving we no longer go here. Once the crown jewel of Park Avenue collecting culture, the fair is bowing out just as Frieze colonizes Manhattan and the auction houses throw influencer-packed previews with playlists. The ADAA says they’re taking time to “reimagine” the show’s future—but let’s be real: the genteel model of polite booths and polite prices just isn’t pulling weight in a market now driven by chaos, clout, and collectors who think Substack is a provenance tool. It’s a pause but it feels like a breakup.
The Art Show during better days.
This isn’t a timeout. It’s a soft admission that the uptown model doesn’t move the needle anymore. ADAA was built for a different species of buyer—the kind who didn’t need captions, just a tax deduction and a Leland Little frame. But in 2025, if your fair doesn’t offer spectacle, scarcity, or at least one ironic neon, it’s dead on arrival. The Art Show isn’t just canceled. It’s been culturally ghosted. And the old guard? They’re finding out that legacy prestige is hard to spend when no one’s RSVPing.
Art Market Pro Tip: Maybe Check the Pollock First
Oh, now Phillips is suddenly concerned about provenance? In a move that feels more “oopsie” than institutional accountability, the auction house is suing the seller of a Jackson Pollock painting they sold for $4.6 million back in May 2023, after discovering it might be fake. This is what happens when the art market runs on vibes and glossy PDFs instead of due diligence. Phillips calling this a “rare instance” is rich, considering how many sales operate on handshake legitimacy and curated ambiguity. If even a Pollock with that kind of price tag can slide through, what does that say about the house’s vetting—or the collectors who bought it? Authentication is out, plausible deniability is in.
Christie’s Says “We’re Thriving,” but It’s Giving Quiet Luxury Fire Sale
Christie’s just announced $2.1 billion in first-half auction sales and called it a win — which is cute, considering the market’s still limping behind 2022’s coked-up peak. Sure, they sold a $47 million Mondrian and a $14 million pink diamond, but let’s be real: when your big flex is jewelry outperforming paintings, it’s giving Sotheby’s QVC era.
Fine art is down 10% year-over-year, global sales are dipping, and collectors are quietly dumping works at losses — but hey, at least the diamonds are sparkling. Christie’s is leaning into watches, luxury handbags, and vintage cars like it’s launching an estate sale for the 0.01%. What we’re watching isn’t a comeback — it’s a pivot. A pivot from “blue-chip art” to “liquid assets that photograph well.”
And yes, private sales are up, but that’s just rich people doing deals in the dark — less Sotheby’s vs. Christie’s, more Succession with Basel accents. The truth? The auction market is in its flop era, but no one wants to say it out loud. So instead, we get shiny press releases, six-figure sapphires, and a vibe that screams, “Art is fine! Don’t look too close!”
Daddy’s looking. And it’s not that fine.
Billionaire Taste, Tequila Waste and a Rashid Johnson Painting
Howard Lutnick, the Cantor Fitzgerald CEO and recurring character from the Succession casting couch, just posted a tequila-pounding thirst trap—sorry, “taste moment”—with a Rashid Johnson painting as the accidental co-star. The video, posted by none other than Chamath Palihapitiya, is peak cringe couture: Lutnick waxing poetic about high-end booze while the Johnson canvas looms behind him like it’s silently begging to be rescued. Billionaires can buy art, but they can’t buy vibe. And yet—there it is, a serious conceptual work turned into bar décor while the boys play sommelier in blazers.
Note the painting in the background.
Rashid Johnson didn’t ask to be part of your “bro culture but make it artsy” moment, babes. He’s a critically acclaimed artist, not set dressing for your tequila commercial. But once again, the art world proves it has no safe word when money walks in. The irony? This painting was likely purchased for its cultural gravitas—only to end up photobombed by ego and ethanol. Johnson also currently has a retrospective up at the Guggenheim as well. The Art Daddy verdict: Rashid’s work still slaps. But if your tequila promo has a six-figure canvas in the background, maybe sit this one out. Or at least keep the bottle off the baseboard.
