by Andy Behrman
I leave the company with only a handful of loyal clients, taking as many as I can from my sister. The next day I start scrambling for more, going back to old clients, scraping new ones from any place I can find them, including the Yellow Pages. That night I see Allison, who is glad that I’ve finally stopped working with my sister and thinks that I’ve made a great decision to work independently. She’s extremely encouraging and tells me I’ll have my business off the ground in no time. It’s exactly what I need to hear. A few days later she surprises me with the news that she’s ready to move back in with me. I find it curious that this comes after I make a separation from Nancy. I’ve long been aware of Allison’s antipathy toward Nancy and her jealousy of our work relationship, but I’ve always ignored it. Still, I’m glad that she’s had a change of heart and am happy to have her live with me again.
But after a little while I get a strange sense that Allison doesn’t know how much time and effort I’m going to have to put into my new PR agency to maintain my old income. I’m concerned that she’ll resent the amount of time I devote to work. Already it’s beginning to feel like the undoing of a bad marriage.
July 15, 1988. New York.
It’s so hot and humid outside that I’m tempted to call and cancel my 1:00 P.M. appointment—I can’t deal with another day of this weather. I’ve already postponed my breakfast meeting with this big-shot fitness guru from L.A. because it was too hot out and I didn’t feel like schlepping all the way down to Soho to meet with an overenthusiastic set of hard abs for an egg-white omelette and dry toast. He’s going to meet me uptown for drinks later tonight. I have an appointment to interview the “nonartist” of the moment, a downtown artist named Mark Kostabi. I’ve already blown him off once, and I’ve got no excuse this time. Kostabi doesn’t actually create work with his own hands—he pays artists minimum wage to paint for him, and he just signs the work. He’s gaining lots of notoriety for this gimmick. It’s not exactly the most original idea. Andy Warhol did it with his Factory in the sixties. I’m going to submit an article on Kostabi for a gossip column for 7 Days, a magazine in its prepublication phase. He’s already received some extremely negative publicity in the media for a comment he made about AIDS being a good thing for the art community. He’s also well known for his outrageous insults aimed at his collectors. “Anyone who buys a Kostabi is a fool,” he says. “Every time they buy a Kostabi, I spit in their faces.” He should be a real character.
I’ve been toying with the idea of working for 7 Days in addition to my PR business. At the least it could be an interesting side gig, and at best it could lead me out of this mindless career of public relations. It’s just so routine—flipping through my Rolodex all day long and talking on the phone pitching clients to editors and producers. I don’t know how much longer I can take it. It’s not the most intelligent work that I can find—anyone with half a brain and a whole lot of charm can do it. But I can’t complain about the money. Now all I can think about is getting to this interview on time. I hail a cab. The driver takes me down Broadway, and in my mind I start tallying my monthly client billing—$2,000, $4,000, $7,000, $9,000, $11,000, $13,000. Let’s see if I can get everybody to pay me on time. Sounds great, but my expenses are much higher this month. I don’t even know what I’m really spending so much money on: traveling (Los Angeles and San Francisco), restaurants (four or five nights a week), clothing (weekend trips to Barneys), artwork (just bought one more painting by Robert Combas in San Francisco). I can always use more clients—and more paintings. I’ll represent anybody. I’m not very picky. Anybody who wants to write a check or pay me cash makes a great client. Doctors and dentists with big practices are usually good for double the fee. Spiritual healers and astrologers are good prey, as are exercise gurus and nutritionists. Even a veterinarian who was referred to me this morning by my friend’s gynecologist will work. I’ll think of something to do with him. I’ll get him booked on Sally Jessy somehow. I can promote just about anybody. If these clients want exposure, I’ll get it for them. And even though I hate it, I do enjoy the adrenaline rush of being extremely successful in a competitive business—and the cash.
1:00 P.M.
