‘The Biggest Art Heist of the 21st Century,’ According to Libbie Mugrabi. Plus, a Seoul Dispatch!

Wet Paint ‘The Biggest Art Heist of the 21st Century,’ According to Libbie Mugrabi. Plus, a Seoul Dispatch! Also in this Wet Paint: Karma’s new outpost, the indefatigable CJ Hendry’s latest effort, and more! Also in this Wet Paint: Karma’s new outpost, the indefatigable CJ Hendry’s latest effort, and more! Gabi Vidal-Irizarry ShareShare This Article Every week, Artnet News brings you Wet Paint, a gossip column of original scoops. If you have a tip, email Gabi Vidal-Irizarry at [email protected]. Two years into their marriage, Libbie and David Mugrabi bought a house in the Hamptons. Eleven years later, that house would be the site of an event that would end their marriage, according to Libbie. She alleges that she woke up one morning to find her then-husband naked and asleep with another woman there, a Richard Prince painting as the backdrop. David filed for divorce, and by 2020, the Mugrabis were no longer husband and wife. A reported $100 million settlement left Libbie with the house and a bounty of blue-chip art, but a full-blown legal circus was about to begin. In one memorable episode, she showed up to family court in a bulletproof vest, convinced David had considered hiring a Russian hitman to kill her. Late last month, Libbie lost the house. The 7-acre compound at 486 Middle Line Highway sold for $5.86 million in a rare public foreclosure auction held on the sidewalk of Southampton Town Hall, with pedestrians pausing to watch. (A source was kind enough to send along a video of the proceedings.) About 10 bidders showed up, including Libbie’s sister, Mia Rowe, who won the first round with a $7.8 million bid, then said she needed to run to a nearby Chase for the $780,000 deposit. As the crowd waited for her to return, tensions rose. The other bidders had certified checks in hand. They felt it was unfair. Bidding resumed. Things devolved. Libbie’s mother (who was there with her dog, Botox) got into it with one of the auctioneers. He snapped and told her to “stop talking, lunatic.” The cops were summoned. The crowd dispersed. And according to Mugrabi, a Nigerian prince snagged her East End estate. “I go to lots of these things, and this one is hands down the most entertaining,” one bidder, Eddy Bellacera, told the New York Post. Believe it or not, an ongoing fight over her divorce-settlement paintings has been even more chaotic. Libbie is baffled that it hasn’t been covered more widely by art publications. To her, this is “the biggest art heist story of the 21st century,” she told me over the phone. In late 2023, strapped for cash, Libbie turned to her then-financial advisor, Joon Ho Chun, for advice. He introduced her to Art Capital Group (ACG), a lender that specializes in loans backed by fine art. She put up a Jean-Michel Basquiat as collateral, hoping to borrow $3 million against it. The work is a 1982 self-portrait of the artist as a haloed Christ under a black crescent moon. An invoice shared with Wet Paint states that it was originally acquired at Annina Nosei Gallery, the site of the artist’s breakout 1982 show, for just $1,200, by collector Jean Pigozzi, who then sold it to High Fashion Concepts, ex-husband David’s family’s holding company. It was finally transferred to Libbie in the divorce. Over the years, the Basquiat has come to hold a deeper meaning for her. Its subject matter, she said, “symbolizes me and my plight.” There’s also, by her account, bodily fluid from Basquiat himself mixed into the tar in the paint. She’d like to get it tested, but can’t. Right now, she said, it is at Phillips, locked away because the ongoing litigation scuttled her attempt to sell it. Separately, Mugrabi pledged a blue Andy Warhol portrait of Jackie Kennedy Onassis, valued by her assessors at $1.5 million, to cover a $12,500 due-diligence fee owed to ACG. The $3 million never materialized, reportedly because ACG had concerns, but the firm kept the Warhol. If the loan never came, why were they still holding onto it? Mugrabi reported the Warhol stolen to the Southampton police. Around the same time, ACG became aware of a wanted poster bearing images of the Blue Jackie, the faces of its executives, and Joon Ho Chun that offered a $10,000 reward for anyone who could locate the painting. A New York Post article claimed Mugrabi had distributed the poster around East Hampton and the Upper East Side. Her situationship at the time, Bobby Vaughn, creator of the Von Dutch trucker hat, told the New York Times that he’d made them, and that they were not printed or circulated to anyone except Art Capital. (A quick Google search on Vaughn taught me a new term: justifiable homicide, the grounds on which he was acquitted of a first-degree murder charge in 2005.) The fine-art lender eventually sold the Warhol for $325,000 to cover costs it said it incurred because of the failed loan. That was less than the $360,000 that Mugrabi’s lawyers had offered to settle the whole debt, Libbie said—and far less than the $869,000 that