Art Diary

My Life as an Art Dealer: The Art of Deception

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By Harissa Beaumont

Some names have been changed to protect the innocent

Monday began, as it often does, with a desperate phone call from a collector who has the purchasing sense of a Labrador with a trust fund. Gerald, a man who once claimed Basquiat was “a type of French bread,” had set his sights on a very specific Damien Hirst piece. Naturally, it was sold years ago and now lives somewhere in Qatar, but Gerald insisted that I “just pop it out of storage.” I explained this wasn’t an option, to which he replied, “Don’t you people have a back door for these things? Like Harrods?”

This conversation lasted 35 minutes.

By midday, the gallery was graced by Lucinda, a hedge-fund widow whose taste in art hovers somewhere between “Instagrammable” and “irreversible mistake.” She sauntered in with a handbag worth more than most cars, declaring she needed something “bold and conceptual” for the guest loo in her chalet. I suggested a small sculpture from an emerging artist in Peckham that explores themes of grief and societal decay. Lucinda stared blankly and asked, “Does it come in lilac?”

Tuesday was worse. The courier for a £250,000 painting by a mid-century modernist misread the address and attempted to deliver it to a kebab shop in Shepherd’s Bush. I had to bribe the gallery assistant with promises of lunch at Sketch to take the Overground and retrieve it, whereupon she discovered the painting leaning against the kebab counter, perilously close to a large tub of garlic sauce.

We also experienced the unwanted arrival of Maurice, a self-declared “art investor” whose understanding of the market is as thin as his knowledge of contemporary aesthetics. He loudly informed me that Banksy is “too mainstream now” and asked whether I could get him “an up-and-coming graffiti chap.” When I pointed out that I deal primarily in fine art, he winked and said, “All the same, isn’t it? It’s just stuff on walls.” I almost called security and had him thrown out.

Thursday’s highlight was the debut of a new artist I’d been championing for months: Sorcha, who creates large-scale installations from discarded electronic waste. Her work is raw, powerful, and exquisitely confrontational. The private view, however, was an utter circus. Sorcha arrived late, wearing what appeared to be a dress made of VHS tapes, and immediately started arguing with a collector who asked if she’d consider “toning down the dystopia.” She might be looking for a new gallery.

Friday morning, I discovered the gallery had been tagged in an Instagram post by a minor celebrity influencer who captioned a photo of herself in front of one of our pieces with, “ART IS JUST VIBES.” I’ve had three inquiries since from people wanting to know if we sell “NFTs of the vibes.” Of course we do, we sell anything, we are art dealers.

Finally, this morning, the landlord informed me he’s raising the rent because “art brings prestige,” which is a delightful way of saying, “I’ve been watching your clients arrive in Bentleys.” I briefly considered explaining that not all my clients arrive in Bentleys; some arrive in Range Rovers and refer to me as “darling.” But instead, I smiled, thanked him, and went to drown my sorrows in an oat milk latte.

If you’re looking for me next week, I’ll be at an opening, holding a glass of lukewarm champagne and pretending I’m not dying inside.

World’s Most Expensive Artwork Sells for $3 Billion: ‘Untitled (Probably a Fish)’ Stuns the Market

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History was made last night at an exclusive auction in Ramsgate when the enigmatic artwork “Untitled (Probably a Fish)” sold for an eye-watering $3 billion, officially becoming the world’s most expensive artwork. The sale took place at the hyper-exclusive Black Glove Auction House, attended by art-world royalty, billionaires, and several people who appeared to just be there for the canapés.

The buyer, whose identity is shrouded in mystery but rumored to be either a tech billionaire or a crown prince, outbid a swarm of global elites in what was described as “the most intense bidding war since Van Gogh’s left ear sketch hit the market.”

The Artwork

“Untitled (Probably a Fish)” is the magnum opus of obscure Belgian conceptual artist Lars Van Der Klink. The piece consists of a single crumpled sheet of paper, reportedly salvaged from a seaside café in Ostend, onto which Van Der Klink scribbled a faint outline of what might be a fish,or, according to one critic, “the fleeting essence of despair itself.”

The artwork’s frame,a minimalist creation made of reinforced carbon fiber and ethically sourced Himalayan yak wool,was designed by Van Der Klink himself and has been hailed as “integral to the piece’s critique of human fragility.”

“Is it a fish? Is it not? That’s the power of the piece,” said noted art historian Claudia Grey. “It forces us to confront the ambiguity of existence, the frailty of interpretation, and, most importantly, our inability to understand what Lars was thinking.”

