Art Fraud · Avenatti
And Jim Jones, and David Simon.
the true crime that's worth your time
The votes are in, and my February bonus-review assignment is…The House Of Suh. It’s available on Prime and the Roku Channel if you’d like to watch along and weigh in on my review, but: that review’s only available to paid subscribers. But $5/month gets you allll the other paywalled content going back to 2019, too. Just saying. — SDB
The crime
Well, art fraud — specifically, the (probably) faked paintings, bought and dealt by the Knoedler Gallery without regard to proper provenance, that led to the fabled gallery’s closing in 2011.
The story
The new podcast from IHeart — narrated, as we mentioned yesterday, by Alec Baldwin — describes itself on its Apple Podcasts landing page thusly:
An investigative journey through one of the biggest cases of art fraud in US history: The Knoedler Gallery. Written by VANITY FAIR reporter Michael Shnayerson and hosted by Alec Baldwin, ART FRAUD exposes the scandal of dozens of disputed paintings, and over 80 million dollars in profit that led to the stunning collapse of one of the oldest and most revered art galleries in New York City.
…Look, I didn’t not want Art Fraud to work. I love a good forgery story, well told; Vanity Fair true-crime content often doesn’t bear expansion into another, longer format, but at the least, it’s a solid basis for a pod project; Alec Baldwin is not all that great at certain aspects of living as a human, but he’s not untalented either, and you could reasonably argue that his marriage to a living cultural-forgery artifact makes him the perfect embedded choice for the Art Fraud VO. Certainly I was curious enough to check out the podcast’s inaugural episodes, both of which dropped Tuesday.
Based on those two eps, Art Fraud does not in fact work for me, and that’s in no small part on me — or, I guess, on B.E., because we’ve talked about many many art-world-shenanigans properties around here just in general, and the fall of the Knoedler in particular a bunch of times as well.
The fake Pollocks and Diebenkorns, how much gallery head Ann Freedman knew and how much she profited…documentaries have amply covered the story over the last decade, not to mention that if you did read the VF piece from co-creator Michael Shnayerson in the mag’s May 2021 issue, Art Fraud doesn’t add much.
It adds some information, like how to pronounce “Knoedler” correctly (I assumed “needler”; it’s actually “node-ler”), and just how many people considered Freedman an uninformed striver, but its chief selling point seems to be that you can passively absorb it via your earholes while commuting. And this is a perfectly legitimate selling point, if your narrator knows what he’s about.
Baldwin doesn’t, in the early going; the pacing is absolutely leaden. Baldwin is, I think, struggling with a medium in which he has nothing to act against. One exchange, in which he and Shnayerson disagree as to whether Freedman acted in good faith in the bigger transactions, is clearly scripted but seems to have activated a more confident series of line readings from Baldwin — but prior to that, oo-fah.
He’s not helped by the production’s decision to leave a couple of his more avant-garde pronunciations in, and like, I get that you don’t necessarily want to ask Alec Baldwin for another take at any time, much less right now, but his parodically ponderous choices just hang a light on stuff that isn’t working. I don’t like to bump the speed on stuff I’m reviewing, because it feels unethical, but after half an hour, I kicked it up to 1.25x just to cut the awk.
At one-and-a-quarter and with the premiere-ep jitters out of the way, matters do improve in Episode 2, but if you have any familiarity with the Knoedler saga already, Art Fraud is inessential. If you don’t, and are intrigued, just read the Shnayerson linked above. — SDB
It’s only the third of the month, and our story-budget doc looks like an info bomb went off, so let me straighten up before Eve gets back with a list of headlines and highlights. Premiere dates, casting news, possible mistrials, reno drama, and a drill-team kidnapping… — SDB
Crime Scene Confidential premieres March 8 on Investigation Discovery. “[Alina] Burroughs revisits controversial and shocking murder cases from across the country, taking a fresh look at the forensic evidence with the hope to bring more clarity to these complex crimes and closure to those the victims left behind.” [ID press release]
It’s the anniversary of a post-Revolutionary War crime that changed “common perceptions of crime.” Until the murders of Caleb Mallory and his family, “crime was most often seen as the result of common sinners losing their way. But [Barnett] Davenport’s crime and its portrayal to the public caused people to perceive criminals as evil and alien to the rest of society. [History Channel]
Michael Avenatti’s jury is already deadlocked. Jurors can’t seem to agree on whether Avenatti cheated Stormy Daniels. [NY Daily News]
Four men have been charged in connection with the death of Michael K. Williams. Three of the accused face count/s of “conspiracy in connection with the intent to sell fentanyl and heroin, which carries a minimum of five years in prison”; a fourth defendant faces the conspiracy charge plus one of materially causing Williams’s death, which ups the possible prison time to 20 years, mandatory minimum. Wire creator David Simon isn’t taking any comfort from the arrests, saying on Twitter that “I do not think Mike is honored or properly remembered by more incarceration in his name. Knowing him and his thoughts, I think he would be appalled at this.” (If you want to honor “Mike” by watching his series Black Market, I recommended it earlier.) [Gothamist]
Here’s more from Meredith Blake on the Andy and Candis Meredith/Home Work saga. “Were the Merediths simply working parents who took on too much by trying to make a reality show while raising seven kids and renovating a dozen or so properties during a pandemic? Or were they running ‘the equivalent of a construction Ponzi scheme,’ as Kyle Adams, a lawyer for Bennion and the Hawley family, said in an interview with The Times?” [LA Times]
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Chloe Grace Moretz have signed onto a Jim Jones project. Respectively, they’ll play “Jones and Jonestown survivor Deborah Layton in White Night, a psychological thriller about Jones’ infamous People’s Temple cult” that’s based on Layton’s memoir. I didn’t love that book; I do think this is good casting. [THR]
And from the This Subscription Pays For Itself Department, “The Positively True Adventures of the Kilgore Rangerette–Kidnapping Mom.” Don’t fuck with that quiet-seeming drill-team parent: “Nancy was so absorbed by the chase that she momentarily forgot Alexa was in the car. In her testimony, she said a phone call jarred her back to her senses. It was her husband, Kyle, calling to ask about dinner. ‘I’ll be home soon,’ she told him, as if she were picking up groceries.” [Texas Monthly]
Friday on Best Evidence: The Trojan Horse Affair, Marilyn Manson, and Kristen Bell.
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