Art Diary

A new force in the art world gathered for the first time last night: the Berkeley Square Group, an association of fine artists committed to pushing creative boundaries while enjoying excellent food and highly opinionated conversation. The founding members, an eclectic mix of contemporary painters, digital innovators, and conceptual collectors, convened at Le Corbeau, a discreet but impossibly expensive French bistro tucked away in Mayfair.

THE ATTENDEES

Among those present were:

• Boz, the celebrated cartoon painter, known for his satirical large-scale works depicting contemporary society as a series of vaguely horrified caricatures.

• P1X3L, the enigmatic pixel artist whose works are simultaneously nostalgic and unsettling, resembling corrupted computer files from an alternate reality.

• Elara Voss, a monochrome sculptor famous for her refusal to acknowledge color as a legitimate artistic concept.

• Franklin Dupont, a neo-Renaissance painter who exclusively works in egg tempera and refers to Photoshop as “the downfall of civilization.”

• Vera Zane, a performance-installation artist who recently spent three days living inside a papier-mâché replica of the British Museum.

There were several other artists and collectors, though their presence was harder to confirm due to the abstract nature of their introductions (one claimed to be “a living artwork,” another simply handed out business cards that read “gesture as existence”, and “I’ll buy that”).

THE DINNER

Le Corbeau, known for its almost total indifference to food allergies and minute portion sizes, provided a suitably refined backdrop for the evening. The group dined on:

• Duck confit (Boz declared it “a deeply bourgeois bird, but delicious”)

• Wild mushroom risotto (P1X3L asked if it was foraged or merely pretending to be, a comment no one quite understood)

• A tragically small salad served in a hand-blown glass bowl the size of an espresso cup (Elara Voss was delighted)

• An intimidating cheese board, which led to a heated debate about whether Roquefort is “postmodern”

Wine flowed freely, with the group choosing a 2009 Château Margaux, which was met with near-universal approval except from Franklin Dupont, who insisted it lacked the soul of a proper 16th-century vintage.

THE DISCUSSION

Conversation ranged wildly, touching on:

• The state of contemporary painting (“Too much conceptualism, not enough skill,” according to Dupont. “Too much skill, not enough conceptualism,” countered Vera Zane.)

• Whether the Royal Academy should allow AI-generated art into its Summer Exhibition (P1X3L: “No.” Boz: “Over my dead body.”)

• The possibility of launching an artist-run biennale (current plans involve a decommissioned power station, a Victorian pleasure garden, or—if funding allows—an abandoned cruise ship located off the Scottish coast, accessible either by helicopter or Sunseeker yacht).

• The admission criteria for future members (must be an artist or a collector, must have an opinion, must be able to survive a dinner at Le Corbeau without storming out in artistic frustration)

At one point, an impassioned argument broke out over whether art should be “beautiful” or “necessary,” which led to Franklin Dupont waving a breadstick in the air for emphasis. A waiter removed it from his hand without comment, which only heightened the dramatic effect.

HOW TO JOIN

The Berkeley Square Group is, naturally, not accepting formal applications. However, artists who wish to be considered should:

1. Be producing work that is either widely acclaimed, stubbornly ignored, or so niche that it exists on a conceptual plane beyond critique.

2. Attend an event and survive at least one heated debate without resorting to throwing objects.

3. Be vouched for by a current member, ideally over a lengthy dinner, during which their artistic integrity and capacity for absurd conversation will be assessed.

The next gathering is rumoured to take place in a disused library, a secret speakeasy, or a member’s crumbling country house, depending on availability and whether Franklin Dupont can tolerate WiFi in the vicinity.

The inaugural meeting of the Berkeley Square Group was an unqualified success. It was part art history seminar, part avant-garde theatre, and entirely excessive in both calories and self-importance. In short: the art world at its finest.

By the time I reached the entrance to Subliminal Transit, an ambitious new group show staged in a mostly disused tube station, I had already begun questioning my life choices. The exhibition, curated by the enigmatic Ludo Penhaligon (“part curator, part conceptual provocateur, part—let’s be honest—estate agent for derelict spaces”), promised to challenge notions of movement, capitalism, and spatial awareness. This was no idle claim: every few minutes, a train would thunder past at alarming speed, forcing visitors to flatten themselves against the walls like startled Victorian urchins.

THE VENUE

The station, decommissioned in the 1970s but still technically part of the transport network, had been transformed into an industrial dreamscape of flickering bulbs, peeling posters, and the occasional rat, which several guests mistook for performance art. The walls, damp with what I chose to believe was merely atmospheric moisture, provided a dramatic backdrop for the work of the evening’s two featured artists: HEDGE FUND and Ptolemy.

