Brillo Box (3 ¢ off) (2016) - full transcript

"1964, Andy Warhol shocked
the art world"

"by making hundreds of replicas
of supermarket cartons"

"and presenting them as art"

"His most notorious were
the Brillo boxes"

"That same year, my parents
got engaged, they married"

"began collecting art and
brought this yellow Brillo box"

Some thought I was crazy
"How could you call that art?"

But that was part of the fun of it
when people would react that way

It was the fact it was
so out of context

"And it was the new form of art"

I loved it
I absolutely loved it



"But soon after, my father
traded our Brillo box"

"for a work by another artist"

"The Brillo box left our living room
and went on a journey of it's own"

"800 hundred dollars"

"2 million dollars"

"2 million and 100 hundred"

2 million and 100 hundred dollars
2 million and 200 hundred dollars

"40 years later
the same yellow Brillo box"

"that my parents acquired
for one thousand dollars"

"went on to sell
for over three million"

"This is the story of our Brillo box"

"So question number one is what?"

"The question number one
is how you got into collecting"

First weekend after you were born
and Mom was in the hospital



"I had time on my hands
on a Saturday"

"And a good friend of mine"

"who was a budding art collector
took me on a gallery round"

We were very young

And we were sort of growing
into things

"I had just begun
as an assistant DA"

"there wasn't
a lot of money to spare"

"Paintings were going
in the hundreds then"

"The first piece
that we wound up with"

"was an abstract piece
by Jake Berthot"

"My father looked
at the picture on the wall"

He wondered if the picture
was out being cleaned

I had to explain to him that
this was abstract expressionism

and what he was looking
at was the picture

You try new things
and if it's not accepted

it becomes a little...

conversational

"Abstract expressionism
and pop art"

"were competing with one another"

"I looked at both kinds of art"

and like a person who knew
nothing about any kind of art

We were drawn to what was new
and what was also, at that time

affordable

"But basically, I think my naivety
about the whole scene was helpful"

because I could only buy
what I liked

and that's what you should do

"Tell me what you knew
about Warhol in 1969?"

"He was a new
up and coming artist"

that was working on the fringe

A new type of art
that wasn't considered art

"What is pop art anyway
and how would you define it?"

"A good friend of mine
introduced me to Ivan Karp"

"who used to be the gallery
director at the Castelli gallery"

"until he opened OK Harris"

"Ivan Karp was so important
in the art world"

"His relationship with his artists and
his customers, you all felt together"

"And he had a great
understanding of the artists"

"who were struggling
for recognition"

"and struggling to make
a career out of his work"

"It was at Ivan Karp's gallery
Ok Harris"

"that my father first
encountered the Brillo box"

"The next piece that
we acquired was a Brillo box"

"When I first saw it
at Mr. Karp's gallery"

"it was an absolute replica"

"of a carton that might
have gone to some deli"

"And it was the smaller version
of the Brillo boxes"

"Now the big white Brillo box
was a lot more expensive"

"than the yellow"

"And the yellow wasn't considered
as desirable as the white"

but there
certainly were less of them

"There was something
about the three cents off"

It was almost cute
I mean, as one person said

"You want to pick it up
and just take it home"

You could just sort of hug it

"It just had this wonderful
kind of quality to it"

that was different
than the other boxes

I think mainly
because of its scale

"The yellow Brillo box
my father bought"

"was one of the first
of the supermarket cartons"

"that Andy Warhol made"

"Warhol and his assistants
flattened out"

"the original cardboard boxes"

"made silkscreens"

"then printed the familiar graphics"

"of Heinz, Del Monte, Kellogg's
Campbell's and Brillo"

"on wooden boxes
in a virtual assembly line"

"Warhol's East 47th street
headquarters"

"soon became known
as the factory"

"And the factory became
the place to be"

If there wasn't a Warhol

I wouldn't have bought
anybody's Brillo box

"How many artists do you know"

"that could take stuff that you could
buy off a shelf in a supermarket"

and turn it into a work of art
that could be sold to the public?

