Rolls-Royce crashes into $3M Damien Hirst sculpture! 😱

I almost just started too early. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to By Amara.

This is a weekly news show where I discuss contemporary events in the art and history fields. I'm your host and personal curator, Amara Andrew, and I'm also a little thrown off. The format for this show that I typically follow, but I'm actually totally switching it up from now on, I think.

I need to write an intro. I actually had ChatGPT write me an intro just like 5 minutes ago and it's very entertaining. But anyway,

The format used to be something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue. We're kind of going to scrap that. So, instead, this week we're talking about destroying a $3 million sculpture with a Rolls-Royce, wanted: dead body for installation, a museum worker embezzling $2 million, and the most expensive sneakers ever sold.

So, we have all that and more coming up on this episode of By Amara. Let's get to it. Sorry, I'm a little off my game today.

Hold on.

My headphones are insanely loud and I didn't realize until I was like talking, talking, cuz before I start recording this, I normally do a little sound test, but it didn't sound that loud. And then all of a sudden, I was like, "Oh my god, my ears." Anyway, we shall start this show now. We'll start with updates.

Why do I have Patreon on here? I don't remember why. I do have a Patreon.

I don't remember why I put it in updates.

I don't think I have anything going on in there. I guess just, I have a Patreon if you are curious. Yeah, I genuinely have no idea why that's in there.

So, anyway, moving along. My second point. So, yeah, this week, also very busy, but it's been it's been good.

I've been able to kind of get to the stuff that I need to get to for my own personal business, cuz I'm I've been helping other people build their stuff and make video content and things like that, so it which is really, really fun. Like, I love it.

But now, I've been able to get to some of the things that I've just kind of been putting off, so blah, blah, blah. That's very lovely. This week, we are actually going back to my homeland, Arizona, so that's going to be very exciting.

And I can't wait. We're going for my best friend from high school's bachelorette party, which should be a real hootenanny. I'm going to see people that I haven't seen in like 12 years.

Also, I haven't been back to Arizona in 12 years and I know a lot has changed. I have heard from many different people.

So, just mentally preparing for that, I guess, just because, I don't know, it'll always have a special place in my heart, even if I like hated it at the moment. It's It's one of those things where you look back and it's like, " it wasn't that bad." So, anyway, very excited to go. I'm very excited to see everybody and we will just see how it goes.

I'm going to attempt to vlog everything. I don't know how that's going to go. I'm bringing Jeff with me, not to the actual party, but just to the to the Arizona

Place, just to the Arizona place. To Arizona, just to kind of see what it's like. So, that'll be very fun.

I did start reading a new book called Ancient. Used to talk about ancient things. Agent Josephine.

It's by Damian Lewis, I believe, is his name. Yes, Damian Lewis. And it's all about Josephine Baker's spy work during World War II.

I'm not that far into it yet. I'm I'm maybe like a quarter of the way through and it is really interesting so far.

I like the method of storytelling and everything, so I don't know. It's just It's a really good book. So, if you're curious at all about Josephine Baker or anything like that, I love her, so I was just like, "I have to read this." And I like it so far.

So, I do actually have an update that is related to the podcast, also. Back in episode 23, we talked about the first housing complex or residential complex that was found at Chichén Itzá. Now, an ancient Mayan scoreboard was found at this same archaeological site.

The scoreboard is made of stone and it's circular. The, I think, the measurements, it's 12 & 1/2 in diameter and weighs 88 lb and it's believed to date between 800 CE and 900 CE. And this would have been used to keep track of different scores, obviously, for sports games.

It contains hieroglyphic writing in a ring around two players who are shown standing with a ball between them. Archaeologists on the site have actually said that it's very rare to find hieroglyphic writing, let alone a complete text on this Mayan site.

Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History announced plans to construct a museum, I think, in the vicinity. It wasn't super clear. So this piece actually may be on view in the future, which would be really interesting.

That is all I have for updates, so let's just get into the show, but first, ads. So, this week's episode is sponsored by MAVEN, which is my company. Let me read you my ad copy.

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I started this podcast because I really wanted to keep current with things that were going on in the art and history fields, just because some people constantly be talking about these things and I'd be like, "I haven't heard of that. I don't know what you're talking about."

But then also, truthfully, just to be fully transparent, to get my myself out there and everything, cuz I'm always like behind the camera. So, anyway, it's very important. If you are a small business owner, you have to be posting, at least just consistent video, if not a variety of different thing.

I don't know. Just if you need help, let's talk. You can go to mavenbyamara.com to learn more, or, or, excuse me.

I just died a little. Or, not because of my business,

But just because I'm me. So you can go to mavenbyamara.com to learn more. That's m a v e n b y a m a r a linked.com linked in the description below.