THE ART

HEDGE FUND, the elusive darling of the hyper-capitalist pop-art scene, unveiled a series of garish, high-gloss paintings featuring neon pound signs, luxury handbags, and the screaming face of an unidentified hedge fund manager. One piece, Stock Market Crash #7, featured a roulette wheel made entirely of crushed iPhones, while Untitled (But Expensive #77) was a canvas dipped in Yves Klein blue and liberally sprinkled with shredded tax returns.

“HEDGE FUND’s work really gets the financial crisis,” murmured one guest, a hedge fund manager himself, nodding approvingly as he sipped his £22 can of warm beer.

In stark contrast, Ptolemy, the self-styled “shaman of formlessness,” presented a series of vast, brooding canvases featuring deep blacks and occasional flickers of red. His centerpiece, Abyss IX, was so dark it seemed to consume light itself, prompting one guest to walk straight into it, apologizing profusely. Another, The Impossibility of Commuting in the Mind of Someone Living It, consisted of a single, delicate chalk line that immediately smudged under the vibrations of a passing train, much to Ptolemy’s delight. “It’s about impermanence,” he explained to a baffled onlooker, who had simply been trying to read the exit sign.

THE OPENING NIGHT

The private view began as these things often do: a mixture of fashionable delay and strategic avoidance of the free wine (served in repurposed oyster card wallets). Within half an hour, a sense of barely contained chaos set in. A well-known critic, attempting to take a selfie in front of HEDGE FUND’s piece Buy Low, Sell Soul, misjudged the distance and ended up with an imprint of a golden dollar sign on his forehead.

At one particularly harrowing moment, a train blasted past, sending a gust of air that dramatically lifted Lady Cressida von Hotham’s Valentino cape and flung it into a puddle of what we all agreed to describe as “historical moisture.” The murmurs of concern were quickly replaced with murmurs of artistic interpretation. “It’s become part of the piece,” whispered someone reverently.

Meanwhile, a tense debate broke out when an onlooker mistook one of Ptolemy’s works for an unpainted section of the wall. “No, it’s about the absence of gesture,” explained the artist, as another train roared past, causing the wall to momentarily vibrate. “Actually, now it’s more of a kinetic piece.”

CONCLUSION

As I ascended the long, crumbling staircase back to street level, I found myself reflecting on the evening’s themes: movement, disruption, and the price elasticity of conceptual art. Would I return? Perhaps. But next time, I’ll be wearing high-visibility clothing and a crash helmet.

In the end, Subliminal Transit was not just an exhibition—it was an endurance test, a meditation on survival, and, quite possibly, a violation of several safety regulations. And isn’t that what art is all about?

By Bobbie Samuels

Selling a painting should, in theory, be a straightforward process. The client chooses a work, pays for it, and it is then carefully packaged and delivered. In reality, selling art—particularly to the ultra-wealthy—is more like staging an elaborate heist, except the only crime is against my sanity.

This week’s mission? Delivering a large, aggressively coloured painting of a piece of tarmac by Hedge Fund, to an anonymous Formula One driver—let’s call him Mr X—who decided, after several months of indecision, that it was exactly what his Monaco penthouse needed. “It speaks to me,” he had said on the phone, in the deeply serious tone that men use when they’ve just discovered contemporary art.

The painting in question is by a conceptual artist known for his ironic takes on finance and power structures. It is titled Bit of Road #34, which means there are presumably Bits of Road #1 to #33 lurking in the homes of equally serious men. It is large, it is loud, and it is, unmistakably, a close-up of some rather ordinary-looking asphalt—but in bold colours.

The first problem: Mr X wanted the painting immediately. This meant I had to organise not just a courier but personally accompany the work on his private jet. “We’ll send a car,” his assistant assured me. “Just be ready.”

Be ready for what, exactly, was unclear.

The second problem: packaging. A painting of this size and intensity does not simply get wrapped in a bit of bubble wrap and shoved into the back of a car. No, it requires museum-grade handling. Fiona, my gallery assistant, stood next to the crate as it was being prepared, watching nervously. “What if he changes his mind?” she asked.

I considered this. Mr X had, after all, taken four months to decide he definitely wanted the painting, during which time he had requested photos, a video, a mocked-up image of it in his home, and, inexplicably, a picture of me standing next to it “for scale.” He had then asked if we could commission a bigger version, before realising his walls were not, in fact, infinite.