And make a lot of money on it

He was a genius

Appropriation is a term
that we use in our history

to talk about how an artist
will borrow something

from mainstream culture
or from a book

or from another artist
or from something

How it differs
from the term "copy"

"I think when you
appropriate something"

"you tend to change it
in some way"

"Warhol by far and away"

"was the biggest and most
successful appropriation artist"

"And we have cease
and desist letters"

"from Campbell's and Coca-Cola"

But they realized very quickly

that these were the most talked
about works of art in the country

and they should back off

When Andy Warhol launched
his Brillo boxes

I think that the Brillo company

thought this was a great
advertising position for them

"It was credibility for them"

"on how the consumer
responded to it"

because of the product
that was inside of the box

And Warhol was no fool
The design of the Brillo box

It's mod, it's sexy
It's a really great design

Brillo

"I think the box
just depicts cleaning"

It's a sink full of water
with bubbles in it

The original Brillo box
was designed

by an abstract expressionist
painter named James Harvey

"And James was in
the school of Pollock"

"and many of the other
Ab Ex painters"

"in that he had a day job
to pay the bills"

"and that he happened to be
hired by the Brillo company"

"to create what would become"

"one of their most iconic
and recognizable symbols"

"of the company"

"Warhol depicted the case that got
shipped from the plant to stores"

"So you saw this color of the box
with the Brillo logo in the middle"

In today's world, that would be a
very expensive corrugated box

to ship your product in

"The first big show
of the supermarket boxes"

"was at the Stable Gallery
in New York City"

"Critics said "what on earth is
thing? How could this be art?"

"What is Warhol doing?
Has he gone insane?"

"It's the Emperor's New Clothes
It's copying commercial product"

And it's a big joke
and a big sort of fake

"Andy wanted to make it seem
as though you were walking"

"into the back room
of a grocery store"

"and had to climb through boxes"

"It was his little way
of making fun"

that we, as consumers
want to buy art

just like we want to buy bananas

"Warhol had dreams of people
walking away"

carrying a wooden box under
their arm for a very low price

That was a bargain
for a Warhol even then

And yet, no one bought them

"When it surfaced
that the original Brillo box"

"was designed by the artist
James Harvey"

"The artist's supporters
were incensed"

"Jim's gallery
the Graham Gallery"

put out a press release about

how this very fine abstract
expressionist painter

"had, in order
to support his fine art"

had to do this
the base commercial art

"And now he was being ripped off
by this Andy Warhol"

"I said, "What you should have
done, Jim"

"is while Andy was
selling his Brillo boxes"

"you should have been selling
signed originals for ten cents each"

"When Warhol's Brillo boxes were
sent to an exhibition in Toronto"

"They were stopped
at the Canadian border"

"Rejected as art and taxed
as commercial goods"

"Speak"

"Earlier, a Canadian
government spokesman"

"said that your art could not be
described as original sculpture"

- "Would you agree with that?"
- Oh yes

- "Why do you agree?"
- Well, because it's not original

The Canadian incident
is one of the best

because it really is
about the boxes themselves

And the fact that
the Canadian government

didn't recognize the boxes
as sculpture

and wanted to charge a duty tax

"They thought they were goods"

"Played perfect into the hands
of the media"

"and it was perfect
for Ivan and Andy"

"in which to capitalize
on to some degree"

"Ivan was a perfect foil for Andy"

"He was almost
like Howard Cosell"

Howard Cosell with, you know
Muhammad Ali

"Well, isn't this sort of a joke then
that you're playing on the public?"

No, it gives me something to do

"Well, why have you bothered
to do that?"

"Why not create something new?"

Because it's easier to do

"The reality was, is this art?
Is this the art we used to?"

"Is this the European wing
at The Met?"

No, there's no wing
at The Met yet

I loved it

"The Brillo box being presented
as a work of art was unusual"

"but people
that appreciated pop art"

"knew that pop artists
were seeing things"

"that the public
instinctively appreciated"

"He took things that originated
in the world of commercial art"

"for packaging
and marketing of products"

"and made them stand alone"

"as visually pleasurable things
to look at and own"

"And all of sudden they took
on a whole new meaning"

"In 1969, my father bought his
Brillo box from Ivan Karp"

"for one thousand dollars"

"It wasn't expensive
so I decided to take a stab"

"But I noticed that there
was nothing on it"

that said "Andy Warhol"

"In my naivety, I pressed Mr. Karp"

"to see what he could do
about having Mr. Warhol"

"authenticate the piece"

"So Warhol got a big chuckle"

"When Ivan Karp said
that the fellow who wanted"

"to buy his Brillo box
insisted that he sign it"

"And he graciously accommodated
it with red crayon"

It's probably the only Brillo box
in existence that bears his...

his signature
may he rest in peace

"It was a developmental milestone"

"that you were able to lift your
head and look at the camera"

And that's how you found
the picture in the album

"Our family album shows
me and my siblings"

"literally surrounded by art"

"But the Brillo box was hard
to miss on our living room floor"

The design was beautiful

The three cents off
was perfect for me

"Most of our guests were amused"

"And they wanted to say"

"Put the groceries away
put this in the kitchen"

"Or could you recycle it?"
But we didn't have recycling

I had it encased in Plexiglas
so it would be protected

And it functioned
as a little coffee table

"What were you wanting
to protect it from?"

