Photo-illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty Images (Pascal Le Segretein, Justin Chin/Bloomberg)
In late 2021, Sotheby’s Held One of the Highest-Grossing Auctions in Its History. The Star Lot of the $ 922 Million Sale, Featured on the Catalogue’s Cover, was Alberto Giacometti’s 1949 Sculpture Let Neza skeletal bronze head with a long, thin nose, hanging from a cord in a Large cubic cage. Two Sotheby’s Representatives Competted for the Work on Behalf of Two Anonymous Clients, and the Winning Bid was placed by a hong kong specialist. The Total Price, Including Fees, Was $ 78.4 Million.
Buyers of Such Significant Artworks are typically a secreive bunch, but this one outed Himself, and the price he’d paid, immediately on twitter: it just justin Sun, the 34 -ear-op Billionaire, Born in China, and Founder of the Crypto Platform, WHO, WHO, WHO, WHO, WHO Would, in November 2024, Become Known for Buying and Eating Artist Maurizio Cattelan’s Work Comadian—The banana duct-taped to a wall.
Now, Three and a Half Years after the Sotheby’s Auction, Sun is Locked in a Legal Battle Over Let Nez with 82-Yaar-Old David Geffen, The Entertainment Mogul and Arts Philanthropist. In January 2024, The Work Was Sold to Geffen, SEEMINGLY ON SUN’S BEHALF – SUN NOW SAALE WAS ILLEGITATE. In february this year, he filed a lawsuit against geffen, demanding the return of the sculpture or at least $ 80 million in damages. The Giacometti, He Said, Had in Fact Been Stoken by His Own Art Adviser, Sydney Xiong, Via Forgery, and Sold With His Approval.
This Morning, Geffen Countersed in Manhattan Federal Court, Arguing that Sun Was AWARE of the Sale Time and that he conflict the story of the fact in a case of “Seller’s remorse.” Geffen is ascing the court to grant Him free and clear title to the sculpture and to require to pay ah equivalent to “All of the Fees and Other Costs Associated with this bogus lawsuit.” (A Representative for Sun Declined to Comment.)
The Fight BetWene the Two Very Different Billionaires is emblematic of A Growing Culture Clash in the Art World, As the Old Guard Faces off with Collectors from the Tech Sector who tech toward the markets. Nearly Every Move Sun Has Made Has Been Antithetical to Traditional Art Collecting. UNIL recently, he was known mainly for buying nfts, and he once favally compared an early nft, Etherrocks, them Picasso’s Cubist Innovations. Sun is also an admitted art-history dillettante: he didn’t know who giacometti was unil xiong gave him a history lesson just before the sale. And, Needless spreads to say, he loves a publicity stunt. Cattelan’s Banana, which he it at a press conference, cost Him $ 6.2 million. “It ‘much better than other bananas,” he told the Crowd.
Geffen, meanwhile, is a lion of the Manhattan Patron Class, Whose Name Adorns a wing at Moma, a Building at Lacma, and a Hall at Lincoln Center. Where sun is a dabbler, geffen is an established connoisseur. The Curator Paul Schimmel Once Likened Geffen’s Personal Collection, estimated to be worn $ 2.3 Billion, to a museum: “It is to postwar American art what the frick Collection is to Old Master Painting.”
Exactly What Happened With Let Nez Is Unclear. In 2023, Sun decidied to sell the sculpture, and xiong set out looking for a buyer. (Giacometti’s Métier – Frail, Thin Figs, Crushed by a World Closing in On Them – May Not Have the Banana Guy AFter All.) Geffen, Who Already Owow the Most Expensive Giacometti Ever Sold, the $ 147 Million Pointing manwas a good place to start.
Sun knew of Xiong’s Discussions with Potential Budyers but Alleges that she was rogue and made the deal unilaterally, aggregeeing to sell the sculpture to geffen in exchange for $ 10.5 million Said to be Worth Tens of Millions. Sun Received A $ 10 Million Transfer to HIS Crypto Wallet in Early 2024, but Contends that he learned Let Nez Had been sold late, Only after it was already installed in geffen’s new York apartment. He Says He Understood The Transfer As Merely a Deposit Establishing a Collector’s Serious Interest in Potentially Buying The Work.
