Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

Hedge fund manager Richard Perry and his fashion-designer wife, Lisa Perry, live in a 17-room penthouse on Sutton Place. They're also big-time modern art collectors and home design obsessives. (Their Manhattan apartment earned a 10-page spread in Vogue a few years ago; in the Hamptons, they may own the only house that has a pool installed in its dining room.) But their art collection has landed the couple in a bit of trouble. The Perrys installed a green stainless-steel "diamond" sculpture by Jeff Koons, which they purchased for $2.3 million in 2005, on the terrace of their Manhattan pad. (A crane was required to put it there.) Not only do the couple's neighbors totally despise the piece ("I think it's as ugly as it comes," says one), some are now complaining that it's blinding them: More

Another Lawsuit For Leibovitz | Things have gone from bad to worse for photographer Annie Leibovitz. The glorified pawn shop (or "art finance firm," as they prefer to be known) that lent Leibovitz boatloads of money against every photo she has ever taken as well as the value of the real estate she owns in the West Village and upstate New York, has filed a breach of contract lawsuit against her. It's accusing her of "boldly deceptive conduct" for not allowing appraisers to come inside her home: "Among other demands in the suit, the company, Art Capital Group, based in Manhattan, is asking the court to order Ms. Leibovitz to allow real estate agents access to her town houses in Greenwich Village so the property can be appraised and prepared for sale to pay back the loans." [NYT]

The sculptor who created the famous "Charging Bull" statue downtown has filed a lawsuit against Random House for putting a photo of the piece on the cover of A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, a new book about Lehman Brothers' collapse. Arturo Di Modica, the sculptor responsible for the work, says Random House didn't have his permission to use a picture. The only problem? Di Modica never had permission to put the statue there in the first place:More

Dash Snow Dead? | Gawker is reporting that hipster artist/photographer Dash Snow died of a heroin overdose last night, and messages posted to Twitter by some of Snow's friends seem to back it up. There hasn't been official confirmation yet. In the meantime, though, you can read more about Snow here, if you're interested. Update: The Times has confirmed Snow's death. [Gawker, photo via Mister Mort]

Bling Is Big in Basel | One of the most popular pieces at Art Basel this week? A work by Takashi Murakami and Pharrell Williams featuring "a miniature ketchup bottle, a can of Pepsi, a pair of sneakers, a cupcake, a condom, a bag of Doritos and a bottle of Johnson & Johnson baby lotion," all of which are made out of gold and "encrusted with 26,000 inlaid diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds" that had been supplied by imprisoned bling king, Jacob the Jeweler. The piece ended up selling for $2 million to two collectors who intend "to share it." So, yes, there really is someone out there who is the proud new owner of half of a jewel-encrusted bag of Doritos. Congrats? [NYT, Marketwatch]

Based on the VIP preview yesterday and the early round of sales today, it looks like Art Basel is not, repeat not, going to tank thanks to the craphole global economy. The Art Newspaper reports that spirits are high, big-name buyers such as Steve Schwarzman, Wilbur Ross, and Eli Broad are all on hand and ready to buy, and the art is the best it's been all year. "I'm not saying the bull market is back," says Sandy Heller, the art adviser who caters to art-collecting tycoons like hedge funder Steve Cohen. "But I'm saying the art market needed a good fair and this is it." Heck, Brad Pitt dropped a mil on a Neo Rauch painting yesterday.More

It seems a handful of downtown art galleries have decided to close up for the summer "to take advantage of the downturn and its lower rents," and plan to simply pick up where they left off and resume operations in the fall. Now there's an idea for those of you who are bored out of your minds at the office and would love nothing more than to take a really long vacation and return to work in September: More

We knew Michael Gross's exposé of the Metropolitan Museum of Art would ruffle feathers. It's juicy stuff, clearly. But we didn't expect it would be banned. But that's what seems to be happening. The Independent reports that Amazon's British arm has stopped selling Gross's Rogues' Gallery "for fear of action from a libel tourist," namely Annette de la Renta, the museum vice chair and wife of designer Oscar de la Renta, who has threatened Gross with a libel suit. The ban isn't limited to foreign retail outlets, however.More