Well, you

"We enclosed it
in Plexiglas to preserve it"

"You could put your drink on it"

"and the baby"

"I don't think I would
put a drink on it"

"But being that it was
in the living room"

It was protected
and it could be Windexed

But it was
there for a short time

"For my dad. collecting art
was also a form of investment"

"But my mother believed
in holding onto things"

I didn't want to part with anything
because it was all so beautiful

"and it was easy to bond with"

"So my part was
"Which wall?"

"and "Is it straight?"

"My father would sell one work
of art to acquire another"

"or to help support
our growing family"

"Our walls were
constantly changing"

"I started out not trying to be
a connoisseur or anything like that"

"but thinking that something
I enjoyed doing"

"could also just be another
way of making money grow"

I wasn't in it purely for the money

It was just the fact that you could
make money doing it

made it all the more enjoyable

"But it was very hard to tell
what would be worth more"

and everything that came in the
house, to me was worth everything

The art would be replaced
and the cycle would start over

"Years later, my mom gave me
this advice"

"Just because something seems
to have lost its value now"

"doesn't mean you won't wish
you had it later"

"Which brings us to 1971"

"when my father traded
the Brillo box"

"to get a work
by the artist Peter Young"

"Peter Young was another
rising artist of the sixties"

"and he captivated the art
world with dots"

"His lyrical, dreamy images were
everything the Brillo box was not"

"I have always been curious
about the mysterious artist"

"my father traded our Brillo box for"

"But there isn't a single piece
of footage available of Peter"

"So I imagine him something
like this"

Young Peter Young
scene 1A, take one marker

I remember
this fellow particularly

because one day, I was walking
with my collector friend in Soho

And Peter Young joined us
for a stroll down the street

and turned around
and said to the two of us

"Why are you guys buying art?
You should be buying real estate"

Peter Young did
very psychedelic painting

Very colorful psychedelic

"People thought he was on drugs"

"and no one knew what was
going on in Peter Young's head"

"Is it psychedelia?
To some degree it is"

"I was a meditator
I was interested in white light"

"I had a psychedelic experience
where I saw space"

"I saw a pattern
And I started painting my dots"

"We were a bunch of young
artists trying to find ourselves"

"in this world that was telling
us that painting had died"

It was an even trade of an artist

"that Dad probably thought would
in the end, be worth more"

"I was able to trade that box
for something I liked a little better"

"and it intrigued me
a little bit more"

"I got something
that I hung on the wall"

"instead of something
that sat on the floor"

"There are no pictures of the Peter
Young my parents acquired"

"But we believe it looked
something like this"

"or this"

"or this"

What was going to become
of Andy Warhol

when he could trade it for
a Peter Young?

"You can't help prefer a Brillo box
to a bunch of dots"

"But Peter Young left New York
and relocated to Bisbee, Arizona"

"Just as his career was exploding"

"He would not have
a major show again"

"in New York for over 35 years"

"I didn't want to keep living
in New York"

"And I saw how
particularly young artists"

"might have a run
of a season or two"

"and then the caravan
passes on, you know"

"That's how our Brillo box
was sent on its way"

"With the money they made
selling their art"

"My parents were able to purchase
their first apartment in New York"

"Which they then filled
with more art"

"We spent every weekend as a
family at galleries all over the city"

"Soon they had built a collection"

"that included abstract
expressionists"

"Pop artists and most of all
the photorealists"

"But the Brillo box became
a family myth"

"and a bit of a sore point
between my mom and my dad"

"Did Mom react when
you sold the Brillo box?"

"Do you remember
what she said?"

Well, not exactly a piece
that you could say

you really fell in love with

"Why not?"