But, by some miracle, the crate was sealed, a very expensive courier service was booked, and I was soon sitting in the back of a blacked-out SUV with a painting of a road strapped in beside me, being driven towards a private jet terminal. The driver did not speak but exuded an energy that suggested he had transported many questionable things in his time.

At the terminal, Mr X’s assistant greeted me with the air of someone who was both used to doing absurd things and entirely numb to them. “Welcome,” she said, glancing at the crate. “He’s very excited.”

Boarding a private jet with a painting of tarmac is a strangely humbling experience. While other passengers might bring luggage or a small dog, I was carefully escorting what was essentially an abstract road surface onto a Gulfstream. The flight attendants did not blink. Clearly, this was not even in the top five strangest things they had seen.

Upon arrival in Monaco, the situation escalated into what I can only describe as a logistical opera. The painting was too large to fit into Mr X’s building’s lift. “We’ll have to carry it up the stairs,” his assistant declared. The stairs, I should add, were marble, winding, and designed for people who had never carried anything heavier than a champagne flute. I briefly imagined the crate slipping and crashing through several floors of unimaginable wealth.

Eventually, with much sweating and some questionable manoeuvring, the painting was placed exactly where Mr X wanted it—above a very large, very white sofa. He arrived moments later, wearing an expensive tracksuit and an expression of deep artistic appreciation. “Perfect,” he said, staring at the piece. Then he turned to me. “Do you think I should get another one?”

I smiled, because there is only ever one answer to that question.

“Yes,” I said. “Definitely.”

Bobbie

By Harissa Beaumont

By now, I should know that if a week seems like it’s going to be straightforward, something catastrophic is lurking just out of sight. This was meant to be a calm period—tie up loose ends, chase unpaid invoices, and, in an ideal world, sit still for five minutes without someone calling to ask, “Do you think this will double in value by June?” Instead, I found myself negotiating with a Premier League footballer about whether a Monty Carlo picture was too intellectual for his dining room.

Monday began in an unusual way: standing outside the gallery in the bitter cold, waiting for the world’s slowest locksmith to arrive. The lock had “been temperamental” for a while, which is code for “completely broken, but I kept ignoring it.” Fiona, my gallery assistant, suggested I see this as an artistic metaphor. I suggested she fetch us coffee instead.

By midday, the lock had been fixed (by a man who called me “darlin’” seven times in five minutes), and I was on my way to a meeting with a very high-profile client, one of the most expensive footballers in the world. I will call him Leo so he can’t be identified. Leo is Italian, adored by tabloid journalists, and—crucially—newly obsessed with contemporary art. His agent had emailed saying Leo was “looking to start collecting seriously.” This, translated, meant: Leo has recently discovered Instagram and would like his house to look like an editorial shoot.

I met him at his townhouse in Chelsea, where a housekeeper in head-to-toe black silently brought us espressos. “I love art,” Leo announced, gesturing vaguely at a wall that was, so far, empty. “I want something… big.”

We looked through a few options. A bright, abstract canvas by a celebrated abstractist Ptolemy? “Too messy.” A striking minimalist piece in shades of grey? “Too sad.” Then we got to a signed Monty Carlo piece, and his face lit up. “This is cool,” he said. “Monty Carlo, he’s… good, right?”

“Yes,” I said carefully, because I had learned from past experiences that over-explaining things to certain clients is a one-way ticket to disaster.

“I love that it’s deep,” Leo continued. “But not too deep.”

I nodded. “Exactly.”

“I think I’ll get it,” he said, then paused. “But do you think it’s too intellectual for the dining room?”

At this point, I had two choices:

1. Explain that Monty Carlo was a genius whose work explored power, and identity, and that no picture in history had ever been too intellectual for a dining room.

2. Say, “No, it’s perfect.”

I went with Option 2.

Wednesday was marked by an incident I can only describe as profoundly irritating. A woman stormed into the gallery wearing an impractically large fur hat and demanded, “Where is the pink painting?”

I blinked. “Which pink painting?”

“The one I saw here last year,” she said, as though I run a museum where everything stays in exactly the same place for eternity.

I explained that, unfortunately, paintings do tend to sell and that the pink painting in question was now in a house in the South of France. She let out a deep sigh, as though this were a personal attack. “I knew I should have bought it.”

“Yes,” I said.

There was a long silence. “Do you have anything similar?”

“Not really. Although I have a pink balloon you can have for free.”

Another long silence. Then she left, looking deeply wounded, as though I had personally denied her happiness.

