Heres a good article, that might be of interest before people start shouting:
politiken.dk/kultur/ECE802283/kunstfirma-lyver-og-lyver-og-lyver/The Danish art company The Ivy, claims to have connections to, among others, Damien Hirst. But evidence is pure fabrication.
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OF Camilla Stockmann
I'm undercover in a penthouse apartment in รrestad in Copenhagen.
Here at the top of the VM Houses I am museum's date - it probably call a puppet. In front of me is the host Solomon Lyttle. He started with his anecdote:
"Damien and I have been friends for 18 years."
The low autumn sun bathing terrace and roars effortlessly through the large glass windows and penetrate inside, DJ let the music cans away from the apartment andensal and guests conversing at length and breadth of canapรฉs, cosmopolitans and champagne.
Penthouse filled with artworks
The Englishman Solomon Lyttle and his Danish wife, Ditte Romby who invited to the celebration of their art company The Ivy's new Scandinavian showroom.
Penthouse is vacated for everything similar to furniture, and takes care now out as an exhibition space.
There is art everywhere, paintings, photography and sculptures. And that is why I have emerged: The Ivy gives the impression that represent the big guns on the international art scene.
At the invitation is indeed - as well as Danish Kristian von Hornsleth - the names of the major players, especially on the British art scene: for example, Tracy Emin, Gilbert & George and not least Damien Hirst - the world currently richest artist and the man behind the world's most expensive work of art, the diamond-studded titanium skull, which would have cost about 100 million Danish kroner just in material costs. The man who calls himself Solomon Lyttle, stands in the center of the image to the right.
"It's actually me who have inspired Damien to make his famous' Psalm' Series" continues Solomon Lyttle, as he points to a price list.
Here you can see miniature reproductions of ten of Damien Hirst's butterfly mosaics. One of them cost 550,000. Pound mind you.
"Really," I ask.
Too good to be true
The week before I got a tip, which in short is: It's too good to be true.
Therefore I have written for The Ivy and asked to comment on their guest list. No answer.
It will, however, my friend who is employed at a major Danish museum. He immediately receive a friendly confirmation.
The journalist is certainly not welcome, but it's museum man, so now is the journalist a pendant.
Friendly, we are both welcomed, as my friend says his name, and I can discreetly take photos with my mobile and effortless udfritte host.
Solomon Lyttle, the young, noble black gentleman with designer eyeglasses, continues without hesitation:
"Yes, we sat one evening in Damien's studio and drank beer, and I talked about my favorite hymn. It inspired Damien to create image series and give them hymn numbers. He got butterflies in space and let them fly around. Some got stuck in the paint on canvases. In the final designs he chose a composition reminiscent of church windows, for he is a very serious man. "
The Ivy's showroom in รrestad. I answer: "Unbelievable!" Which such a set is what I indeed believe, and let Solomon Lyttle excuse themselves and receive kulturattacheen from the Mexican embassy, โโa small friendly man in a huge suit.
Works on slideshows
A very young and very blond woman dressed in black ask the same if I want to donate my DNA to Kristian von Hornsleth dybhavsprojekt.
I agree to be near Solomon Lyttle, who now explains kulturattacheen and a middle-aged couple, why Hornsleth's paintings are largely the only thing you can physically experience, while the range of international artists will be presented in a slide show.
While Hornslets assistant concentrated donning surgical gloves and brave the drops of blood that apparently contained in a sculpture in the Mariana Trench, I hear Solomon Lyttle say:
"We show the most expensive of the artists on the slide show for safety reasons. It is very valuable works'.
At the same time he ensures that his guests get a USB plug with The Ivy's logo on, so that they can slide show with them.
If guests want to buy a work, he explains how Ivy will ensure that the customer gets them to look at England's leading gallery The White Cube, as The Ivy cooperate with:
"I will have them presented in a private room and have a small glass of champagne."
"We can provide ALL '
Valuable works everyday to The Ivy, I understand the company's founder, Solomon Lyttles young wife, Ditte Romby, as my friend and I then falls into conversation with on the second floor.
The slender woman dressed in black cocktail dress, a pair of formidable scale boots and have a wealth of pearls around the neck, said they already have experience with the greatest of world artists:
"Last year we sold two paintings by Picasso, and there was certainly also a Matisse. I just tell ', she repeats several times.
"We can get everything. All '.
I know now that there are two possibilities: Either I have been tete-a-tete with the largest Hotshots long viewed the Scandinavian art scene, or it is completely mad.
There is just no middle way.
I decide therefore to look at the phenomenon of The Ivy.
First response from London
Damien Hirst does not take the phone.
