Art Diary

Hedge Fund Diary: Good news! Sort of, for my pure gold rebuild of Brighton Pier

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Hedge Fund Diary: Good news! Sort of, for my pure gold rebuild of Brighton Pier

I was offered full funding for the pure gold, life-size, model Brighton Pier project! Excellent. The money was put up by an anonymous ambassador who refused to say the name of his country (which sounded vaguely exotic and suspiciously vague). He claimed his country was “looking to increase tourism and global cultural presence and sponsoring your golden pier is the most obvious way to do that.” Naturally, I was thrilled. He told me to phone the next day to finalise details.

Then, the plot thickened. Overnight, there was a coup in his country. So, when I called his number, I unwittingly reached a revolutionary council. They had terrible news…

Hedge: Hello, this is Hedge Fund. I’m following up about the golden pier sponsorship. If you could just write down my bank details…

Revolutionary Council: Who are you? What are you talking about?

Hedge: Erm, I was hoping to finalise details with the Ambassador, he is kindly sponsoring my golden pier project.

Revolutionary Council: Ha! We are blowing up all piers, they encourage bourgeoise strolling.

Hedge (Thinking he had the wrong number): I’m sorry, could you put me through to the Ambassador?

Revolutionary Council: He is dead.

Hedge: That’s odd. He seemed fine when I spoke to him yesterday.

Revolutionary Council: Yes, it was quick.

Hedge: I’m sorry. Could I speak to his successor?

Revolutionary Council: Speaking.

Hedge: Very good. I’m just calling to finalise details about the golden pier art installation. You know, the one that will attract tourists and boost your economy? I’ve ordered the first eight tonnes of gold, I need your cheque to pay the supplier.

Revolutionary Council: “We are a poor African country. Golden piers are not in our agenda. Go away.”

Hedge: “But it’s a tourist attraction. People will come from all over—”

Revolutionary Council: We are a revolutionary council, we are not interested.

Hedge: Not even a bit? You could come to the opening.

Revolutionary Council: Do you want your head chopped off?

Hedge: No. I think we have crossed-wires…

Click

They hung up!

So, it seems the golden pier will have to wait for a more politically stable country to bear the brunt of the not unnoticeable costs. Unfortunately, as mentioned I have already ordered some gold. This may need some sorting out. I hope it was returnable.

Ever optimistic (and slightly bewildered),

Hedge Fund (digital artist, former finance bro, unintended diplomat)

A Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity to Support Britain’s Shimmering Art Future

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A Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity to Support Britain’s Shimmering Art Future

A call to artistic arms by Hedge Fund

Dear Esteemed Patron of the Arts,

I hope this artistic plea finds you in good health, strong liquidity, and the kind of visionary mood required for what I am about to propose.

You know of, I am sure and probably own one or more of my vibrant pictures. However you may not be aware of my latest and most ambitious undertaking, which I have given the name: The Brighton Pier in Pure Gold. It will be a full-scale recreation of the iconic seaside landmark, forged entirely from 24-carat gold. A testament to Britain’s cultural heritage, our maritime spirit, and our refusal to let common sense stand in the way of beauty.

This will not be “just” an artwork. This will be a beacon, a statement, a shimmering line in the sand (not necessarily literally, it will be built wherever the local council gives us the biggest rebates). It will draw visitors from across the globe, inspire generations, and give you the sort of positive coverage you can only dream of.

However, as you will appreciate, pure gold does not come cheap. Pimlico Wilde Art Dealers Extraordinaire, while effusive in their support of my career, have currently refused to provide 100% funding of the golden pier and have encouraged me to find sponsors to join this historic endeavour.

This is where you, the cultural visionary, come in.

Sponsorship benefits include:

– Prominent engraving of your name (or chosen pseudonym) on a gilded plank.

– VIP access to the next seven Hedge Fund exhibitions, openings, and afterparties

– The eternal knowledge that you helped make Britain’s shiniest pier a reality.