Kostabi’s studio, down near the Lincoln Tunnel, is up a steep flight of steps in a pretty run-down three-story building. The floor and walls are painted a glossy white, and lime green sixties modular furniture is scattered throughout the space. A shiny black baby grand piano sits in the far corner. I’m dressed in my summer PR uniform—khakis, a white button-down shirt, and black loafers without socks—and I’m quick to notice that not one person in the entire place is dressed even remotely like me. I’m sweating. I feel ridiculously out of place. The receptionist greets me wearing an aqua plastic micromini with a matching vest and platform shoes. She’s very pretty, with a slight bluish tint to her black hair, and she asks me my name with a strange accent. Kind of a cross between British and Long Island. A double isle accent. She tells me that Mark is on the telephone to Europe but will be with me shortly. There’s an odd choice of seating—a chair in the shape of a hand and a hanging bubble seat. I decide to walk around the space. An assorted fun pack of people wanders around the studio. A haggard dyed-blond guy with a pale angular face and a roaming eye is carrying all kinds of camera equipment. Later I learn he is Mark’s younger brother, Indrek. He gives me a strange stare, and already I don’t trust him. A woman with dyed jet black hair and deep purple lipstick sporting a black lace dress and combat boots looks through racks of canvases against a wall. Three Japanese men in dark suits and white socks are huddled around a stack of lithographs with a guy who has flame red hair and motorcycle boots, whom they keep referring to as Dr. Fry (I later learn his name is Dr. Fly). I take a look around at paintings of faceless, high-contrast figures, many wearing pointed hats, that I’ll come to know as “Kostabi figures.” One is a simple portrait of a faceless man holding a globe. Another is a faceless naked woman looking in a mirror. Lots of black, red, and white. Strange stuff. Pretty awful. Not my taste at all. It all looks mass-produced. There must be at least five hundred paintings in this room. I feel like I’m at a factory-outlet sale of modern art. And there’s too much of it crowded into one space, which is making me feel uptight and nervous. I hope I don’t knock anything over. I’m not sure if this stuff is worth anything or not because I’ve never seen his work before. I ask the blue-tinted girl with the hybrid accent if I can use her phone to check my messages. I call, and my assistant, Lara, is holding down the fort. Nothing urgent. The blue-tinted girl offers me a piece of her pink bubble gum. No thanks.
I’ve been waiting around for about twenty minutes. About a half hour later, a gawkish young man in his late twenties with medium-length bleached blond strawlike hair with black polka dots scattered evenly throughout comes from an office in the back of the studio. This must be Kostabi. His face is gaunt and pale, and his skin is kind of bumpy, like the surface of the moon. I’m thinking he hasn’t eaten in days or seen the sun in years. He has very Eastern European looks, with a long jaw, and he seems friendly and excited about meeting me. He’s smiling and laughing the way you would if you were seeing an old friend after a few years. He’s wearing a pair of tight black pants, a white blousy shirt, and black platform shoes—he kind of looks like a court jester. He runs toward me apologizing profusely in this singsongy voice for being so late. He extends his limp hand to greet me and shakes it awkwardly. I immediately get the sense that something is slightly off with this guy. I’ve heard people say he’s mysterious; if you ask him a simple question, he responds sometimes as if he has no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe it’s an act. But I’m really curious to sit down with him and find out what he’s all about.