Or in other words: His call is answered, but I when talking to a large number of conversion ladies, secretaries and assistants, before I get to know that I love to see must write an email on my errand.
The same thing happens when I contact the gallery The White Cube. The task that seemed to be just right leg, suddenly begins to take its time to get kicked off.
An inferior Danish reporter can not just expect to be put through to Damien Hirst or the owner of The White Cube, Jay Joplin.
Writing letters. And you hope.
And then you write back and apologize politely ("I'm sorry, I turn again, but ...) ', and one remembers his please and do not forget to Hinte, that there might be a few details or two, they might even be able to be interested in obtaining.
And then waits Mon
'No idea who this man is'
After some days there is a way to break through, but then again: Damien Hirst's spokeswoman and communications director at The White Cube is obviously more interested in getting hold of my information than to inform me.
I faxes price lists, and I make sure that The Ivy slideshow that I have the usb connector, are posted on the newspaper's ftp server, so Brits can see what the Danish company presents the Scandinavian art audience.
I say nothing about the rumors, I start to hear about The Ivy. Rumors are rumors.
And maybe everything is as it should be, I begin to think.
Maybe Ivy a smart new modern concept that perhaps does not look like the traditional classic gallery concept, where the paintings hanging on the wall.
Perhaps intermediary Ivy world art in a new way.
But the thought disappears when I receive an email from Damien Hirst's closest employee, Jude Tyrell.
She is the director of Hirst's private company Science Ltd. and has now been in contact with Hirst and presented him my information.
She writes:
"Damien has no idea who this man is."
Doubtful CV
Solomon Lyttles friendship with Damien Hirst is apparently fabrication.
While I'm waiting for more answers from England - for they come - I choose to look at Solomon Lyttle.
On his resume on Facebook, he writes that he has a master's degree from the London School of Economics.
Damien Hirst And it surprises me a little, for my research brings me immediately in contact with club owners, restaurant owners and cafe owners.
For it is here, in the hospitality industry that Eric Augustus Lyttle, as the man apparently is really called, begins his Danish life when he arrives from London in the middle of this decade.
Only around 2006 he appears on the art scene.
Among other things, four Copenhagen galleries, V1 Gallery, Hans Alf Gallery, A Gallery and Secher & Scott, concurrence tell that at the time of coming into contact with a friendly Englishman who calls himself Solomon Lyttle.
Danish gallery owners regret
He introduces himself as Scandinavian purchasing from The Saatchi Gallery in London, another of the highly regarded British institutions:
The name Saatchi is thus Solomon Lyttles business card and his signature on the e-mail he sends in the period.
It notes myself when I read the saved e-mail that one of the gallery owners, Hans Alf agrees to let me see.
This call Solomon Lyttle to 'International Director' for Saatchi Art and refers to The Saatchi Gallery's official website in London.
Also his wife, Ditte Romby, writes on his resume, as she publishes on the internet that she has been employed for the project Saatchi Art in 2006.
Both Secher & Scott and A Gallery begins a collaboration with Solomon Lyttle during this period when he promises them respectively an exhibition of Damien Hirst and an exhibition with a number of Saatchi artists.
At that time gives Solomon Lyttle according Gallery States impression that he knows Charles Saatchi - the famous gallery owner - personally.
But both gallery owners regret since cooperation. Claus Lind from A Gallery on the Esplanade explains:
"The agreement with Solomon implies that besides the respected artists from the Saatchi also must exhibit an artist named Art Queen. We are new. We think okay. It seems fair enough. But then we check up at the Art Queen. There is nothing in the quality. It amazes us. "
Claus Lind finds out that Art Queen's Solomon Lyttles wife's stage name. Art Queen's Ditte Romby:
"We do not want to show her. And we discuss back and forth with Solomon, and he gets very angry. And so it is that I call Saatchi. They are stunned and have never heard of the man. "
No one can confirm the links
But Solomon Lyttles stories about the connection to Saatchi begin apparently to slow to completely stop at a time.
Then he meets frequently up in the Copenhagen galleries and offers solo exhibitions with Damien Hirst.
Several other gallery owners report that they are told by Solomon Lyttle that he is involved in the sale of Damien Hirst's famous titanium skull.
A work that still holds the record as the most expensive contemporary work.
Damien Hirst's famous titanium skull Also Larm Gallery is offered an exhibition of Damien Hirst. It happens during a dinner in the art fair ArtCopenhagen for exactly a year ago.
One of the owners of Noise Gallery, Lars Rahbek, remember how Solomon Lyttle at the opportunity presents itself, informs about its close collaboration with Damien Hirst, adding that the British artist just looking for a good Danish gallery to exhibit:
"All in all, it seemed pretty incredible, and we found it hard to imagine that Damien Hirst's assistant would turn on the way to a gallery, which he had never visited," said Lars Rahbek.