Thursday was mostly spent dealing with logistics. I had to coordinate the shipment of a sculpture to a collector in Dubai, which meant six different phone calls to a shipping company where nobody seemed to know what was happening. “It’s an awkward size,” one of them told me, as though I hadn’t already seen the sculpture and deduced this for myself. Meanwhile, Jack Landon’s assistant sent yet another email asking if the artist of the iPhone sculpture would consider making a mini version for Jack’s private jet. I forwarded it directly to the artist, who responded with, “Absolutely not,” followed by an emoji that I assume was meant to represent despair.

And then, just when I thought I could quietly slip into the weekend, Leo’s agent called. “Leo’s obsessed with his Monty,” he said.

“Oh, fantastic.”

“Yes, and now he’s thinking maybe he does want something intellectual.”

I closed my eyes. “Right.”

“So he wants a Ptolemy as well. Abstract is intellectual, right?”

”Yes, yes, abstract is intellectual.”

”Great. Send one over. In green.”

This is the job.

Until next week,

Harissa

By Harissa Beaumont

It’s been one of those weeks—the kind that starts with me confidently saying, “It’ll be quiet, I can catch up on admin,” and ends with me wondering if I should abandon art dealing entirely and retrain as a florist or a lighthouse keeper.

Monday began with an early morning crisis, which, in the art world, is just called “morning.” A high-profile collector—let’s call him Giles, because his real name is much worse—decided that a major Kathy Hildone piece he’d purchased from us six months ago was too big for his Knightsbridge penthouse. “I told my interior designer I wanted something bold,” he said over the phone, “but now I’m wondering if it’s… a bit much?” The piece in question is a 10-foot-wide abstract painting in shades of radioactive pink and acid yellow. It is, in fact, a bit much. But you don’t say that to someone who just spent eight figures on it. So instead, I said, “It’s definitely a statement.” He sighed heavily. “Do you think I could swap it for something… subtler? Maybe a repaintage piece?”

This is the part of my job that should be classified as diplomatic relations. The unspoken rule of art dealing is that once a client has bought a piece, it’s their problem. But this is Giles, and Giles buys a lot of works, which means—annoyingly—I do have to care. “Leave it with me,” I said, before hanging up and banging my head against my desk.

Tuesday took an unexpected turn when I received a call from an assistant to Jack Landon, an aggressively handsome Hollywood actor who has made a career out of playing emotionally tortured detectives in very expensive cashmere. Jack was “in London for a few days” and wanted to visit the gallery. Now, normally, when celebrities visit galleries, they do one of two things: (1) buy something enormous and impractical for their house in the Hollywood Hills, or (2) take moody Instagram photos next to a Rothko and buy nothing.

Jack swept in at precisely 2:30 PM, trailed by an entourage that included his stylist, his publicist, and a woman who I assume is paid exclusively to carry his cashmere coat. He was wearing sunglasses indoors, which is a deeply unserious thing to do in London in January, but I let it slide. “I love art,” he declared, gazing around with the intensity of a man auditioning for a role as someone who really loves art. “It’s all just… so real, you know?”

Jack gravitated toward a piece by an artist I represent, who creates sculptures out of discarded technology. The work in question—a life-sized human figure constructed entirely out of old iPhones—seemed to unsettle him. “So, like… what does it mean?” he asked, frowning. “It’s about consumption,” I said, “and the way technology is eroding our humanity.” Jack nodded sagely. “Wow. That’s deep.” Then, after a pause: “Could I get it in black?”

Wednesday was spent at an auction preview, where the usual crowd of collectors, dealers, and art-adjacent socialites floated around pretending they weren’t mentally calculating resale values. I ran into Lucinda, a hedge-fund widow who is perpetually “on the verge” of opening her own gallery but never actually does. “Darling, I have to introduce you to someone,” she trilled, grabbing my arm and steering me toward a man who looked like he had personally eaten the EEC butter mountain. Is that still a thing. “This is Olivier. He’s fascinating.”

Olivier turned out to be a self-declared “art investor” who believes traditional galleries are obsolete and that the future is “tokenizing masterpieces on the blockchain.” “Imagine,” he said, swirling his Negroni, “owning a fraction of a Picasso.” I imagine Picasso would have thrown a chair at him, but I resisted.

Thursday, in a moment of reckless optimism, I agreed to a studio visit with a performance artist named Finn, who has been begging me to come and see his work. The “work” turned out to be a series of “durational experiences” in a warehouse in Hackney, culminating in Finn blindfolding himself and attempting to hammer nails into a wooden board while reciting poetry backwards. “It’s about the fragility of intent,” he explained, mid-swing. I told him I would “think about how we could position it.” What I actually thought about was how quickly I could leave.