Minimum contribution: £500,000.

Maximum contribution: unlimited — art, like the ocean, knows no bounds.

If you are ready to be immortalised in gold, pier and art history, please contact Hugo at Pimlico Wilde, with the subject line “I’m here, for the Golden Pier ” and his team will make discreet arrangements.

Yours in gold,

Mr Hedgerick Fund

Digital Artist, Former Finance Visionary, Future Pier Emperor

Artist Diary – Hedge Fund

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Artist Diary – Hedge Fund

Late August 2025

Weather: humid; feels like breathing soup.

Dear Diary,

The visionaries at Pimlico Wilde have regretfully refused to fund my pure gold Brighton Pier project, citing “liquidity concerns” and “the fact it would weigh several tonnes and immediately sink into the Channel.” Philistines. I am not going to build it by the sea, it will be in Dubai or Saudi, where people understand grand art projects. Pimlico Wilde say they’re looking for “aligned sponsors” who might wish to be involved. I sincerely hope they find one, perhaps a hedge fund with a fondness for golden maritime memorabilia. I’m amazed they will publish this uncensored, but they say they will. Congrats PW on your commitment to free speech.

In the meantime, London’s weather has taken on that oppressive, sticky quality where every handshake feels like a regrettable contract. Yesterday I set a personal record — seventeen iced coffees in one day. By the fifteenth I was trembling at a frequency only dogs could hear.

I’ve been making the exhibition rounds to keep my cultural diet rich. Saw an immersive light show in Bermondsey that promised to “transform your relationship with time.” It mostly transformed my relationship with waiting in queues – I waited for thirty minutes longer than normal, then gave up. Next a conceptual installation in Clerkenwell: a single shoe in a spotlight, accompanied by the sound of rainfall. The artist said it was about “loneliness.” I said it was about “losing your footwear in Shoreditch in the rain illuminated by the light of an active CCTV camera.” We agreed to disagree, but later he whispered that I have guessed his inspiration perfectly.

Arabella remains politely baffled by my current creative “season.” She asked whether I might try painting again, since gold prices are apparently “volatile” and storage costs for the safe life-size pier replica “would exceed the GDP of a small nation.” I told her great art is never about feasibility.

Tomorrow I’ll meet with a contact who claims to have “investor leads” for the pier of gold. I’m picturing a Dubai shipping magnate, but knowing my luck it’ll be a man in Croydon who collects commemorative teaspoons and wants to pay in Tesco Clubcard points.

Ever hopeful,

Hedge (digital artist, iced coffee endurance athlete, goldsmith of the artworld)

Artist Diary- Hedge Fund

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Artist Diary- Hedge Fund

The last few days have been a carousel of triumph and tragedy — which is to say, a perfectly average week for all of us misunderstood geniuses.

First, the high: my latest piece, Inflation in Pastel, was declared “a poignant critique of fiscal despair” by a blogger who runs an Etsy shop selling ironic tea towels. The low: the same blogger suggested it “would look great in the downstairs loo.” Still, exposure is exposure.

Arabella and I took a restorative trip to Brighton. She claimed it was to “relax”; but I can’t stop thinking of work all the time. Case in point, I now want to make a full-size replica of the pier out of…but I am getting ahead of myself. In Brighton I’d brought along my freshly printed Cryptocurrency & Cabbages (a limited-run print of a Bitcoin symbol weeping into coleslaw) to photograph against the pier. Unfortunately, on the way back through Victoria Station, I set it down for — and I cannot stress this enough — a single moment while adjusting my scarf.

When I tried to pick it up again, after this veritable moment, it was gone.

Gone.

Somewhere out there is a man who thinks he’s got a weird menu poster from a failing vegan café. With a good auctioneer that’s £850,000 worth of visual philosophy now roaming the streets.

On the upside, Brighton was inspirational. I saw a man wearing three berets at once, a child trying to surf on a baguette, and a seagull that had learned to open crisp packets. I may call my next series Urban Majesty.

