A sculpture of a raccoon next to a trash can brimming with brightly colored rubbish for sale at a prestigious Hamptons art show drew attention for the wrong reasons this weekend.
While the piece, by artist Will Kurtz, was displayed with an $8,000 price tag at Art Southampton, the show’s cleaners didn’t realize it was art and threw it out with the trash right before the opening of the splashy VIP preview.
Kurtz’s work “Keep America Great Again” had been selected to appear in the show by actress Brooke Shields, who teamed up with the New York Academy of Art’s David Kratz to curate “Call of the Wild,” an animal-focused exhibit of Academy graduates as part of Art Southampton.
But when Shields and artist Kurtz showed up for the VIP preview Thursday at Nova’s Ark Project, the artwork trash can had been emptied. The actress and the artist were forced to go rummaging in the real trash to recover his valuable work.
Nick Korniloff, founder and owner of Art Southampton, told Page Six, “We had works from Warhol to Banksy on display this weekend. We have a very aggressive cleanup crew because we like to keep the event pristine. They are trained to recognize and not take out any art, but unfortunately they looked at a trash can, and threw the contents away. The raccoon was left standing there next to an empty can.
“But, somewhat fortunately, we have a policy that everything goes in clear plastic bags — in case anything valuable gets thrown away — and Brooke and Will were able to go to where the overnight trash had been left, locate the missing part of the artwork, and recurate the work. It was down to the wire, but the work was reassembled just in time for the VIP preview.”
Guests at the fair included Bobby Flay, Howard Lorber, Audrey Gruss, Jules Feiffer, Bridgette Morphew and Dorothy Lichtenstein. Other artists showing included Adrien Brody, Andrew and Jamie Wyeth, Roy Lichtenstein and “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary, who put on a photography show called “Irreconcilable Images.”
We’re told sales topped six figures.