HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028289.jpg

THE HOUSE OF THE NOBLEMAN
CURATED BY WOLFE VON LENKIEWICZ & VICTORIA GOLEMBIOVSKAYA

PRESS CLIPPING (INTERNET)

London
Evening
Standard

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23885619-how-art-can-make-greed-look-fabulous.do

How art can make greed look fabulous

Olivia Cole
07.10.10

Literature's most sinister art connoisseur is probably Henry James's Gilbert Osmond, the collector of beautiful objects to whom Isabel Archer shackles her fortunes in The Portrait of a Lady. She is at first dazzled by his advice that "one ought to make one's life a work of art", before realising that he has no imagination of his own, only acquisitiveness: beauty by proxy. By that time, as his wife, she is part of his collection.

So how to spot a Gilbert Osmond today? You might imagine one lives in The House of the Nobleman, an exhibition opening next week in a vast Edwardian pile on the borders of Regent's Park to coincide with the nearby Frieze art fair.

Surveying the J20 million-worth of paintings, from Poussin to Warhol via Picasso, visitors are invited to believe that they are in the house of an extravagantly committed collector. This imagined character is someone like Randolph Hearst in Citizen Kane: a rich man with non-existent morals but exquisite taste. Like Dick Fuld, Lehman Brothers' last CEO: earlier this month, it took Christie's days to sell off the bank's art collection.

Here there is no so such owner: this collection has been curated by two artists, Victoria Golembiovskaya and the painter Wolfe von Lenkiewicz. The nobleman of their title is a modern-day Don Quixote, caught between fantasy and reality. Von Lenkiewicz says City practices such as shorting have "no direct relationship to reality". Their modern-day nobleman hankers for meaning and order: beauty even. Hence the kind of people who fervently collect in London. The compulsion to be known not only as loaded but cultured is often observed but rarely examined. It's interesting that this show is staged by artists all of whom have a complex relationship with the kind of people characterised by Vince Cable as merely "spivs and gamblers". Wolfe refers to people who do "unspeakable things" before reiterating that the show isn't a moral judgment.

Even so, their show tries to lift the veil on the activity at Frieze. As a centre for commercial art sustained still by swilling disposable income, London eclipses Paris and New York. Frieze will be swarming with both people like me, who go to look, and hundreds of the modern-day "noblemen" with their Black Amex cards. It's no small irony that The House of the Nobleman naturally has its own massively wealthy backer, Russian property giant Mirax. Greed might not be good but it sure can look fabulous.

And what about the savvier artists? Tracey Emin whines about arts cuts yet moans about her tax bill. Damien Hirst has exploited the market in his own work as ruthlessly as any hedge-funder. Wolfe himself confidently discusses algorithms and is a favourite of collectors such as Bono and Richard Devereux, co-founder of Virgin. London's most successful artists aren't exactly in the gutter, looking at the stars.

9

HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_028289