Well, if you get right down to it
it really wasn't all that attractive

It was just the idea of it was more
unique than the appearance of it

Just a yellow box with some red
lettering on it, you know, basically

"I loved it because I loved what
Andy was trying to show us"

"Things we don't look at"

"And I used Brillo
These things you related to"

"That was pop art"

"It was art was all around us
Art was all around us"

"and that was Andy"

"All the years I lived with the
Brillo box in out Family album"

"I didn't really think about what
Warhol was trying to show us"

"But I was in high school
in the eighties"

"I thought of him less as the artist"

"And more as the intriguing figure
who presided over nightclubs"

"Handed out
his interview magazines"

"And celebrated the pop stars
that I loved"

"He was on The Love Boat
TV show"

"He painted portraits of celebrities"

"He really painted himself into
the picture of our mass culture"

and he saw the adoration
with which we ascribe

to celebrities and famous people

which is now gone way
out of control

Except now, we all want
to see them die

But then he wanted
to celebrate them

and situate himself
right smack amongst them

"Warhol's career totally tanked
in the eighties"

And just like in those early days

everything that he was making
was panned across the board

Art critics hated it

They said it was tacky
it was too kitsch

It was too, too
It was just bad

At his death in '87

he was not really important
as a painter any more

"When they showed the dollar
painting show at Castelli"

"He put them in the basement"

He needed to give
Warhol a show

and he knew he wasn't going
to sell anything

And you put them
in the basement

I mean, it's unthinkable now
that the first dollar bill show

which I remember very well
was in the basement

"Certainly it made him depressed"

"and sad that people
weren't taking him seriously"

"But it wasn't a new thing for him"

"Many years after Warhol's death"

"I found myself
in a Los Angeles museum"

"filled with white Brillo boxes"

"And I began to wonder"

"Whatever happened
to our little yellow one?"

"Where did it go
once it left my family?"

"And just as I began
to search for it"

"the answer suddenly appeared"

"The yellow Brillo box had found
its way from our living room flour"

"to the very center of the art world"

"The Christie's Evening Sale of
Post-War and Contemporary Art"

"It wasn't a faded photograph
in our family album any more"

Over the years, we would
get these Brillo boxes

that hadn't been well
taken care of

and it's coffee marks
and spill stains

"Often these changed hands
considerably in their early days"

No one envisioned anything
having this kind of long term value

"It turns out our yellow Brillo box
had been bought"

"and sold at Christie's
several times before"

"The first was in 1988
one year after Warhol's Death"

"Our yellow Brillo box traveled
to London"

"to live with one of the most well
known art collectors of all time"

"The British advertising executive
Charles Saatchi"

"Our Brillo box didn't stay
in England long"

"In 1993, Saatchi decided to sell"

"Having a well known owner
like Saatchi in its history"

"or provenance, raised its value"

"This time, it was bought
by a private collector in New York"

"When that owner parted
with our Brillo box in 1995"

"Following a slump
in the art market"

"It was acquired
for the exact same price"

"by the collector
Robert Shapazian"

"The founding director of the
Gagosian Gallery in Los Angeles"

"There in Los Angeles
our yellow Brillo box was reunited"

"with a family of Warhol's
supermarket cartons"

"and stayed in Robert Shapazian's
living room for 15 years"

"Robert understood
way ahead of anybody"

"the importance of the Brillo boxes
and sought them out"

"He would have known
that this one was signed"

and only three were signed
and 15 weren't or something

"At that time, Warhol
really didn't sign a lot of things"

To get something signed
it is a big deal

For those that really are
connoisseurs

and someone
like Robert Shapazian

who was, having that signature
just clicked it for him

"It was always so fantastic
to walk in and see his installation"

"Because the little
yellow three cents off"

"would sit like the crown jewel"

As I entered his home

I turned the corner
and for a split second thought

"He must be moving
There are boxes on the floor"

And then thought
"No, those are sculpture"

I think at first he was drawn
to Duchamp

"and I think it was a natural
progression, to be led into Warhol"

There was nothing low
or high that escaped his radar

"He would always head
for the quirkiest things"

"that no one would want"

"He would just find these things
You know"

These things that...
when they all came together

they all made sense

"There was, in front of the table
a porcelain Chairman Mao"

"who would be standing
pointing"

In back of you, two gigantic
Warhol dollar sign

"Down the line from Baldassare
to Rochet to Courbet"

"to Malevich to Warhol
to Duchamp"

The way Robert Shapazian
collected

was definitely
a form of self expression

And they were kind of like
I felt like his children, you know?