Speaking of which, I’m flirting with a bold new direction in my sculptural work. Specifically, moulded gold. Imagine: a series of solid gold pieces shaped like British cultural icons — a cup of builder’s tea, a bus stop sign, the haunting stare of a Greggs sausage roll. Price point? They’d have to be £500,000 each just to cover the cost of the gold. And my great dream, recreating a life-size Brighton Pier out of gold will cost even more. I don’t know whether Stevenson at Pimlico Wilde will agree to fund it.

Arabella says I should maybe try clay first. I told her clay is for pottery classes and heartbreak, not for a man who once moved the Berlin art scene to near tears (one man, specifically, and I was drunk, but still).

Tomorrow I’ll look for a gold supplier. I suspect Hatton Garden will welcome me like a prodigal son.

In fluctuating fortune,

Hedge

digital artist, part-time coastal philosopher, full-time victim of the petty crime-industrial complex

Diary of an Art Dealer

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Diary of an Art Dealer

The day began with a courier knocking far too early – before I’d had more than three sips of my coffee. I opened the door to find a crate from Paris. Inside: the Ptolemy works he’d promised me – he must be working at his French atelier. I’m glad they’ve arrived, they could easily have been stuck at Dover for a week, in a no doubt sub-prime storeroom.

By the time I’d finished my coffee Charlotte had already fielded three calls from people wanting early access to the Eccentrics & Visionaries show. I suspect the article in The Global Art Trumpet has stirred up a crowd of new collectors. This could be a good week!

At noon, I met Crispin for coffee at The Wolseley. He’s one of those dealers who insists on speaking in riddles. Today he said: “The work is good, the timing is bad, and the buyer is lying.” I’m still not sure what he meant, but he did hint at an early Herford coming onto the secondary market. If it’s the one I think it is — Cat with Two Girls — I’ll need to be quick. And discreet.

The afternoon brought chaos: a minor bidding war broke out between two long-time clients over a Spen Leopard collage. Both had decided it was just what their collection needed. I ended up selling it to the one who didn’t ask me to throw in “some sort of frame discount.” The other left in a huff, which I expect will last exactly until they spot something else they want, or their next birthday party, when I’ll be invited and forgiven.

A man in a spectacularly bright suit wandered in around five, glanced at a small P1X3L piece made with paint and mirrors, and asked, “How much for the mirrory thing?” I told him, and he replied, “Oh, I thought it would be more.” Then he left. I got the distinct impression that he would have bought it if the price were higher. It’s never the number they expect — too high or too low, and they’re equally baffled. I must revisit P1X3L’s prices.

Now the Ptolemys are unwrapped, resting on the trestle table in the east room. The colours are luminous — as if they’ve carried the Paris sunlight with them across the Channel. I’ll hang them tomorrow, though I’m tempted to keep one for myself. That’s the danger of this job: every sale is a tiny heartbreak.

I walked home along Albemarle Street. The air smelt faintly of rain, and the shop windows gleamed. Mayfair at night is its own gallery — curated by money, lit by history.

A Day in the Life of Tobias Elkin: Gallerist

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A Day in the Life of Tobias Elkin: Gallerist

To speak of Tobias Elkin is to invoke a paradox: a man who loathes art fairs yet whose name floats through every VIP preview at Frieze, Basel, and Venice like perfume on velvet. Elkin is the founder and principal of Elkin Projects, a fiercely independent gallery in Manhattan’s Tribeca district, known for unearthing conceptual artists who work in silence, shadow, or shame.

At 48, Tobias is more philosopher than merchant. His personal aesthetic is subdued—charcoal turtlenecks, Japanese tailoring, and a perpetual five o’clock shadow that speaks more of sleepless contemplation than style. He collects artworks not to own them, he says, but “to interrogate their resistance to being possessed.”