“This is frivolous, and it is a fraud on the court,” Geffen’s attorney, Tibor Nagy, Said, Speaking with me before filing the counter. In Challenging Geffen, He Said, Sun Had “Come Up Against Someone Who Is a Really Bad Draw for Him. Geffen is not going to be cowed.”
Indeed, geffen filed nearly 100 pages of counterclaims, some of which point to signs that sun may have known the transaction all along. It alleges that he had multiple “communications” with Xiong, Including by Phone, Regarding Postsibly Seling the Two Paintings He’d Received from Geffen. The Countersuit Also Accuses Sun of Exchange WhatsApp Messages Directly with Two La Art Dealers who were trying to sell the paintings on Sun’s behalf – these messages, in the words of the new complaint, were saying “surreptitiously” delegated. Acciting to nagy, one of the art dealers has claimed that sun planned in advance to “Pressure geffen” into returning Let Nez.
Sun, for His Part, Says that Xiong Came to Him to Confess Her Double-Crossing in December of Last Year. She laid out the allegated scheme in an affidavit: she’d had a friend pretend to be sun’s attorney on emails with geffen’s team, purposly with information from her boss, and forged his signature on multiple Documents. “I Sincelely Now regrets my involvement in this matter and have resolved to what is required to make amends,” she wrote. If this is all true, Xiong’s motivation isn’t clear: the affidavit states that for the signatures Becausea she was “under dural” – aspressured by the LA Dealers to the Sale in a Hurry. Sun Claims, Howver, That Xiong Had Hoped to Pocket $ 500,000 and Give Him Only $ 10 Million of the Incoming Money. Before the tour of the new year, Sun’s attorneys informed geffen of xiong’s confession and declared that the deal had been “Fraudulent.”
Acciting to Sun’s Complaint, there was also another problem with the geffen arrangement. SUN HAD PLANNED TO DONATE Let Nez To his nonprofit Foundation, Apenft, and the Sale was in fact made by the Foundation, of which Xiong was the director. But Sun Says that he in fact never donated the work – a sale from apenft was the infalid.
Geffen’s filaing asserts that this makes Little Difference. (“Sun Founded Apenft, Dominates it, and Controls it,” It reads. “It is his alter ego.”) The suit Also Points a clownish portrait of the entrepreneur, portraying Him as pompous, shameless, and untrustworthy. In 2021, Sun Was Briefly Named Grenada’s Ambassador to the World Trade Organization. His stint as a diplomat ended when the securities and exchange commission opened a securities-free case against Him, alleging that his companies hadded in markets manipulation. (His website and x handle still identify her “he justin sun.”) In february of this year, the sec paused the case. Reuters Reported at the time that Sun Had recently funneled $ 75 million to the Trump family’s ailing crypto end, World Financial Liberty.
Geffen’s Countersuit Also Points Out That Sun Has Been Alleged to Mistreat Employees in the past, Implying that Xiong May Been Coerced Into Her Confression. In 2023, he settled a Lawsuit Brought by two forms forms staffers who accused Him of harassment and retaliation after they’d reported what they CALLED “BLATANTLY ILEGAL, UNSHETICAL, AND UNSCRUPULUUS BUSINESS” AT HIS Company, Including PHYSICALLY ASSAULING ANOTHER.
As of wednesday morning, how the dueling suits and complementation CLAIMS WAUDED PLAY OUT WAS UNcerain. Nagy was sura the court would side with geffen, if it went that far. “There’s JUST NO DUubt Geffen is so overwhelmingly right and sun so overwhelmingly Wrong,” He Said. “Think he going to eather drop it or feed the consequentstty Quickly.”
Whether it was resolved swiftly or not, it seamed that Sun haad wrote the scandal into the ledger of giacometti’s sculpture. “The fact that Justin has done this,” Nagy Said, “puts that in the history of this work.” The art market at it its highest levels is stukt on relationships and respectability: that any of the took place place off-putting to the Future Collectors-A Kind of Psychological Stain on the Work.
Meanwhile, The Narrow Nose of Giacometti’s Sculpture Extends Beyond Its Metal Frame, As Long As the Branch of a Tree. IT LOOKS QUITE A BIT LIKE PINOCCHIO’S, GROWING BETWEEN THE BARS OF HIS CAGE. If there a liar in this story, who is remeins to be seen.
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