Showing - Jason Schmidt 'Artists' @ Deitch Projects - New York

News - Steve Wynn's Fourty Million Dollar elbow - US

It’s been quite the relationship between Steve Wynn and ‘Le Reve’. It’s been a saga that’s turned out a real corker of a story. It’s a tale of love, money and misfortune, and it’s infinitely better than the recent palaver with Munch’s ‘Scream’. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years and the tale has passed you by, it goes a little like this; Wynn picked up the Picasso painting of his lover, Marie-Thérèse, in 1997 for a reported $48.4 million. Then he decided to sell the painting to hedge-fund honcho Steven Cohen. They agreed on a price, apparently, an incredible $139 million, and a sale was imminent; so close that Cohen practically had the work hanging in his bedroom. His people had checked 'Le Reve' out, declared it perfect, and all that was to be done was an exchange of cash and canvas. It was a match made in heaven, least it was until Wynn somehow managed to elbow the work leaving a hole the size of a ‘silver dollar’ slap bang in the middle of Marie-Thérèse’s forearm. Dear. Dear. Give him his due, Wynn has an eye problem, something called retinitis pigmentosa, which frankly sounds pretty nasty and in Wynn’s case, rather expensive. Still, given the work took Picasso a couple of hours to paint, it kind of puts the whole (no pun intended) thing into perspective...

Still. It must have been a pretty shitty week, or year, for Wynn. ‘Le Reve’ is now said to be worth around $85 million and Wynn has since lost his claim for $54 million, which he's submitted to Lloyd’s. Now the Vegas mogul is said to be planning to sue his insurer. So, I say it’s a some story, but really it’s so far from over.

Back in the Day - Style Wars and Tracy 168 - NY

Showing - Final Exhibition at 4 Clifford St - Alison Jacques Gallery - London

Showing - Phillip Lai 'Free to Meet for Coffee Sometime' @ Stuart Shave - London

Showing – John Sonsini @ Cheim & Read – New York

John Sonsini is showing at New York’s Cheim & Read this month, and that’s great, because Sonisi’s work is really rather great. His chunky brushwork, his cool, calm, use of colour, his simple content; pull them together and what have you got? You’ve got a superb piece, or collection, which is hangable, sellable and just wickedly easy on the eye. Of course, that suggests that Sonsini’s paintings are average. But they’re quite the opposite. To be honest, I can’t say why they’re wonderful. Though, I suspect that it has a lot to do with the sheer honesty and intimacy of his work. His paintings are frank, without being intrusive or objective. They are individual, figurative and arresting yet serene. They're about the sitter and artist. Sonsini’s talks with, and to, his subjects whilst painting. He gets to know them. And when he’s through, he simply entitles the given painting with the name of the man or men involved (above; 'Gabriel, Louie, Jorge', 2004). It’s the kind of care that transcribes onto canvases.

Sonsini first broke through into the artistic limelight during the ’80s, exhibiting generally homoerotic works at LA’s Newspace Gallery. While he's gone through various guises since, his intrest continues to lie with the masculine form or character. The works showing at Cheim & Read take Latino labourers as subjects - which is hardly surprising as Sonsini lives in a predominantly Latin area of LA. As his first show with the gallery, it marks a onwards and upward move for this artist, and again that's, well, great.

John Sonsini is showing at Cheim & Read, 547 West 25 Street, New York, from 10th January – 10th February.

Showing - Modern Art vs Rock 'n' Roll - US

Showing - Total Kunst Gallery - Edinburgh