she told the Post that her former father-in-law, Jose Mugrabi, paid for it at a Christie’s auction in 2017. (A 1964 Blue Jackie did sell at Christie’s for $595,500 that year.) The flyer set off more legal woes. ACG sued Mugrabi for defamation, demanding no less than $30 million, plus punitive and treble damages. Chun, the financial advisor responsible for introducing the parties, jumped ship and joined the suit against her. Why does Art Capital want to hold the Basquiat? Its argument is that the painting should act as security for potential defamation compensation. One judge has disagreed, ruling that ACG can’t hold the painting as collateral for a lawsuit it hasn’t won, and that the Warhol sale had already covered what Mugrabi actually owed. Maybe they just really like it. “This is one of the most important Basquiats in the world,” Mugrabi said over the phone. Three years after the Warhol’s reported sale, Mugrabi is still wondering: Where is it? A filing by her lawyers on September 2 alleges that ACG failed to produce documentation proving that the sale took place. It also states that the fine-art lender took the work, wrapped it in bubble wrap, and put it in the back of a car, then sold it without her consent. That constitutes grand larceny, her lawyers say claim. Art Capital Group and its lawyers did not respond to a request for comment. And so she’s lost her Warhol and her place in the Hamptons, and she could lose her Basquiat, or at least her right to sell it. What’s next? “I’m moving to Florida,” she said. “I’m over New York and the pain caused by the art world.” She plans to open a foundation dedicated to showcasing fashion and art once she’s settled in the Sunshine State, and if she gets the Basquiat back, she won’t sell it, she said. She’ll show it there. I’ve never been to Seoul, and despite Frieze being painfully early this year, I still would have gone. So I asked someone who has boots on the ground and knows the city inside and out, to write up her week and let me live vicariously. That someone is Rachel Park, development officer at the Public Art Fund. Take it away, Rachel. I grew up in seven different cities, and Seoul is the place where I have spent the second-most time, after New York. I lived there from ages 3 to 13, and I returned for another year during COVID. During that time, I worked at Kukje Gallery as a sales assistant, and most of my Korean friends are from that period. I often joke that Kukje is my sorority. I also grew up with an artist grandfather who has studios in Seoul and Jeju, and I now manage his foundation, so Korea has inevitably shaped how I exist in the art world. I attended Frieze Seoul in 2022 and 2023 to support Mendes Wood DM’s booth, and this year, I was happy to be back in a different capacity, as development officer at Public Art Fund, introducing the organization’s artistic and philanthropic programs to Korean art audiences. Before fair week started, I took some time off and went on vacation in Jeju with my friend, art advisor Rose Leadem, who is the executive director of the Park Kwang-Jin Foundation. [Park Kwang-Jin is Rachel’s grandfather.] – CJ Hendry fever is still raging in New York. In August, she filled Salon 94 with a bead-filled ball pit. This month, Hendry will transform the Brant Foundation in the East Village into an immersive forest of flat-pack wooden sculptures inspired by the hidden garden at the House of Sulwhasoo in Seoul. – The Chinatown gallery formerly known as 56 Henry has rebranded as Ellie Rines Gallery, after its founder, and relocated to 46 Walker Street. The reason behind the name change is more obvious than you’d think. Rines told me: “It’s the only way to make sure people don’t get lost.” Such consideration for the collectors. Isabelle Hogenkamp, formerly of Mitchell-Innes & Nash, has joined the gallery as director, and its inaugural exhibition, with new work by Christopher K. Ho, opens Wednesday. – I ran into Karma owner Brendan Dugan outside the River this week. He says the gallery’s long-awaited Tribeca space will open “sometime in November.” – P.P.O.W. has named Trey Hollis as its new managing partner, a promotion from the senior director role he held back in June when we meditated together at the gallery’s 8:45 a.m. guided sessions. Speaking of which: Sessions resume on Thursday. The timing is suspiciously perfect. One newsletter that I consulted counted 422 exhibitions opening this month. It might do us all some good. – A new dating app is set to launch on Thursday: Readme, aimed at “people who read,” from the team behind the astrology app Co–Star. It seems to already have the art world’s stamp of approval. The launch party will bring out Women’s History Museum, Whitney Mallett, Precious Okoyomon, Chloe Wise, and Salome Asega, among others. – Please let me know about the best and worst opening-afters you attend this month, whether parties, dinners, or otherwise. Was the music good? How long did they make you wait for the food? Did someone say something insane during the remarks? – Got a tip? Send it to [email protected].