From Sotheby’s to Shitcoins: Justin Sun Is Curating the Collapse
When Justin Sun snagged Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian at Sotheby’s last year — yes, that duct-taped banana that launched a thousand think pieces — we figured it was peak absurdist flex. But never underestimate a crypto billionaire’s hunger for chaos. Sun has now added a Trump-themed memecoin to his collection, claiming it’s “for fun and satire.” Which, sure. Nothing screams satire like funneling money into a digital currency themed after America’s most NFT-coded former president.
The whole affair feels like performance art tailor-made for the end times. On one hand, you’ve got the literal fruit of late-capitalist conceptual art. On the other, a speculative joke coin based on the man who once tried to buy Greenland. Together, they form a kind of ouroboros of cultural collapse — a collector turning himself into the artwork.
Is Sun trolling? Absolutely. But he’s also holding a mirror up to a system where the lines between satire, speculation, and sincere investment are indistinguishable. In this economy, buying a banana isn’t just a joke — it’s a statement. Buying a Trump coin? That’s just dessert.
Platform Capitalism in a Linen Suit: De Pury’s Fantasy League of Art Innovation
This week Simon De Pury dropped his latest dumpster fire of an article. Let’s unpack this steaming pile of art market delusion like it’s a poorly curated Basel booth. We’re barely out of the Artnet fire sale and already Simon de Pury is canonizing Hans Neuendorf like he’s some kind of digital Picasso in a linen suit. Look, Hans built something bold in the '90s. Visionary, maybe, for its time. But let’s not act like Artnet hasn’t felt like a pixelated ghost town for the past decade. The site has been coasting on legacy and blurry JPEGs, while everyone around it built slicker platforms or bailed entirely. Calling it a "crown jewel" is the kind of mythologizing that only happens when billionaires start writing checks. Artnet wasn't a unicorn—it was a Craigslist for secondary sales with an ego problem.
Simon offers a metaphor: the art market is like a middle-aged man who survives a health scare, vows to change, and immediately returns to foie gras and Pinot as soon as the cardiologist isn’t looking. Cute. But also: Simon, please. This whole "we almost evolved but then we didn't" lament conveniently ignores the fact that the market chooses regression. Wealth isn't allergic to innovation—it's allergic to losing control. The reason everyone sprinted back to art fairs and in-person bidding is because IRL still confers status. People want to be seen spending. The real addiction isn’t to analog methods; it’s to the social performance of luxury.
Then comes the big reveal: Pharrell Williams. Yes, that Pharrell. Simon names him as the future Neuendorf because he launched Joopiter, a resale platform that sounds like an off-brand hoverboard or a lost Teletubby. Sure, Pharrell is fashion-savvy and culturally literate, but let’s not confuse “vibes” with infrastructure. Hiring a former Christie’s e-comm exec isn’t revolutionary—it’s corporate cosplay. Joopiter isn’t dismantling the status quo; it’s branding a cooler waiting room inside it.
Next up: Hélène Nguyen-Ban and Docent, pitched as the "Spotify of art." And just like Spotify, it threatens to flatten value and funnel attention toward an algorithmic elite. This isn’t disruption—it’s platform capitalism in a different font. And if you think that’s going to solve the inequities of the art market, I have an NFT from 2021 to sell you. The art world doesn’t need another celebrity-backed startup. It needs structural change: transparent pricing, sustainable models, and actual investment in artists, not just their visibility.
De Pury isn’t wrong that the art world needs new thinking. But his column reads less like future-gazing and more like a brand deck from 2017. Pharrell isn’t the next Neuendorf. He’s the next capsule collection. And Docent isn’t Spotify—it’s a pitch deck waiting for Series A. This isn’t disruption. It’s distraction.
Signed, The Art Daddy
THE ART DADDY™ OFFICIAL SURVIVAL GUIDE TO UPSTATE ART WEEKEND™
So. You’re going to Upstate Art Weekend.
You’ve convinced yourself it’ll be “chill.” “Grounding.” Maybe even “important for your practice.” After all, it’s not like The Hamptons Fine Art Fair, where someone tried to sell a painting next to a pontoon boat and an “artist” stabbed a canvas with a butcher knife while chanting about the blockchain. No, this is the tasteful pilgrimage. The anti-fair fair. Art, but for people who moved to Hudson after their ketamine clinic IPOed.
