It’s moving day at Maiden, so keeping it short today. I’m feeling vindicated because the hoard of bubblewrap I’ve accumulated over the past few years is really coming in handy. The lesson: never throw anything away. You’re not being crazy—you’re just planning ahead. Paper bags from Whole Foods—mama, you’re gonna need those! Plastic Chinese food containers, stained with grease—baby, those are for sure gonna come in handy!
I periodically watch Hoarders and my favorite bit of language they use is “goat paths” to describe the little pathways hoarders carve out to access different parts of their garbage. That’s what Maiden feels like to me right now, but like, Eames chairs instead of back issues of Parade magazine. Letting go . . . it’s just taking a minute.
For my darling new subscribers: Landed cost (the final cost you pay) = the hammer price (the highest bid) + the premium (a set percentage added to the hammer price that the auction house takes) + shipping (you’re almost always on the hook for this) + sales tax
To the listings!
Nye is apparently bringing the Ted Bonin estate to auction. Bonin was a partner at Alexander and Bonin; he died in 2023, the gallery closed January of this year. Do check this auction out. The listings seem to be from his private collection but I wonder if some of it was the gallery’s owned inventory. Either way, there are some gems. This from Peter Hujar (1934-1987): very, very good. I just saw a fun tiktok of Fran Lebowitz (who was friends with Hujar) talking about how Robert Mapplethorpe was so desperate for his approval that he sent all his prints to Lebowitz who threw them all in the trash when she moved.
Also ex Bonin at Nye. A poster, unsigned, with a great provenance. The starting bid is low. There’s such a weird romance around the artists who died of AIDS (Gonzalez-Torres, also) which I don’t like; that said, this cohort, surrounded by death, really did make some exceptional work.
Myth of Leda and the swan/Zeus. I’ve posted about Edward Fields before: American rug manufacturers, classic, made the rugs in the White House. They used to make some really weird stuff like this and I wish they would again.
This looks like an incred not-for-sitting chair. Just what you need!
Looks heavy. The color of this really is great, like connective tissue and fat. I mean that sincerely.
I would get a piece of glass or stone and use this as a coffee table.
Yamasaki is probably best known as the architect of the Twin Towers which were, truth be told, not very nice. He also designed the Pruitt-Igoe housing project. So a rare architect who’s most famous for works that were destroyed. But he really was a visionary, and when you see his early work it makes sense why he got the commissions. Apparently he gave these blueprints in this tube to his client.
We’ve discussed tramp art before: American folk art, intricate patterns of wood. This is cool with just the pine in the center.
You’d have to change the shade (not open to discussion) but the base is cool.
There’s an imaginary place I talk about called “Flop City” where all the flops live, sometimes in like, connected townhouses with a car parked in the front yard, sometimes more glamorously accommodated (Katy Perry has a sprawling Flop City compound; Bebe Rexha has a a 2 bedroom condo with a lot of water damage). To be clear, I love many of the residents of Flop City, including Normani. She upgraded to a 2 bed/2 bath split level recently (there’s a radon issue but the price reflected that). The most surprising thing about this dookie MTV aware is that someone has already bid on it <3
May the hammer fall ever in your favor!