Helly Nahmad & Leo DiCaprio

The New York Times continues to dine out on the Helly Nahmad gambling case by running its second page-one story in a week on art and money laundering. Though, as the section below admits, art has nothing to do with the gambling case:

But the case, in which investigators listened to Mr. Nahmad’s cellphone conversations over a period of months, also raises questions about how he conducted himself as an art dealer. In one conversation he speaks of using the family’s art business as a cover to move around illicit money, advising a woman named Lisa to wire $150,000 to the bank account of his father, David.

“Sometimes a bank needs a justification for a wire, right?” Mr. Nahmad said, according to a government account of the conversation, in March 2012. “We can just say, Oh, you are buying a painting. If they need justification, you know what I mean? You just be like, Oh yeah, I bought a, you know, Picasso drawing or something.”

It is unclear whether that transaction took place, and no charges related to the use of the business to launder money are contained in the indictment. The charges describe two related gambling networks — one led by Mr. Nahmad — that laundered tens of millions of dollars through shell companies in Cyprus; legitimate hedge funds and real estate assets in the United States; a car-repair shop in Brooklyn; and even a Bronx plumbing company that had been taken over by the gambling ring as payment for a bettor’s losses.

Case Casts Harsh Light on Family Art Business (NYTimes)

Michael H. Miller has a spectacular post on Gallerist NY chronicling the burgeoning use of Instagram as a selling medium for second-market works:

Even if most gallery owners aren’t selling works directly through Instagram, people are starting to make attempts, and iPhone dealing is a new reality to grapple with. […]

For dealers, it’s quite possibly the easiest way of selling art—several sources mentioned stirring up interest from collectors accidentally through casually posting images of their back rooms. ([Gavin]Brown, who prefers to just let the random stream of images “all come at you,” does not use Instagram this way, though he did try to sell a Jeremy Deller print on Tumblr. “It didn’t work,” he said.) Art advisers are scheduling studio visits with undiscovered artists through their Instagram accounts. Collectors, too, create de facto advertisements for themselves by showing people what they have. Alberto Mugrabi recently posted a painting that he owns from Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe series

The Gallery Unfiltered: On the Art World’s Obsession with Instagram (Gallerist NY)

The New York Times now has the charges connected to this morning’s raid on the Helly Nahmad Gallery. Helly Nahmad has been indicted for his role operating and financing “high-stakes poker games involving Wall Street financiers, Hollywood celebrities and professional athletes” where Russian organized crime figures enforced collections. In addition, Nahmad is accused of using a Bronx plumbing company to launder profits from the gambling operation. You can read the indictment here.

In addition to charges that he helped finance a multimillion-dollar gambling ring in the United States, Mr. Nahmad is accused of defrauding an unnamed individual by selling him a painting for $300,000 when it was worth only $50,000, according to the indictment.

Mr. Nahmad, according to the indictment, also wired money — once for $500,000 and another time for $850,000 — from his father’s bank account in Switzerland to a bank account in America to help fund the gambling operation. […]

The government is seeking the forfeiture of four high-end properties, including an apartment at Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue and two Miami estates, in connection with the case.

Agents Raid Gallery in Carlyle Hotel in Gambling Investigation (New York Times)

The New York Times has the news of the raid on the Helly Nahmad gallery this morning:

as part of an investigation in a gambling operation that focused on a Russian organized crime group that ran high-stakes poker games involving Wall Street financiers, Hollywood celebrities and professional athletes, according to people briefed on the matter.

The investigation, which led to the arrests of dozens of people, was largely focused on Internet gambling and money laundering, the people said.

During the raid, which began early Tuesday morning, agents executed a search warrant at the Helly Nahmad gallery

There has been a lot of immediate speculation that this raid is somehow connected to a coming regulation of the art market. But focus seems to be gambling—and follow a series of gambling-related arrests—and most of the other figures involved are not related to art dealing in any way:

The names of those indicted are below. The indictment did not name any well-known celebrities or professional athletes.

Molly Bloom, the sister of two-time Olympic skier and former NFL receiver Jeremy Bloom, was charged. Molly Bloom became known as the “Poker Princess” after she admitted in 2011 to organizing high-stakes poker games that allegedly involved A-list actors Toby Maguire, Leonard Dicaprio, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Macaulay Culkin and professional athletes Pete Sampras and Alex Rodriguez.