Christie Is Selling, Larry Is Buying | Christie's auction of postwar and contemporary art last night turned out to be a considerably more upbeat affair compared to the mood at Sotheby's lackluster sale on Tuesday. The Christie's event roped in $93.7 million, a little bit less than the $104.5 million high estimate, and only five of 54 works failed to find buyers. And Larry Gagosian continued his shopping spree. The dealer beat out two other bidders for Lichtenstein’s "Frolic," paying $6 million, a new record price for the artist. [NYT]

Hedge fund manager Dan Loeb hasn't had the easiest time as of late. Heavy losses forced him to dismiss a number of employees at the end of 2008 and the $5 billion he managed a year ago had dwindled to $1.8 billion last month. But Loeb is nothing if not crafty and he's since come up with a handful of way to cut costs and raise cash. He started renting out his jet on an hourly basis a few months ago, and he put an extra $5.5 million in his pocket when he sold off his carriage house in the West Village back in March. And now he's done it again. More

Peter Brant is in the middle of a messy divorce with his wife Stephanie Seymour. But that didn't keep him from the opening party for his new private museum this past weekend. A long list of art world A-listers headed over to his 53-acre estate in Greenwich on Saturday to have a look around The Brant Foundation Art Study Center. (And despite all the personal drama as of late, Brant looked "dashingly handsome," according to the Journal.) Seymour wasn't present, naturally. Not physically, at least. But guests walking around the space did get to see Maurizio Cattelan's sculpture of a naked Seymour clutching her breasts, which, as the WSJ's Jeffrey Podolsky observes, "pokes out like a pair of deer's antlers over the fireplace" in Brant's library. He's not kidding. The rather striking piece of art that Brant will always have to remember Seymour by is below.More

The Sticker Mystery Remains Unsolved | We noted those stickers going up around town with timely phrases like "Enjoy Subprime Lending" and "Enjoy Credit Crunch" a few months ago. It's still unclear who's responsible for the guerrilla art campaign. An interview with "EnjoyBanking," one of the people involved, says it's the work of "a diverse cross-section of talent from New York's creative economy—visual artists, writers, economists, photographers, historians, musicians, and filmmakers." But additional cities will be getting stickers of their own soon, and a website dedicated to the project—enjoybanking.com—launches in June. [Art21.org via AnimalNY]

Signs of Life at the Christie's Auction | Christie's auction of Impressionist and modern art last night was considerably more successful that the Sotheby's auction the night before last. The event raked in $102.7 million—close to double Sotheby's haul of $61.3 million—and while it's still a long way off from what Christie's was pulling in when the going was good, it's nice to hear at least one victim of Bernie Madoff got to walk away with some (much needed) cash in his pocket. Jerome Fisher, a founder of Nine West who lost an estimated $150 million as part of the Ponzi scheme, managed to sell a Picasso, "The Musketeer With a Pipe," for $14.6 million, well within the estimated range of $12-$18 million. [NYT, WSJ]

There weren't too many shiny, happy people at Sotheby's last night as the auction house kicked off the spring season with works by Picasso, Giacometti, and Mondrian. Six months ago, back when it was already clear that the economy was headed downhill in a hurry, Sotheby's big seasonal auction had managed to offload $223 million worth of art. This year? The final tally for the 36 works that went under Tobias Meyer's hammer didn't even come close to Sotheby's already-low estimate, bringing in just $61.3 million. (Sotheby's had been hoping for $81.5 million). And some of the people most interested in getting high-priced art off their hands in a hurry—victims of Bernie Madoff, of course—walked away disappointed.More

Art World Pain Goes On | Auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's are gearing up for their semi-annual sales of Impressionist and contemporary art. So how bad is it going to be this time around? Sotheby's says it expects the sales to bring in between $179 million and $256 million, down from $411 million last fall and $742 million last spring. So pretty bad, basically. [WSJ]