Both the many stories about Damien Hirst and Saatchi-job fabrication. No one can confirm connections.
At The Saatchi Gallery in London communicate communications director Constance Gounod me also:
"I have asked around in the gallery, but no one has ever heard of him."
The incredible degree
It's roughly the same time that I start to hear stories about that Solomon Lyttle are less well educated, he said.
I'll contact the London School of Economics to confirm the accuracy of the MSc degree in 1993, as he writes on his resume.
First, reject the highly regarded British institution to provide information about a former student named Solomon Lyttle and Eric Augustus Lyttle. But they have second thoughts.
Two days later comes an email from CIO Jessica Winterstein, who has discussed the matter with the Registrar:
"I can confirm that we are nowhere has detected that a student with these names have been enrolled at the London School of Economics'.
Stein Bagger as customer
But not everything is fiction.
For example, do I confirmed that Ivy a year ago at the art fair ArtCopenhagen was involved in a sale of the giant Picasso.
It confirms two galleries, Galerie Frans Jacobs, located in both Paris and Holland, and Secher & Scott in Broad Street, both at the time still working with Ivy.
Galerie Frans Jacobs gives Solomon Lyttle works on commission, and Secher & Scott helps to convey sales.
They said, however, both that it was not oil paintings, but two drawings of Picasso and Mirรณ, who was traded at the fair.
According to Anders Secher from Secher & Scott's client Stein Bagger. Trading takes place two months before that very same Bagger goes underground in Dubai.
Another story that is to be believed, is that art firm The Ivy has been launched with a great talent competition first March 2008.
The great talent competition
It is quite well documented and conducted in Sankt Petri Hotel, where the idea is that a panel of prominent representatives from the international art world to announce the year 'icon'.
Several of the judges, the artists made the prospect turns out, however, never. Nor dolls Helena Christensen, Master Fatman and Jamiroquai up as promised.
One of the participants, Christoffer Gertz Bech, writes the next day on his blog that the event seemed "easier mysterious', and adds:
"I could not quite tell me free of there feeling you get with things that involve wire transfers from Nigeria, self-development courses or Donald Bircows business models. And I was not alone. "
Several of the invited judges has jumped from in the days leading up to the competition, and the judges who end up sitting on the panel, is unhappy with the arrangement.
Among other art consultant Peter Amby, who asked if he would attend the night before, and believe in the event purity as The Ivy mentions the great English gallery The Serpentine as a reference on his website.
Subsequently, he wants to remove his name from the website and describes the competition as "amateurish and substandard, borderline embarrassing."
The winner of The Ivy's talent competition is the Finnish artist Mari Keto.
She is originally jeweler and have set up in competition with a motif of Britney Spears made of imitation. At the time, she primarily jewelry artist, but will now also work with art.
The prize is a two-year contract with Ivy, who promises her a European tour:
"I thought I had everything to gain and nothing to lose," said Mari Keto.
Kate Moss covered in blood
"But now I have the double with Ivy. On the one hand, I am glad that they have helped to build me up. On the other hand, I think that I have paid a high price. "
Mari Keto says she is promised exhibitions at leading UK exhibition venues The White Cube and The Serpentine.
She is repeatedly told that supermodel Kate Moss wants to get involved:
ยปKate Moss would be so crazy about any of the artworks, which is a kind of bag made from a leghold trap with Louis Vuitton logo, that she would be photographed with the bag naked and covered in blood. At some point I get told that I have a job where I need to decorate cars. I could choose, it would be Porsche, Lamborghini or two other car brands, "says Mari Keto.
None of it made the prospect becomes a reality, apart from two gallery exhibitions: one in Secher & Scott in Broad Street and one at Galerie Frans Jacobs in Paris.
At the time, co-operation gone awry. Mari Keto says:
"I told them, I have to be honest with me. I'm only interested in hearing what is true. "
Mister 25 of his works
In January this year want Mari Keto to get out of his contract, but Ivy would not let her.
They refuse to disclose her works, unless she pays them half a million dollars.
At the same time her lawyer her attention to the contract, which was the first prize in the talent competition, robs her most rights. She only has the right to decide when her work is finished.
It worries her if Ivy, which they have said will repeat the competition and offer the next winner same contract as a prize.
In July, the parties entered into a settlement. Mari Keto says she got out of the contract, over a year before it expired, but has lost approx. 25 plants with a total value of 200,000 dollars and at the same time had to pay 25,000 dollars to The Ivy.