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M a v e n b y a m a r a.com Now on to the stories.

I get so awkward doing ad copy when it's my copy. Granted, I haven't done ads for anybody else really. It's just been my business.

But I just get very awkward with it and I don't know why. I think I get, well, what was that? I think I get awkward with just like ending things.

Like I need to always figure out what I'm leaving the person with. I don't know. That's something I struggle with.

Blah, blah, blah. Anyhoo, our first story this week. Imagine being so reckless that you not only destroy your

Seemingly brand new Rolls-Royce sedan, but you also destroy a $3 million sculpture by Damien Hirst. Well, if you're a 66-year-old woman from Palm Beach, you are reckless. And granted, I hope the person is okay.

I hope it wasn't a mental health crisis or a medical emergency. I'm just laughing because it feels like something that would only happen in Palm Beach. But anyway, the sculpture in question is called Sphinx, and it's by Damien Hirst.

He created it in 2017. The sculpture itself,

It looks like a Sphinx and it was modeled to look like a 2,000-year-old sculpture and then to have barnacles and coral and various sea life and plants and everything on it, so then it looks like it was found underwater, which is kind of how this entire series of art was by Damien Hirst, was, is. So, how did this broad end up crashing her Rolls-Royce into this sculpture?

So, first,

Some context. The sculpture, and I say broad jokingly, don't come at me. I don't care.

So first the sculpture was in the backyard of a home on Canterbury Lane in Palm Beach. This home, it's not just a home, it's like a fucking mansion, but it's literally on the beach. So, you have like house, sand, or you have house, retaining wall kind of thing, sand, and then ocean.

Like it's literally beachfront property, obviously, cuz it's like tiny peninsula of land. And this is going to be important in a sec, that it's on the beach.

Video footage shows the driver entering the property from the driveway just after 6:00 p.m. On March 31st. She then drove east, so toward the ocean, and then made contact with a curb on the side of the driveway.

However, after making contact with this curb, her vehicle stopped, but then she kept going again. Already, what the fuck? But I don't know the full context.

Maybe she was having a medical emergency or something like that, even though it didn't look like it. But she's driving, hits a curb, still is going eastward, toward the ocean. She then

She then takes out a landscape fence, goes over the sea wall, and then ends up on the beach. Oh, and also destroys the sculpture in there. So, okay.

Goes up on curb, strikes the sculpture, goes into a landscape fence, off the sea wall, and onto the beach. The car, mind you, the sea wall is 5 ft tall, cuz it's supposed to help prevent the property from flooding, or from whatever. Sharks, land jaws, I don't know.

So the car is suspended on this 5-ft-high sea wall. It's on an angle, so the front of it is in the sand. The ass of the car is stuck on the sea wall.

So, it's just fucking like on an angle. It, oh, my god.

I don't know, but, apparently, according to police, she doesn't appear to have been intoxicated. But holy shit, then how the fuck did this happen? Like, what is wrong with you?

Granted, again, like I said, she could have been having bad thoughts or something. And she did tell officers that she had no recollection of the hours leading up to the crash, which also felt a little suspicious to me. Either you're like drugged out of your fucking gourd, or you just shouldn't be driving.

You should not be driving. So, I think it was just somebody who was being extremely reckless and then was like, "Oh, no, I got caught." So, then they're just like, "I don't remember anything," cuz that's what you say until your lawyer's present, blah, blah, blah. Anyhoo, what's even worse, too, is that this woman actually lives in Palm Beach, so just get off the road if you live there.

So, the home of where this all occurred and where the sculpture is located belongs to Stephen and Lisa Tananbaum. The Tananbaums are major collectors of contemporary and modern art, but they're also very controversial figures. So controversial that actually at the MoMA, there was a protest for Stephen's removal as a board member because of his various business dealings.

The Tananbaums also had a kerfuffle with the art gallery Gagosian after not receiving artworks that they purchased. I think it was a series of Jeff Koons's artworks. I'm not entirely certain.

But the Tananbaums purchased this Palm Beach residence in 2011 for 26 million. It's now valued at like 50 some million. So, what happened to the sculpture after all this chaos?

Photos from the Palm Beach Police show that the sculpture was knocked off its pedestal, and it appears to be missing all the various like coral and vegetation and plant life like and sea life that I was talking about before. It looks in the photos like it's just totally gone. So, it's not clear if it was gone before the accident just because the sculpture's located outside, or if it got hit so hard that it just knocked all the stuff off.

Like, I have no idea. Lisa Tananbaum stated that the sculpture is valued at approximately $3 million, but, quote, "would need an expert to assess the damage further." I've no idea what she sounds like, but in my mind, that's what everybody sounds like if they can afford a $3 million sculpture. Anyhoo, to wrap this ridiculous story up, the woman who was driving the car was taken away to the hospital, and she's fine.

