fiftyish woman who’s been hanging around the art world all her life can’t really be called a prodigy, can she? And the last of these ruses by the Queen of Deception went bad.
When she took credit for Rune’s work, she went too far. I struck up a friendship with Rune when I interviewed him for a profile in The Gothamite in 2002. Not long after he committed suicide (yes, I believe it was intentional), on October 17, 2003, I began thinking about writing a book. I wanted the real story, to find out what actually happened to Rune. My book Martyred for Art (Mythrite Press, 2009) is Rune’s story, and I stand behind it. I spent a couple of years on it, doing in-depth reporting—making interviews, chasing clues and documents. Read the book! It’s at your local bookstore. Order it online.
Harriet Burden bought and paid for Tish and Eldridge. Without her bags of money, neither of them would have fallen in with her. That’s a fact. Rune was a celebrity, an art star. His crosses were commanding millions. Rune didn’t need her. Whatever he did with her, he did as a lark, an amusement, an aesthetic dalliance. No one can blame her for wanting to latch onto his fame. The problem in the end was that Rune turned out to be a lot more than she had bargained for. His genius as an artist far outstripped her fussy, pretentious work. The twelve Larsen windows are triumphs. I do not believe she made any of them. And, of course, he outmanipulated her with one stupendous gesture: his own corpse. The film he took of his death will last. In it, he revealed the alienated truth of what we have become in this postmodern, soon-to-be cyborgian age.
The first time I recall laying eyes on the woman was in Tish’s studio when I traveled to Brooklyn to snatch a couple of quotes for the piece. She looked like a cartoon character, big bust and hips, huge—six-five, maybe—a galumphing jump-shot-sized broad with long, muscular arms and giant hands, an unhappy combination of Mae West and Lennie in Of Mice and Men . She lumbered around the studio with a tool belt, and when I asked her what she did there, she told me she was “Anton’s friend” who “helps him out with things”—not inaccurate when you think about it now. Before I left, I shook her hand and said casually, “And what’s your opinion of Anton’s work?” She practically bit my head off. “There’s the outside and the inside; the question is: Where is the border?” I didn’t quote that obscurantist comment in the article, but I recorded it in my notes. I have it on tape. She went on for some time, waving those meaty hands, barking at me, nodding.
She had one thing right. I don’t think she would have gone over with dealers or collectors, although who knows? They can get used to anything if it’s sold right. But whether they could have sold her without remodeling, I’m not convinced. She was too excited. She quoted Freud, big mistake—the colossal charlatan—and novelists and artists and scientists no one’s ever heard of. She dripped with earnestness. If there’s one thing that doesn’t fly in the art world, it’s an excess of sincerity. They like their geniuses coy, cool, or drunk and fighting in the Cedar Bar, depending on the era. Before I published the Tish article, I found out that the weird woman in the studio was Felix Lord’s widow, and the story clicked: a flush widow and her protégé. He was a kept boy, if not for his adorable, slender hips, then for his talent.
What puzzled me was why I didn’t recognize her. I must have seen her multiple times before that day with Tish. I was a regular at openings and, at least twice, I’d been to cocktail receptions uptown at the Lords’ spacious digs—noisy, packed, stand-up dos with revolving hors d’oeuvres and snarky, competitive small talk. Still, I have a keen eye, and my ears can take in a suggestive sentence fragment from across the room, and yet Mrs. Felix Lord had left no trace whatsoever. For all
When she took credit for Rune’s work, she went too far. I struck up a friendship with Rune when I interviewed him for a profile in The Gothamite in 2002. Not long after he committed suicide (yes, I believe it was intentional), on October 17, 2003, I began thinking about writing a book. I wanted the real story, to find out what actually happened to Rune. My book Martyred for Art (Mythrite Press, 2009) is Rune’s story, and I stand behind it. I spent a couple of years on it, doing in-depth reporting—making interviews, chasing clues and documents. Read the book! It’s at your local bookstore. Order it online.
Harriet Burden bought and paid for Tish and Eldridge. Without her bags of money, neither of them would have fallen in with her. That’s a fact. Rune was a celebrity, an art star. His crosses were commanding millions. Rune didn’t need her. Whatever he did with her, he did as a lark, an amusement, an aesthetic dalliance. No one can blame her for wanting to latch onto his fame. The problem in the end was that Rune turned out to be a lot more than she had bargained for. His genius as an artist far outstripped her fussy, pretentious work. The twelve Larsen windows are triumphs. I do not believe she made any of them. And, of course, he outmanipulated her with one stupendous gesture: his own corpse. The film he took of his death will last. In it, he revealed the alienated truth of what we have become in this postmodern, soon-to-be cyborgian age.
The first time I recall laying eyes on the woman was in Tish’s studio when I traveled to Brooklyn to snatch a couple of quotes for the piece. She looked like a cartoon character, big bust and hips, huge—six-five, maybe—a galumphing jump-shot-sized broad with long, muscular arms and giant hands, an unhappy combination of Mae West and Lennie in Of Mice and Men . She lumbered around the studio with a tool belt, and when I asked her what she did there, she told me she was “Anton’s friend” who “helps him out with things”—not inaccurate when you think about it now. Before I left, I shook her hand and said casually, “And what’s your opinion of Anton’s work?” She practically bit my head off. “There’s the outside and the inside; the question is: Where is the border?” I didn’t quote that obscurantist comment in the article, but I recorded it in my notes. I have it on tape. She went on for some time, waving those meaty hands, barking at me, nodding.
She had one thing right. I don’t think she would have gone over with dealers or collectors, although who knows? They can get used to anything if it’s sold right. But whether they could have sold her without remodeling, I’m not convinced. She was too excited. She quoted Freud, big mistake—the colossal charlatan—and novelists and artists and scientists no one’s ever heard of. She dripped with earnestness. If there’s one thing that doesn’t fly in the art world, it’s an excess of sincerity. They like their geniuses coy, cool, or drunk and fighting in the Cedar Bar, depending on the era. Before I published the Tish article, I found out that the weird woman in the studio was Felix Lord’s widow, and the story clicked: a flush widow and her protégé. He was a kept boy, if not for his adorable, slender hips, then for his talent.
What puzzled me was why I didn’t recognize her. I must have seen her multiple times before that day with Tish. I was a regular at openings and, at least twice, I’d been to cocktail receptions uptown at the Lords’ spacious digs—noisy, packed, stand-up dos with revolving hors d’oeuvres and snarky, competitive small talk. Still, I have a keen eye, and my ears can take in a suggestive sentence fragment from across the room, and yet Mrs. Felix Lord had left no trace whatsoever. For all
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