Director Judith Bouwknegt from Galerie Frans Jacobs confirms Mari Ketos history. She has continued to work with the artist, but not with Ivy.
"It is a great facade"
When I get hold of the gallery stone over the phone, she says that she originally met Solomon Lyttle during the art fair Art London in 2007 and got the impression that he was serious.
She said yes to being a judge, and they reached an agreement that she also would offer the winner an exhibition. Now regret Judith Bouwknegt decision and describes Ivy as a fantasy rather than a serious business:
"It is a big facade. Although it is known that one must be careful in this business, it has surprised me how they work. Everything is a lie. "
Judith Bouwknegt says among other things that Solomon Lyttle at some point in the process told that he had two works by the great Dutch painter Kees van Dongen for sale.
He could show her pictures of his work or if she was interested. She agreed to:
"I was curious as to what he wanted to show me, because we are specialists in van Dongen.
Solomon showed that up with two photographs of two works which I knew very much, because we sold them ten years ago for our best customer, and he holds them still, and he had no idea that someone went around and said to his works were for sale.
I could see that Solomon had photographs from a book, we had published. That is how they work. "
Why The Ivy would offer her works, which they do not have access to, understand Judith Bouwknegt not.
"Perhaps it is to build an image."
Hornsleth has no comments
But Ivy also represents its own artists. With the right plants. After meeting with Kristian von Hornsleth in early summer, The Ivy taken over his management.
The agreement is that Kristian Hornsleth tells me that afternoon in the showroom in รrestad that Solomon Lyttle to introduce him to the great British gallery owners:
In Ivy's penthouse served canapรฉs and cosmopolitans. The major international works of art, guests can only see in a slideshow on the wall (left). At the back, with his back against the wall, facing Kristian von Hornsleth. He is one of the artists who have signed a contract with the company. Photo: Politiken "I am an underrated footballer who then have the opportunity to play in a bigger club," he said.
When I get hold of him again and submit my information, is communicating company another:
"I have no comment right now," said Kristian von Hornsleth.
Solomon Lyttle in the tube
It has Solomon Lyttle return. When I call him to resume our conversation, he waits my call.
He has heard that I have interrogated me about him. He is still friendly. Speaking slowly and patiently.
When I ask about his alleged collaboration with The White Cube, he sends me an immediate mail correspondence he had with a member of staff at The White Cube in August.
So there is a connection. The message is clear that the gallery send him some prices and a series of digital images of works of art. So far as well.
When I ask for Solomon Lyttles alleged 18 year old friendship with Damien Hirst, he answers not immediately. But as he explains:
"I have a friend in London who owns two nightclubs, and he knows Damien Hirst really well."
Solomon Lyttle's career is based on a fictional university degree, as well as fictional relationships and friendships.
I can understand the Solomon Lyttle that he therefore believes that credibility would be restored.
When I then ask the alleged master's degree at the London School of Economics, there is also an explanation. It is not Solomon Lyttle, who has written his resume, he says:
"No, I have not gone at the London School of Economics. A friend of mine in London has access to my Facebook profile, and it must be him who wrote it. "
People are 'jealous'
We talk for a while. The founder of The Ivy, wife Ditte Romby, then send me a long email, where she writes:
"I want to make it clear that we basically want to achieve what we say and we work hard for it. Sometimes what we want, sometimes not. How is business'.
Ditte Romby also believe that my article "begins to look like libel" and that she had hoped that her "homeland was more open to diversity and innovation '.
The people speak ill of The Ivy, is only an expression of 'jealousy'
"I think even we are working on a fair basis, and I also know that as a company we must learn much yet, but honestly started all not a place? '.
Other answers from London
The Ivy has now made me aware that the connection to The White Cube if nothing else exists. This suggests that some of what was going on at the inauguration of the showroom - what got me to show up - could be by the book.
It is the end of the week. The great English Gallery The White Cube has still been long in coming. But then dials Communications Honey Luard from London:
"This has come as a surprise to us. I can confirm that we do not cooperate with Solomon Lyttle or The Ivy, and that we were not aware of the activities that you have informed us. "
It amazes me anyway. I ask for mail correspondence with The Ivy. It has nothing to do with a partnership that do want Honey Luard to state:
"No.. We sent the material to The Ivy, because they said that they were professional art consultants for the few customers who were interested in the artists' works. But they use clearly material to something completely different than our conversation was about. It has never been any question that our material should be used in exhibitions or in public presentations. You have no right to use the material and present the works in the context in which they do ".
The White Cube is now in the process of investigating the case. The same is Damien Hirst's company Science Ltd., Says director Jude Tyrell.
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