And then the car was towed away. So, I don't know. I guess we'll see what happens, but that I just thought it was fucking wild.

A Rolls-Royce into a $3 million sculpture, like that feels so specific. And it feels very Palm Beach, but anyway, I digress. So, on to the next.

I was just enjoying the music right there, and I almost forgot to turn it off, cuz I was just like, "Yeah, let's see where this goes." Woah, that's what happens when you really enjoy the music that you play. Our next story, an Aboriginal Australian artist is asking for something quite unique for their upcoming art project.

They are asking for a dead body. And there's a very good explanation for this. Nathan Maynard, who's a well-known Palawa artist, playwright, and writer, posted an ad in the newspaper called The Age, requesting, quote, "An Australian of British descent who is willing to donate their future deceased body to an art installation," end quote.

And according to a separate news article that I read, Maynard has actually already received like a dozen, oh, half a dozen applicants already, and that article was already like a week, a year. A week or two old, so he's probably received more. He has also, in addition to receiving people who might be interested in this, received a lot of backlash from the project, which could be expected because it's very shocking, particularly by white people.

He said, though, that white people who are upset by the request should ask themselves why they didn't have the same reaction to the mass murder of Aboriginal people. Fair question. And that is in reference to the thousands of Aboriginal peoples that were murdered with colonization and then whose remains were sent to various institutions across the globe to be studied and to be just It's really icky.

I go on a whole rant about something very similar that's happening here in the United States in episode 20, I believe.

Yeah, episode 20. So, you can listen to that and listen to me go on my little tirade. But it's a very disgusting practice to be holding all these bodies in institutions and museums, but I will stay with this story.

So, part of the impetus Part of the impetus for this project, Maynard states, is that white tokenism or virtue signaling is rife across Australia, I'd say across the globe, and it's become trendy to pretend to support Aboriginal Australians and their causes. So, he is calling their bluff. In the ad Maynard placed, he continued, stating, quote, "The work will speak to sacrifice for past sins perpetrated against the Palawa.

Potential applicants should see this opportunity as an honor. The body and the memory of the successful applicant will be treated with the utmost respect at all stages of the project," end quote.

This is a very big deal, because it's not sort of like an eye for an eye approach as maybe you would assume, like, "Oh, well, you did you did this to my ancestors' bodies, so I'm going to do this to yours." Not at all. It's actually a very respectful approach. He also stated that, and something separate, not within this ad, that, quote, "White fellas obviously don't know how to handle remains with respect, so I'm going to show them how," end quote.

So, not only is there discussion about the actual acquisition process of a body, but there's also been a lot of discussion around the project in terms of legal the legally how to legally display these human remains, and all the legalities surrounding it. A lot of people have been expressing concern about the transportation of the body, and how to display it, cuz that's a very difficult process to transport it somewhere, let alone to actually be able to display it.

Tasmanian regulations state that anyone who, quote, "handles, moves, transports, or stores human remains must do so in a way so as to not be injurious to public health or public safety and in a respectful and dignified manner," end quote. I'm having trouble speaking today.

So some things obviously Maynard will obviously need to figure out are transportation of the body, how to store it, and how to show I'm very curious to see how this goes. I'm so curious to see how this goes, cuz also, like, how are you going to showcase it? Like, there are going to be bodily fluids.

I This might be grossing you out, so trigger warning, I guess. I'm going to talk about decaying bodies. But like there are bodily fluids and there are things that you need to think about when you're going to be How long is this going to be on display, also?

I have so many questions. I'm very excited to see what he has in mind for this entire piece, cuz this is going to be really amazing. Maynard, though, he's also seeking legal advice obviously for all the logistics of this.

I was wondering as I was reading this if he's going to do because you're meeting the person possibly before they're giving up their body. I don't know. I don't know if it's people who know that they're going to be passing soon.

Like, there are a lot of different logistics, so I'm very curious about the whole I hope he's doing like a documentary or something about this, cuz that is fascinating. But I'm also very curious if he's going to do an interview and sit down with somebody, kind of like this, basically, and just be like, "Okay, so tell me about you.

Is it going to be a humanizing kind of thing?" Like I'm I am so curious. I cannot wait to see how this goes. So, the installation will be on view at the Hobart Current Biennial exhibition in November 2023.

So, November 2023, I hope to have some updates for you. We I guess we shall see.

For our next story, it is hitting very close to home for me, because we're headed to the Art Institute of Chicago. I live in Chicago, just FYI. A former payroll manager, and this is a very, very, very short story, so don't get don't get too comfy.