Alzimzhan Tokhtakhounov, named in the indictment as a leader of the Taiwanchik-Trincher Organization, was already indicted on charges related to his role in allegedly bribing officials at the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City.

More details of Tuesday’s arrests are expected to be released by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan later in the day.

Agents Raid Gallery in Carlyle Hotel Gambling Investigation (New York Times)

Major Busts Tied to Russian Organized Crime Underway in NYC (Sporting News)

Colin Gleadell interviews Emma Dexter, former curator at Tate Modern, who is now Exhibitions Director at Timothy Taylor Gallery:

CG: What is the main advantage of working with a commercial gallery?

ED: The speed and ease with which you can operate – there’s so little bureaucracy!

CG: Are commercial galleries doing what museums can’t?

ED: Museums can’t be expected to do everything. But it’s clear that galleries are moving into their territory by exploring overlooked backwaters of art history as well as the more traditional territory of discovering new talents. The healthiest situation is when you have an ambitious gallery scene alongside a lively public sector. That’s why London continues to be such a great art city.

CG: What do you think influences buyers’ taste most these days?

ED: Since the downturn there has been a flight towards the known and the historically significant. The market has definitely been looking backwards towards figures who have been unfairly overlooked or under-appreciated. Our current Tàpies exhibition, which has nearly sold out, is a good example.

CG: What’s on the horizon for you?

ED: We have a Philip Guston centenary exhibition of the great late works in June. That’s a show I would never have been able to get close to at Tate Modern.

Emma Dexter, former Tate curator, interview: ‘there’s so little bureaucracy in commercial galleries’ (Telegraph)

Earlier this week, Katya Kazakina reported for Bloomberg that Magdalena Sawon is leaving Chelsea fifteen years after moving Postmasters Gallery from SoHo to the Chelsea space.

“This is my last season here. I am unwilling to pay $30,000 a month,” said Sawon, whose 3,800-square-foot gallery occupies a ground-floor space on West 19th Street.

The midsize art galleries that helped transform western Chelsea from a dead area adjoining the West Side Highway into New York’s major art hub are being squeezed out of the neighborhood by booming real-estate development and rising rents.

A familiar story, one may say, that could be gaining momentum once again. The migration of art galleries through New York is a tale that could once again be in its opening chapter. From West 57^th Street in the 1950s and 1960s to SoHo from the mid-1970s, progressing to the current contemporary art hub in Chelsea. András Szántó (2003) has pointed out (in his detailed description of the emergence of Chelsea as the center of the New York art market) that while neighborhoods such as West 57^th Street and SoHo have gentrified ever since, neither area was home to the retail or hospitality businesses that appeared since galleries opened their doors in the area. Sound familiar?

“Every developer in the city wants to be in West Chelsea,” said Stuart Siegel, senior vice president at CBRE”

“The mid-range galleries are going to just vanish from Chelsea,” said Sawon, who expects that “anything radical or experimental” will become rarer as dealers seek to cover expenses by staging more-predictable shows that do well commercially.

“You won’t find much experimentation if the rents continue to escalate, because those kinds of galleries won’t be here,” said Chelsea gallerist Casey Kaplan. “They’ll be priced out.”

With emerging galleries dispersed all over the Lower East Side, which is poised to become home to experimental French art fair CUTLOG this May during the Frieze Art Fair, it will be interesting to see if any Chelsea based galleries join galleries such as Lehmann Maupin and set their sights on spaces in the vibrant neighborhood.

Desperate Art Galleries Give Up as Chelsea Rents Double (Bloomberg)

Szántó, András (2003) “Hot and Cool. Some Contrasts between the Visual Art Worlds of New York and Los Angeles.” In New York and Los Angeles: Politics, Society, Culture, edited by David Halle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

The New York Times’s Carol Vogel announces the departure of one Christie’s most visible business getters and the voice of many Asian buyers in the sale room:

Ken Yeh, Christie’s chairman for Asia, is leaving the auction house after 16 years to head up Asian sales for the Acquavella Galleries. “We want to have more of a presence in Asia, and Ken’s the person to help make that happen,” said William Acquavella, whose father founded the gallery in Manhattan in the early 1920s. Mr. Yeh will be a director and will divide his time between New York and Asia.

Inside Art: A Move From Christie’s (New York Times)