He was connected
to each and every one

If it was in Robert's apartment
it was important

It was like, by definition
important

"He had pieced together
in his own mind"

"his own sort of history
of twentieth century art"

"and knew that Warhol
was the master"

"There's only five people
in the world who got it"

"You know
and Robert was one of them"

"A few very prescient
collectors did truly believe

that Warhol would achieve
stardom and fame once again

And they were absolutely right

There was this...

all of a sudden this feeling amongst
the people in the art world

And it came on everybody
at the same minute the same day

Warhol is it

"Warhol's going to last"

"It's going to be Warhol"

"There was
a museum environment"

"and there were shows
happening around the world"

"People understood it
on a global level"

And then all of sudden
people wanted a Warhol

"Because I think there was
a sense that, you know"

"we were entering
into this philosophy"

We were becoming aware
of what he had been showing us

for the last 25 years

You know
this is what it's about

And in 1995
the Warhol market began

And every year after that for
the next ten years, it doubled

"Robert Shapazian help
onto out yellow Brillo box"

"until his death in 2010"

"Many of his works were donated
to the Huntington"

"and to major museums
across the country"

"including these white Brillo boxes"

"The rest of his collection
was sent to Christie's"

"where it became part
of the highly anticipated sale"

"of Post-War
and Contemporary Art"

"And there our yellow Brillo box
was assigned its very own lot"

"and given an estimated value
of $600,000 to $800,000"

"Once it was announced
we had the Shapazian sale"

the phone was ringing
and we were calling people

and saying
"This is an opportunity"

"to add one of the most important
Warhol works to your collection"

"Not only a Warhol work
but also rare sculpture"

"There's people came in
at our request"

"and we even sent the box
to their house to see it in situ"

"and how it would live
with other things"

"They became very focused
on what an opportunity this was"

And while the estimate
was very conservative

we all knew that it was
going to go more

We didn't expect it
to go to where it went

"Our Brillo box had become one
of just two left in private hands"

"The rest of the yellow Brillo boxes
had been dispersed"

"to museums
all around the world"

"One even became swallowed
by another sculpture"

"And the Brillo boxes had come to
be recognized as a turning point"

"in the history of art"

"I like to think about the Brillo box
through Andy deciding to make it"

And what an incredible
kind of flash of genius to say

"Take a Brillo box"

"Turn it into sculpture
and call it art"

I mean, he got
what we were about

He said, you know, "Look
This is what it's about"

"It's about selling"

"It's about making something
appealing to be bought"

"He calls attention to a world view"

that is still the world we're
living today if not more so

"We buy, we shop
we own, we have"

"You know
it's all about that"

I mean, the world is more
Warholian today

than it was when he died

"When our Brillo box
was presented for sale"

"that night in 2010"

"It collided with the Great
Recession economy"

"Wall Street had collapsed and
home values were plummeting"

"Leaving art as one of the few
reliable investments"

"Meanwhile, new buyers
from around the world"

"including those countries
that were once restricted"

"were joining the global art market"

"The art world
had completely changed"

"since my parents' days
as young collectors"

Good evening
ladies and gentleman

Welcome to Christie's

and this evening's sale of post-war
and contemporary art

While you're taking your seats

I will read you the announcements
before we begin

The emotional attachment and
the will one has going into a sale

thinking, "I'm going to take this
home, this is going to be mine"

"It becomes very strong"

And you have a fair
amount of responsibility

"to give them a sense
of expectation"

"What's your worst case scenario?"

"So that someone is
psychologically"

"and financially ready
to meet the demands"

of what the market
has dictated that evening

Sold at 1 million
and 19 hundred dollars

Brillo box is next

Brillo box, showing
on the screen there, lot ten

Betting starting
at 50 thousand dollars...

I was on the telephone
for a collector

They wanted
to be very anonymous

They were on a telephone
actually in the room

"It sort of hid themselves
in the group of other bidders"

Here at 900,000
Against you, sir

950,000 on the telephone
Sir?

One million dollars in the room

"There were so many people in
the room as well as on telephones"

"bidding for the three cents off"

"And we ended up on the evening
in the auction"

"having this fierce bidding war"

"with an international group
of bidders of every level"

In the room, one million dollars
Telephones bid?

One million 50 thousand dollars

One million one hundred
thousand dollars

One million 150 thousand
One million 200 thousand

One million 250 thousand

One million 300 hundred

"You try and hold back
and let the bidding unfold"

"to the point where
they can jump in"

"and then just one
against the other"

"We thought
there were several points"

"where everyone else was
going to fall by the wayside"

"And just as we thought
we were safe"

"someone else would pop in"

Two million dollars

Two million one

Two million and
one hundred thousand

That's a two million
and 200 thousand

Gentlemam bids again

so that's two million and 200
against you sir

Next in order two million
and 250 thousand

Two million and 250 thousand

Two million and 300 thousand
Two million and 350 thousand

Two million and 400 thousand
Two million and 450 thousand

Two million and
500 thousand dollars

Now its two million
and 600 thousand

Two million
and 600 thousand dollars

Will you match two million
and 600 thousand dollars?