A former payroll manager at the Art Institute of Chicago pled guilty to misappropriating over $2 million in museum funds. Michael Maurello falsified payments to employees and funneled museum payroll cash into his own personal bank accounts for 13 years. So, from 2007 to 2020.

To hide what he was doing, he kept spreadsheets and notes to track the embezzled funds, so he could later make reversals in the museum payroll system. So, museum officials were aware that this was happening starting in 2019, because they noticed some suspicious transactions and things like that. But he was like officially caught in January 2020 when the Art Institute's assistant controller asked him about one of the payments.

Maurello then falsely claimed that the transaction was actually a test of the payroll system, but by then it was like, "Well, no, we know exactly what you're doing." So, he then edited and altered a report from the system to hide the real information of his embezzlement. He was subsequently fired, and then the matter was handed over to law enforcement.

So, while he had stolen $2 million, it was actually over a 13-year period, so the museum, the Art Institute, also stated that, you know, it didn't affect them in any sort of catastrophic way. I averaged it out. It was about $154,000 a year extra that he was getting, so definitely a size- a sizable chunk of change that is now gone from the museum every year.

But, when you average it out, it actually isn't too much of like $2 million at one time, cuz that would severely affect all of the different programs that they have, positions, scholarships, all those various different things. So, anyway, just to wrap this up, I said it's a very quick story.

Maurello is going to be sentenced on September 14th of this year, 2023, and he'll face a maximum of 20 years of prison, followed by up to 3 years of supervised release. He could also be sentenced to pay a fine of up to $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss, whichever is greater. I don't know, that's a lot of legalese, but he fucked up, is all I'm going to say.

Anyhoo, that is that story, so let's get on to our final one.

So, I wanted to end on a positive note and also, apparently, another Chicago note. So, we are going to be talking about a pair of sneakers, or gym shoes, whatever you say. A pair of Air Jordans worn by Michael Jordan are now the most expensive sneakers to ever have been auctioned.

I'm going to oscillate between sneakers and shoes and gym shoes and whatever. Just FYI. The Jordans in question that were just sold were worn by Michael Jordan during the Chicago Bulls 1997 to 1998 season, and they were sold for $2.2 million, setting a new record for the burgeoning sneaker market.

They were estimated to go for between $2 to $4 million, so they did end up getting like on the lower end of the estimate, but that's still a crazy amount of money to spend for a collection, like no matter what it is, I think that's a ton of money. But I digress. The shoes, dubbed the 1998 NBA Finals Game 2 Air Jordan 13s, were sold on Sotheby's online bidding platform, and the bidding had been open for about a week before they were finally sold.

It's been suggested that there were a few reasons for why these shoes were estimated and cost so much and like eventually sold for so much. One is that the 97-98 season was featured in The Last Dance docuseries that came out in 2020, so it's still fresh in the memory. Another is that this season, 97 to 98 season, brought an end to the string of victories for the Bulls.

And then, finally, there's going to be a movie coming out shortly, I think directed by Ben Affleck, called Air, that is talking about the making of Air Jordans. So, if you got any Jordans, get more, I guess, cuz they might be worth a lot in the future. As of late, sneakers have been proving an increasingly popular source of income for auction houses, not just Sotheby's, but also like Christie's and Phillips, I guess.

This is a really fascinating number. In 2019, Sotheby's sold 100 pairs of sneakers for $1.29 million, which was an unheard of sum at the time for sneakers specifically, so 1.29 million. 2 years later, in 2021, Sotheby's again made headlines for selling one pair of sneakers, dubbed the Michael Jordan Regular Season Game Worn Nike Air Ships.

Those sold for $1.47 million. So, 100 pairs for 1.29, one pair for 1.47, now you got a 2.2 million. So, it's just it's going up and up and up.

And I know the luxury handbag market is also going up and up and up, and it's just interesting, too, that it's two pairs of Michael Jordan shoes that are now very expensive and like kind of the most expensive sold for at auction. Yeah. So, I just thought that was really cool.

So, if you're into sneakers or anything at all like that, you should definitely invest a lot more. So, that is all I got for By Amara this week. Thank you so much for listening.

Like I always say, I genuinely truly appreciate you. I appreciate any and all feedback. Just keep it nice and respectful, so thank you.

And if you like this, make sure you subscribe and like the episode. It helps me rise up in rankings and stuff like that, so let's all go together. And if you want to, again, I have the Patreon.

I put it down here at the end of my notes again. I don't remember why, so it just exists, I guess. And, yeah, so that's all I got, and I will talk to you later.

I will talk to you later. I did that last week, too. That is so weird.

I almost just said, "I love you," also. Well, I love you. And I'm Amara Andrew, and never stop creating.

Not financial advice, by the way. You do you. I am not a financier, obviously.

If you take financial advice from me, you're fucked.