The Bidding Frenzy

The opening bid was set at a modest $50 million, but it quickly escalated as collectors and institutions vied for the honor of owning the enigmatic masterpiece. Witnesses described the atmosphere in the auction room as “electric” and “slightly unhinged,” with one bidder reportedly throwing their shoe in frustration after being outbid.

Auctioneer Lucien D’Argent, resplendent in a velvet tuxedo, milked the crowd with theatrical pauses and dramatic intonation. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is not just a fish,or not a fish,it is a moment. A cultural apotheosis.”

The final hammer fell at $3 billion, accompanied by a smattering of polite applause, gasps, and at least one audible “Are you kidding me?”

Reactions

The sale has sent shockwaves through the art world. Critics are divided, as always:

• The New York Art Lens called the sale “a landmark moment in the commodification of ambiguity.”

• Post-Canvas Review derided it as “a billion-dollar doodle.”

• Social media, predictably, erupted in memes, with hashtags like #ProbablyAFish and #MoneyLaundering trending within minutes.

Meanwhile, Van Der Klink, the artist himself, appeared bemused by the record-breaking sale. In a rare statement from his self-imposed exile in a yurt outside Brussels, he said, “I honestly forgot I made that one. But it’s nice that people like it, I suppose.”

The Legacy

With “Untitled (Probably a Fish)” now enshrined in art history, speculation has turned to its future. Will it be displayed in a public museum, as the auctioneer promised, or locked away in a private vault, joining the shadowy ranks of “art for no one”?

One thing is certain: the sale cements Lars Van Der Klink’s position as a leading figure in the conceptual art world, while also ensuring that “crumpled paper chic” will be the hottest trend in galleries worldwide for years to come.

For now, the world can only marvel at the staggering sum paid for a scribble on paper, and ponder the immortal question: Was it really worth it? Or, as Lars himself might say, “Is anything?”

Book Review: Dada, You’re Doing It Again: The Avant-Garde as a Prolonged Temper Tantrum by Professor Malvina Jibber

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In Dada, You’re Doing It Again, noted cultural provocateur and self-styled “historian of art hysteria” Professor Malvina Jibber offers a blistering reinterpretation of the Dada movement, suggesting that the entirety of early 20th-century anti-art wasn’t a reaction to war, or nihilism, or even Duchamp’s moustachioed Mona Lisa,but rather an extended and highly curated temper tantrum thrown by artists who had simply not been invited to enough parties.

Jibber’s central argument is that Dada was less a movement and more “a collective sulk that got out of hand, then became extremely fashionable.” She likens the famous Cabaret Voltaire gatherings in Zürich to “the avant-garde equivalent of revving one’s motorbike whilst wearing a velvet smoking jacket.”

Chapter One, Tristan Tzara Throws a Fit, opens with an imagined scene in which the poet, denied access to a fondue party hosted by Swiss Symbolists, retaliates by inventing performance poetry made entirely of sneezes and obscenities shouted into a megaphone through a sock. “This was not rebellion,” Jibber insists, “it was a form of attention-seeking too abstract for kindergarten but somehow perfect for 1916.”

From there, the book gleefully unravels. Marcel Duchamp’s famous Fountain? “A passive-aggressive bathroom prank.” Hugo Ball’s costume poems? “Proof that if you give a man too much felt and not enough supervision, things will head south quickly.” Jean Arp’s paper collages? “The work of someone who dropped things and decided not to pick them up.”

Jibber’s prose is relentless in its scholarly tone, riddled with footnotes that lead nowhere, references to fake Swiss newspapers (Le Scandale Invisible), and one baffling appendix devoted entirely to the dietary habits of Zurich’s café culture. Chapter titles include:

• Cut-Up or Shut Up

• Zürich, Zany, and Slightly Damp

• If You Glue a Spoon to It, Is It Still Art?

• Why the Hat Was Crying: A Psychoanalysis of Max Ernst’s Millinery Phase

Most outrageously, Jibber proposes that the entire Dada movement was retroactively curated by a secretive alliance of Parisian gallery owners who found the movement’s nonsense to be “highly affordable and weirdly portable.” In one passage, she posits that Dadaism peaked when a man accidentally sold his laundry as a symbolic sculpture titled Le Défi des Chaussettes.

Though some of her claims are historically inexact and frequently incoherent, Jibber’s book is riotously entertaining. She skewers sacred cows with a butter knife and dances around scholarship like a dadaist performing a foxtrot with an oversized soup can. Her love for the absurd is palpable, and her conclusion,“Maybe Dada never ended, it just moved to Instagram”,feels disturbingly plausible.

Recommended for: anarchic aesthetes, curators with a dark sense of humour, former art students and anyone who has ever been caught short whilst looking at a urinal on a plinth.