By Friday, I was so exhausted that I seriously considered hiding in the gallery’s storage cupboard and waiting for the week to end. Instead, I had to deal with the Giles situation. Miraculously, I convinced another collector—an American tech CEO who, crucially, loves things that are “a bit much”—to take the Hildone off Giles’s hands. “It’s vibrant, it’s alive, it’s got movement,” the CEO said enthusiastically. “Like my brand!” Whatever that means.

As I wrapped up the deal, I received a text from Jack Landon’s assistant: “Jack loved the iPhone sculpture but wants to know if he can pay in Bitcoin?” I closed my laptop and poured myself a very large glass of wine.

Until next week,

Harissa

By Harissa Beaumont

If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be spending a week at the Astana Contemporary Visions Art Fair in Kazakhstan, I’d have laughed, poured myself another glass of Sancerre, and assumed you’d been reading too much experimental fiction. And yet, there I was, in a city where temperatures hover around -20°C and everything seems designed to remind you that you are, in fact, not as glamorous as you think you are.

The venue itself was a brutalist palace of glass and steel, as if someone had decided to build the Louvre Pyramid in the middle of a frozen steppe. Our booth was strategically placed between an Azerbaijani artist selling paintings of leopards playing canasta and a Georgian collective whose primary medium appeared to be old tractor parts. Across from us was the pièce de résistance: a towering installation by a Kazakh oligarch’s protégé—a life-sized yurt constructed entirely of AK-47s. It was titled “Nomadism Reimagined,” but mostly it reimagined the definition of “health and safety hazard.”

The fair started with the kind of logistical nightmare that only the art world can conjure. A shipment of works—delicate canvases by British minimalist Bea Faulkner—was delayed in customs because someone forgot to file the proper paperwork. As I stood in an icy warehouse arguing with a customs officer, who kept insisting that the paintings might be “anti-government propaganda,” I experienced what I can only describe as an existential chill. Eventually, the works were released, but not before one of the canvases was precariously balanced on top of a forklift, which I could swear was straight out of an opera: “Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore… and then I lost my masterpiece to bureaucracy.”

Once the booth was set up, things began to look brighter. The Kazakh collectors were a fascinating mix of oil tycoons, oligarchs, and the occasional avant-garde fashion designer. One particularly enthusiastic buyer—a fur-clad magnate with an entourage the size of a small country—fell in love with a neon piece by Monty Carlo. “This is art,” he declared, jabbing a finger at it. “It says something about our times.” When I asked him what he thought it said, he replied, “That I am rich enough to buy it.” I suppose honesty is a virtue.

A young Kazakh artist named Altyn, who creates immersive installations out of horsehair and sand, came by our booth and loudly critiqued everything. “Too Western,” she sniffed, gesturing at a sculpture of melted iPhones in a sink by Milo. She later softened, though, and spent a full 20 minutes explaining her theory that the Silk Road was the first conceptual artwork in history. At some point, she offered to trade one of her horsehair installations for Bea Faulkner’s Untitled #27. I declined, but part of me regrets it—I could probably have used it as insulation.

By midweek, we’d sold several pieces, including a monumental work of the little known slums of Windsor by Thierry Duval to an Uzbek collector who insisted it would look “amazing in my dacha.” I didn’t have the heart to ask why anyone would hang a painting of urban desolation in a house designed for summer leisure. Meanwhile, I spent the better part of Wednesday dodging questions from a local journalist who wanted to know whether I thought NFTs were “dead yet.” I suggested that NFTs were “evolving,” which seemed to satisfy him enough to move on to photographing the AK-47 yurt. Unfortunately he got too close and fell onto a weapon which was still loaded. Shots rang out across the fair, narrowly missing several visiting dignitaries. The journalist was arrested, the last I heard he was claiming that he was a performance artist.

The fair’s grand finale was a gala dinner at a Soviet-era opera house that had been repurposed into a luxury event space. The theme was “Bridging East and West,” which apparently translated to serving foie gras dumplings while a local folk band performed a very enthusiastic rendition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. At one point, a rather exuberant collector leaned across the table to tell me, “Kazakhstan is the future of art.” He then spilled a glass of vodka onto his silk tie and declared it “a statement.”

By the time I flew back to London, I had frostbitten fingers, a promising commission from a Kazakh hotel chain billionaire, and an inbox full of emails demanding to know why their art hadn’t arrived yet. As Puccini would remind me, “Non siamo fatti per i climi freddi,” or, as I interpret it: art dealers are not designed for the steppes.

Until next week,

Harissa