Now in its fifth edition, Upstate Art Weekend is where New York's soft-core art elite and "creative expats" (read: people who left the city but kept their Tribeca dentist) gather to pretend they’re no longer part of the system. It's a carefully curated, kombucha-scented escape from the global art market — and yet somehow still just as insufferable.
If you must go — whether out of peer pressure, FOMO, or because your ex is doing a reading about “intergenerational land memory” in a yurt — allow The Art Daddy™ to prepare you.
Because baby, the elitism wears linen up here. And it's fermented.
1. Pack Like You’re Joining a Commune, But Make It Expensive™
This is not Miami. No logos. No platform sandals. Think: washed linen, clogs, artisanal gauze. A hat that cost $400 and says “I own a sheep but only emotionally.” You want to look like you live in a solar-powered shipping container, but still get PR packages from Prada.
Never Rely on Cell Service. Ever.
Once you leave the city, you enter a dead zone of patchy Wi-Fi and emotional uncertainty. That “hidden gem” art show you saw on Instagram? You won’t find it without four missed turns and an existential crisis. Download the map. Bring a compass. Consider an emotional support intern.Expect to Be Dominated by a Barn.
You will be spiritually outshined by a barn. Every exhibition is in a barn. Every barn is perfectly lit. Every light fixture costs more than your rent. Someone will describe the hay smell as “intentional.” You will nod.4. Brush Up on Your Art-Speak.
You’re not looking at paintings. You’re “witnessing a site-responsive exploration of settler trauma through textile.” That pile of rocks? “A geosocial intervention on permanence.” You’ll need at least three words from the following list to survive: liminal, generative, transhistorical, porous, embodied.
Hydrate or Die Trying (No, That’s Not a Gallery Title).
You will be offered tinctures, homemade shrub, or “moon water charged under Venus retrograde.” No one drinks normal water here. Bring a bottle. Fill it before you leave the last café with Wi-Fi. Do not ask for LaCroix unless you want to be socially executed.
6. Know the Local Scene... or Pretend Really Well
You must name-drop Foreland. You must say “Mother Gallery is doing interesting things.” Say “I love how this space lets the land breathe.” Pretend you’ve been c coming for years. Mention how much it's changed “post-COVID.” Then sigh. Loudly.
You Will Encounter Fern.
She is three. She wears hand-dyed onesies. Her parents run an experimental sound bath space in a converted dairy plant. She has better PR than you and was recently featured in Cultured. Do not engage unless you’re ready to talk about seed cycling and legacy stewardship.Beware of Performance Art in Meadows
At some point, you’ll stumble into an unmarked field and witness a person in a burlap jumpsuit screaming at the sky while slathering themselves in honey. No one will stop them. This is “ancestral reconnection through movement.” Applaud. Walk backwards.Local Art ≠ Local Artists
That soft-focus video installation about the Catskills was made by someone from Tribeca. The artist who makes sculptures out of horsehair and antique nails? Used to run marketing for Glossier. Everyone’s from the city. They just ferment now.Have an Exit Strategy
After the third fermentation-forward gallery dinner and second river-adjacent performance about eco grief, you’re going to need a break. Book a motel with A/C. Say you're doing a "solitude retreat" if you must ghost. No one upstate can call you out — there's no service, remember?
✨ Final Word from Daddy:
Upstate Art Weekend is a vibe. It’s slower, yes. Prettier? Sure. But don’t be fooled — the elitism is just wearing clogs instead of heels. This is still a curated experience for those with time, money, and a flexible remote job that allows weekday fermentation practice. But hey — at least no one’s stabbing a canvas with a butcher knife under a tent next to a boat show.
Just don't forget: the Hudson Valley isn’t your aesthetic accessory. It’s a place where people actually live, make, and struggle — long before you showed up in wide-leg linen pants quoting bell hooks out of context.
See you in the barn, Daddy.
In a NYT Style section manner, I also want to set forth some taste making elements.
I am reading: I'm reading Dancing on My Own by Simon Wu
I am drinking: 365 Lime Seltzer and Saratoga Spring sparkling water.
I am looking at: All the men over 60 with real estate in other countries on daddy apps. I am also going to auctions to meet men over 60 with real estate in other countries so this counts as a form of looking.
Genius analysis and thank you!!!