Morning: Solitude and Subtext

Tobias begins his day at 5:45 AM—not from discipline, but insomnia. His penthouse apartment in SoHo is wrapped in shadowed minimalism: polished concrete floors, Eames furnishings, and a 1977 Dan Flavin fluorescent sculpture in green and pink that throws light across the room. He makes strong black coffee and reads Octavio Paz or Sylvia Wynter, depending on his mood.

He writes in a leather-bound journal for an hour—fragmented prose, mostly: aphorisms, ideas for shows, scraps of overheard conversations. “Curation is not arrangement,” he writes one morning, “but syntax.”

Mid-Morning: The Gallery as Laboratory

At 9:00 AM he arrives at Elkin Projects. The gallery is currently hosting “Noise Without Echo,” an exhibition of sound installations by Ukrainian artist Alina Parchenko, whose primary medium is broken radios and obsolete emergency sirens. The space hums, not with visitors—it is never crowded—but with frequencies one feels in the lungs more than the ears.

Tobias speaks with his assistant about an upcoming group show titled “Unindexable Bodies”, centered on artists working at the intersection of trauma and technology. He doesn’t look at social media. “It distorts the experience of art into mere visibility,” he once told Artforum. “And visibility is not relevance.”

Afternoon: Pilgrimage and Patronage

Lunch is taken at a tiny Japanese kaiseki bar in Nolita—no phone, no Wi-Fi, no menu. Tobias prefers silence to discourse, omakase to opinion. Then, he walks. This, he says, is the real work. “You must court the city as if it were an elusive text,” he once explained to a young curator from Warsaw. “Wander until the noise resolves into meaning.”

His walks often take him to the edges of the art world’s attention—basement studios in Red Hook, residencies in Greenpoint, forgotten archives uptown. Today he visits a former laundromat converted into a performance space, where a sculptor is rehearsing a piece involving prosthetic limbs and footage from 1980s Cold War broadcasts.

He doesn’t buy anything today. He never buys impulsively. “An artwork should haunt you,” he says. “If it returns to your dreams, only then do you deserve it.”

Evening: The Art of Conversation

By evening, Tobias is back in his apartment. He cooks—poorly but passionately—while listening to Ligeti or Harold Budd. At 8:00 PM, a few trusted companions arrive: a poet, a neurologist, a critic recently exiled from a major museum board. They discuss everything but art: the ethics of algorithmic memory, whether boredom can be revolutionary, why the color violet disappears in digital scans.

No one takes selfies.

Before bed, Tobias revisits a few emails: a graduate student seeking advice on her thesis about the non-material aesthetics of resistance; a collector requesting provenance for an Ana Mendieta piece (he ignores this one); an artist asking simply, “Am I being too quiet?”

He responds: “Quietness is not absence. It is the refusal to shout.”

Night: An Intimate Vigil

At 1:00 AM, he stands by the window, looking over Lower Manhattan. His thoughts are of unfinished shows, unread essays, and unsaid truths. His art collection sits quietly in storage, rarely displayed, never loaned. “Art should not perform for guests,” he once said. “It should keep secrets.”

He turns off the light. The city glows below, indifferent and infinite.

Diary of an Art Dealer

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Diary of an Art Dealer

Rain again. The kind of fine mist that makes Bond Street glisten like polished marble and drives tourists into the galleries just to escape it. I spent the morning adjusting the hanging height of that unsettling Spen Leopard triptych. No matter where I place it, someone always asks if the figures are dead or sleeping. I’ve learned to answer, “Depends how much you drink.”

The courier from Paris finally arrived — two days late, naturally — with the Giacometti sketch. “Femme Debout, profil gauche.” Smaller than expected, Sally must have mixed up centimetres and inches again, but beautifully nervous in its line. I watched one of our younger interns unwrap it as though it might bite. There’s something wonderful about watching someone handle an expensive piece like that for the first time — reverence, fear, desire.