Yes? Not yours?

Selling in the room

for two million
and 600 thousand

Something like three cents off

it was so unlikely that one would
ever be on the market

or there would be one
in this great condition

with a great provenance
and a signature in red crayon

and all the wonderful history

That's what inspired
that collector to keep going

$2,650,000
On the telephone

Not yours, sold for the highest
bidder for $2,650,000

Sold for $2,650,000

"That night, the Brillo box that had
once been part of my childhood"

"with auction house fees sold
for over $3,000,000"

"and disappeared from us again"

"Was there ever a point where
you thought about the Brillo box"

"or wished that you had kept it?"

"Well, very recently I did
to my chagrin"

The piece fetched millions

"What do you think would make
someone pay $3,000,000"

"for a Brillo box now?"

"It's a piece of art history"

"An irreplaceable
piece of art history"

"When I see the Brillo box
I could only have fond memories"

"It was a point in time
in New York history"

"It was a point in time
in artists' lives"

"And it was a
point in time in our home"

"She probably would
have preferred that I kept it"

"Why do you think she would
have preferred you kept it?"

"I think she had a more innate
appreciation of art and art objects"

"If it were up to her
I would have kept all of it"

Of course, it would be great if you
could hold everything, you know

But many years ago
that was not an option for me

If I wanted to get more art
I had to sell something I had

And I often did that

"As my career in law practice grew
I had less and less time for that"

"Going through art galleries
every Saturday"

"was not something
that I was able to carry on"

"through the rest of my career"

"As my siblings and I got older"

"visiting the galleries was
something"

"we stopped doing together
as a family"

"And eventually, most of the art
my parents once owned"

"moved on to other living rooms
and other lives"

"And some years later, my parents
went their separate ways too"

"When I see the Brillo box"

"I think about my parents
when they were young"

"And the life
we once had as a family"

"Our life with art all around us"

"And how none of us
can really know"

"the things
that will endure over time"

A lot of collectors add to their
collection rather than delete

We seem to press
the delete button

If I weren't around

she might very well have done
all that on her own

"Maybe done better
Maybe held onto things"

"It was all a gamble"

Do you like the gamble
of the NASDAQ

or do you want to look at a Jake
Berthot that looks like it's missing?

"There was a better lifestyle
than sitting and buying stocks"

which is a good idea too

"And it was certainly fun
to drag our kids along"

"They saw things that was
I'm sure, bewildering to them"

"But to this day, I can see that"

"they have appreciation
for those things"

"Like
when you think of it now"

"or if you went to a show
or you saw a Brillo box?"

What could I do?

It had a place

Life is change
ephemeral, it left

"Sometimes it feels
like the sixties never happened"

"The neighborhood of Ivan Karp's
gallery is now a shopping district"

"and the site of Warhol's factory"

"has been turned
into a parking garage"

"But many things that were lost in
the sixties are being rediscovered"

"In fact, here in Arizona
where I live now"

"I have a neighbor
I have been wanting to meet"

Peter Young interview
take one marker

"Are people rediscovering my art
and now talking about me?"

Yes, I'm going to have to make
my website a little better

and my Wikipedia page
needs to be updated

"But everybody
who owns my paintings"

"are hanging onto my paintings"

I'm 75 years old and I'm going
to drop one of these seasons

And then, my paintings
will quadruple in value

Hello

Well
I bet you can't remember me

No, not quite.,but I mean
do you remember me?

I sure do

Okay, a lot of the horizontals
kind of pop out

"Who knows? Maybe I will start
spending a little time"

"now that I'm thinking
about it again"

"maybe seeing if I can't do
what I did 30 years ago"

"and buy the work
of evolving artists"

And see
if I can pick out the things

that are going to make
a dent in the art world

"Today, artists appropriate
Andy Warhol's Brillo box"

"Like he once did
to James Harvey's soap pad box"

"The artist Charles Lutz"

"even made hundreds
of cardboards versions"

"and gave them all away for free"

"People walked down
the city streets"

"carrying away Brillo boxes
as Warhol once envisioned"

"And that's the story of how
we got our Brillo box"

"And one, two, three
Smile"

"I think I can only recall
one thing we ever collected"

"that didn't find a taker
when I put it up for sale"

"And that was
a Chiparus sculpture"

So if anybody
seeing this documentary

happens to want a Chiparus

call me