A Story Behind Art Dealing by Courtesans
The Case Study of “A Sculptor Reaps the Rewards of Art Deals Brokered in the Bedroom” by Samantha Schmidt.
In the bedroom of an apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Samantha Schmidt watched as Skye Ferrante wound long, thin wires into delicate contours that portrayed the naked bodies of female models. Those wire sculptures, as Schmidt’s story “A Sculptor Reaps the Rewards of Art Deals Brokered in the Bedroom” in The New York Times unfolds, shed light on an alternative business model in the art market.
Like most journalists who pick up story ideas from random conversations, Schmidt found the idea when she strolled along the vibrant streets of SoHo during the summer of 2016. At that time a summer intern at The New York Times, Schmidt went up to a street artist wearing a French mechanic-blue jumpsuit to learn about his series of wire sculptures.
Ferrante, a SoHo-based artist who works in New York, London and Paris, makes wire portraits of escorts who act as his agents to sell the art to their clients. A few publications have written about Ferrante as an artist, but no one has discussed his practice of selling wire portraits via the naked models. Schmidt knew this conversation could potentially turn into a story.
“In New York, some of the best stories you just find walking around and when you aren’t really looking for them,” she said. “If you make your own luck, you need to have that eye to look for story ideas. It goes to show you never know who you’re going to meet and what story you’ll literally stumble across.”
Back in the newsroom, Schmidt was busy covering breaking news and didn’t have much time to work on her story. The biggest challenge, according to Schmidt, was to secure interviews with at least a model and a customer. She herself was also skeptical that the artist was telling the truth. Given how touchy the topic is, there was no guarantee. Schmidt ended up not pitching the story to editors, but only informally discussed with her manager for feedback.
Between the summer and the fall, Schmidt stayed in touch with Ferrante and convinced the artist to introduce her to a few of the models: Josephine, a model with a client on the Upper East Side, and Olga from Moscow. The women were worried about ruining their reputations. To convince them to participate, Schmidt contacted them through phone calls, Skype, email and Whatsapp.
Whether or not the story could take shape depended on the models opening up to discuss their work. In the beginning, the women were nervous to speak up, but Schmidt gained their trust that she would keep her word and not use their full names in the article, beyond verifying their real names and identities. “[The models] really need to trust that I would keep them confidential,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt also emphasized the importance of explaining why the story is important and deserves public attention. She told the models that “it’s a surprising story that sheds light on this world that we are not as aware of a lot of times.”
“It’s some kind of a win-win, beneficial business strategy,” Schmidt said. “[The models] were playing an active role in this art transaction.” It helped that the artist was on board with this story and was open about selling wire portraits through models, some of whom are also escorts of wealthy men in metropolitan cities.
Josephine from Brooklyn sold her wire portrait for $10,000 to a wealthy man on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. To add an extra layer of certainty about the clientele of the sculptures, Schmidt tried reaching out to this client who, according to Josephine, hung the sculpture in his apartment and showed it to his wife. However, he declined to be interviewed.
The story could never materialize if Schmidt interviewed just the artist and models without speaking to at least one of the clients. Schmidt’s manager said portraying a client in the story was paramount because the artist “could be saying this to try to get publicity.” Furthermore, her description of the scene where the model’s wire portrait hangs at the man’s home for his wife to see hints at encounters the man has with other women.
Through the model Olga, Schmidt got hold of her client Ziad who had bought a sculpted portrait in Paris. With all the characters in place, Schmidt pitched the story to her editors and obtained approval for using confidential sources that want to drop their last names in the article, since the story touches upon a sensitive issue.
Upon getting green light from her editor in early October, Schmidt devoted two to three weeks reporting and writing her story. Accompanied by a photographer from The Times, she traveled to an apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to watch Ferrante sculpt the figures of two models.
Could this story be a profile on the artist merely as a New York character doing wire portraits of naked models? Or could this become a “big trend” piece that sheds light on a broader social phenomenon? The latter could work if Schmidt was able to find multiple artists doing similar work as Ferrante.
“Other artists could be doing this and we don’t even know it but this is an interesting, little example in which this underground world collide with the mainstream art industry in a way we would’ve never imagined,” she said.
Historical context, meaning and nuances added substance to the story. Schmidt talked to a source in the sex industry for background, who explained that courtesan art is not new. For instance, Jo Weldon’s industry experience helped Schmidt frame the story from the models’ perspectives.
Schmidt also gathered insights from Andrew Lear, a professor who used to teach classics at New York University. He leads tours (themed “Shady Ladies Tours”) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art to showcase artworks related to the themes of sex and sexuality. Lear said that while it is hard to say if Ferrante’s art is the only of its type in New York City, this was not unprecedented in history for men to commission artworks for their mistresses.
To understand how to interpret sculpture from an artistic point of view, Schmidt interviewed David King Reuben, an artist from New York City who commissioned Ferrante for a wire portrait. The wire sculpture is not only an aesthetic piece of art, but also embodies visual details that construct the identity of the model, making her recognizable from the sculpture. “It shows how one portrait can mean so many different things to people,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt was cautious not to glorify the model’s profession or Ferrante’s sculptures but to report in a neutral and respectable tone. It is not always easy for a junior reporter to handle a sensitive topic, assess how it would be taken by the public and manage the potential impact on different stakeholders of the story.
“You don’t really need much to get people’s attention on a story about sex, you can just let it be and people will read it,” she said. “But you do want to add more substance to it.”