A peculiar lunch at Bellamy’s with Giles, who insists minimalism is back. He’s touting some chilly Norwegian painter who only works in off-whites. “Emotionless is the new sublime,” he said, chewing his steak tartare like a man too old to be ironic. I nodded politely and made a note to increase my holdings in exactly the opposite direction.

Back at the gallery, a young couple came in asking if we had anything “under a hundred thousand that still says something.” I asked “Pounds or dollars”, and showed them a bold little mixed media piece by Olivia Granger — one of her early ones, full of nails, text, and mild violence. They bought it on impulse. Maybe it did say something, after all.

The day ended with champagne and sweat — we hosted a closed preview for the upcoming “Women of the School of London” show. Two paintings were pre-sold before the first toast. One went to an American tech wife who referred to Frank Auerbach as “the one who paints like a hurricane.” Not wrong, really.

Now the gallery’s empty again. I’m sitting here with the lights low, the hum of the dehumidifier in the distance, and a glass of something that cost too much. I should go home, but I won’t yet. There’s something sacred about this silence, this moment after the money’s changed hands and before the walls are full again.

Tomorrow, the Italians arrive.

Wish me luck.

Diary of an Art Dealer

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Diary of an Art Dealer

The weather was unbearable today — humid, oppressive, the kind of heat that makes everything feel slightly damp, including one’s patience. Even the paintings seemed to sag. Even the Rothko in the office hallway looking more like a tea stain than a masterpiece. But still, the collectors came, as they always do. Heatwaves don’t touch wealth.

First through the door was Sebastian Fairchild, in white linen and very expensive disinterest. He’s sniffing around for 21st Century British sculpture, but only if there’s “a story.” I showed him the Geoffrey Clarke I’ve been holding back. He admired it for five full seconds before declaring it to be “possibly too Catholic for my client.” I bit my tongue and poured the coffee.

Meanwhile, the Van Gogh (Not that one)  in the back room finally sold — to an Italian hotelier who asked if it was by “the soup guy.” I told him no. He didn’t laugh, just wired the money before I’d finished my sentence. Strange man. Excellent transaction. I must get on to Van Gogh (Not that one) for some more work. They’ve gone a bit quiet.

Charlotte had a minor meltdown trying to locate the provenance letter for a mid-century Hungarian abstract we’re shipping to Geneva. It wasn’t in the archive folder, wasn’t in the drawer, wasn’t anywhere until we found it—naturally—folded inside a whodunnit on my desk, being used as a bookmark. Whoops. I really must digitise everything. Or rather, have someone else digitise everything. Preferably someone patient and obsessed with filing.

Afternoon drifted into cocktails. We hosted a casual walk-through for the preview of the Modern Mythologies show. Mostly regulars — trust fund kids, two fashion editors, and that property developer who only buys blue paintings. He tried to flirt with Charlotte again. Unsuccessfully.

Someone asked me if I “still believe in beauty.”

I said yes. Not because it’s true — but because it sells.

Now I’m here, alone, again, listening to the whirr of the lights cooling above the P1X3L prints. The street outside is quieter than usual — London is quieter – even the dealers at the end of Cork Street have shut up for the night.

Another day, another inch forward in this strange little war between passion and profit.

“Ancient Rome Nouveau”: Cato Sinclair has the First Exhibition at Pimlico Wilde Boston

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“Ancient Rome Nouveau”: Cato Sinclair has the First Exhibition at Pimlico Wilde Boston

In an eloquent gesture of restitution and renewed esteem, Pimlico Wilde is delighted to announce that the inaugural exhibition at its newly opened gallery in Boston will be nothing short of a vindication of artistry—and a tribute to innocence. The show, provisionally entitled Ancient Rome Nouveau, will showcase Cato Sinclair’s singular creations: exquisitely crafted, near-perfect reinterpretations of ancient Roman sculpture, mosaic, and fresco, now to be displayed in the gallery’s luminous new halls.

A Celebration of Craft, Not Crime

In the light of recent misunderstandings, Pimlico Wilde takes this opportunity not only to inaugurate its first exhibition but also to repeat their heartfelt apology to Mr Sinclair:

“To Cato Sinclair—we regret the earlier misplaced suspicion. Your dedication to reviving the classical through contemporary sensibility is unquestioned. This exhibition stands as a testament to your mastery, and to our renewed faith.”

The Exhibition: Ancient Rome Re-Imagined

Ancient Rome Nouveau promises a curatorial experience both reverential and modern. Visitors will encounter:

• Sculptural works — Several labelled “A Cato Sinclair recreation after a Roman copy of a Greek original”—to elegantly acknowledge their lineage while honouring Sinclair’s inventive mediation.

• Mosaic panels, painstakingly composed with traditional tesserae techniques, invoking the tessellated exuberance of late Republican interiors, yet rendered with modern clarity and compositional grace.

• Fresco fragments equally ambitious: richly hued pigments laid upon lime-plaster walls, offering unconventional patina and virtuosic depth, echoing vaulted domes and atrium walls wreathed in mythic scenes.

A Reframed Artistic Dialogue

Pimlico Wilde positions Sinclair’s work at an intersection: transcending imitation, yet immensely grounded in classical grammar. His recreations are not forgeries but articulate dialogues with antiquity—making ancient carvings speak anew through modern sensibility.

Amelia Berwick, one of the gallery’s curators working on the show, reflects:

“We are honoured to host Cato Sinclair’s work. His recreations are more than virtuoso mimicry—they are imaginative bridges between centuries.”

Similarly, Dr Lucinda Marsh of the New England Institute of Very Old Items notes:

“Sinclair’s commitment to authenticity—tempered through interpretation—embodies a rare artistic philosophy. This exhibition restores him to the place he always deserved.”

A Thoughtful Opening to the Age of Sinclair

Ancient Rome Nouveau will open in a little over six weeks, inviting viewers into rooms suffused with quiet gravitas. Elegantly labelled, generously lit, and ethically framed, each work offers a meditation on lineage, replication, and the role of the modern artist as custodian of classical memory.

In choosing Sinclair’s works to open its doors, Pimlico Wilde offers more than exhibition—it issues a rebuke to haste, an embrace of precision, and a celebration of an artist whose hands re-create the past, not to deceive, but to converse.

Diary of an Artist

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Diary of an Artist

6th August, 2025 – 11:39pm, studio, lights off

Three days without touching a brush. I keep circling the canvas like it owes me something. It doesn’t. None of them do. They just sit there, waiting—silent, judgmental, blank in all the places I’m not brave enough to fill.

I went outside today. Big mistake. Too many people pretending it’s not all falling apart. Couples with oat milk lattes. Dogs with better posture than me. I sat on the bench across from Tescos and watched a kid draw with chalk on the pavement. He made a house with no door.

Saw a man busking under the railway bridge. He was singing something old and cracked and full of loss – maybe Dylan, maybe just his own stuff. He didn’t have a guitar case out for cash. Just played. No one stopped. I gave him a coin. He nodded like it hurt.

Back home, I tried to write an artist statement. Couldn’t get past the first sentence. “My work explores…” explores what? Failure? Disappearance? The long slow ache of staying alive? I don’t know how to talk about it without lying. I don’t know how to live it without bleeding.

My bank sent me a “wellness newsletter.” Tips for mindfulness. Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out. It feels cruel coming from a company that charged me £15 for being too poor. I laughed for longer than I should have. There was no joy in it.

Jules messaged: “You vanished.”

I typed: “No one noticed.”

Didn’t send. Deleted it and wrote: “Sorry. Been painting.”

She replied: “Of course you have.”

I stared at that for hours.

Still haven’t titled the triptych. I thought about calling it “Things I Meant to Say Before the Roof Caved In.” Too long. Too true. I’ll probably just leave it untitled. Like the rest of my life.

Anyway. The moon’s out tonight. Looks like it’s eavesdropping.