He invites me into his office and sits behind his desk, contorting his hands and arms, with one knee up on the chair, almost blocking his face from my line of sight. He reminds me of Gumby. He plays with his pen. He proudly shows me a recent full-page ad for his work in Flash Art magazine and displays some of hi
s line drawings. He offers me one, a man in the shape of a dollar sign, as a gift. I like it. He starts eating a salad and tells me that food is very important to him—he can’t work without a good meal. The salad dressing drips down his chin and onto one of the drawings; he wipes it off with the napkin. I ask him if this drip increases the value of the drawing. He laughs nervously. He points to a sculpture of a man holding the earth in his hands; it’s just been made for him and he still has to approve it. He asks me if I like it. My opinion seems important to him. Switching from subject to subject, he talks about everything from the current art scene to his plans for the new Kostabi World. The phone rings. It’s a call from Tokyo—it’ll just be a minute. As his conversation progresses, he raises his voice and enunciates each word carefully. It’s obvious that the person at the other end hardly speaks English. He instructs the caller to wire $200,000 into his account immediately and gives him wiring instructions from a card in his Rolodex, repeating the instructions slowly and loudly. When he hangs up he explains to me that he’s involved in all aspects of the business except the actual painting. He hasn’t painted in years, he explains, but he is at the center of every creative decision. Kostabi World has a regimented production process, I learn. An idea is created by an “idea person” in the “think tank,” approved by a “committee,” assigned to a painter, who projects it onto a canvas with a slide projector, sketches it, and paints it. The painting is then approved and titled by the committee and finally signed by him. I ask him for a tour of his studio, and he brings me upstairs, where there are about twenty painters working side by side on different Kostabi images. They each turn to see who the guest is, make no effort to smile or say hello, and abruptly turn back to their work. I get the feeling that tours are a daily occurrence and that there is a clear sense of disdain for Mark. It is dead quiet except for a radio in the background. He keeps the tour brief. There is a sign on the wall: PEOPLE WHO WORK FOR MINIMUM WAGE LIVE IN A CAGE. I ask him about it. Some painters, he proudly tells me, make more than minimum wage. He created the sign himself and seems almost proud. He chuckles. I’m not sure if I like him or if I think he’s a jerk.
Back downstairs, I ask him about his adolescence, about his years studying art in California, about his influences, about his East Village art years, and finally about creating his “factory.” He breezes through his responses as if he’s answered these questions a hundred times just this week. He tells me it’s his turn now—he has more interest in asking me questions than he does in answering any of mine. I’ve been warned that he could make a big joke of the interview, but he seems to be taking our meeting seriously so far—maybe it’s my khakis and loafers. He is curious about my business, the type of clients I represent and the media people I know, and what I think I could do for him to build his image. My initial reaction is to keep the interview professional—my purpose in meeting him today is to write an interview and find out something nobody knows about him and submit it to 7 Days—not to sign him as a client. But it is clear he wants to be a client, or is at least interviewing me as a potential PR agent. So I switch gears and start talking to him as a prospective client. I tell him about the importance of doing national television and keeping his name in the gossip columns, about creating scandal and intrigue. He’s giddy with excitement and has lots of questions. By the end of the hour, he’s sold on me. We discuss working together, but he’s not willing to pay a monthly retainer. He wants to work with me in exchange for artwork. “When can we start?” he asks. But I’m not so sure I really want this artwork because I’m not sure I would even store it in my closet. But he convinces me of its tremendous resale value, and I have these pathetic images of myself carting this stuff off in the back of a cab to Christie’s. But I also know full well that in a month or so I’ll be able to manipulate him into paying a hefty retainer anyway because he’ll be impressed with what I’ll be able to do. Mark wants more from me than an interview, and I want more from him—it’s an ideal relationship. We leave with a perfect understanding, and I never write the article, abandoning the notion of becoming the gossip reporter at 7 Days.
Jack of All Trades
It is clear to me from my first conversation with Mark that none of the loose ends of his business—publicity, marketing, and sales—have been tied together. I want to get going on this before anybody else realizes the opportunity is wide open. Within days of our first meeting and without any type of written agreement, Mark and I start working. Soon we agree on a $1,000-a-month fee and an unspecified amount of artwork. I quickly rewrite all of his press material, making it more mainstream and less underground, and promoting him as the ultimate con artist. After a few days, I book him on the Morton Downey, Jr. Show, in a never-broadcast segment where he and Downey stage a fight that turns real. Downey ends up in a neck brace and with a thumb fracture. This creates a huge amount of spillover press for Mark, and he finally seems to understand how the media game really works. The incident is reported everywhere, sealing his reputation as a bad boy. Although my other clients demand more of my time, in the first two months I get Kostabi regular mentions in the gossip columns of the New York Post, the Daily News, and New York magazine. When I have extra time, I make a phone call to someone in the media on his behalf, although we do speak on a daily basis and I am looking to book him on national television shows. Kostabi is impressed, confident that I can pull off just about anything. I feel the same.
I’m sure that I can generate some major publicity for the opening of the new Kostabi World, an enormous three-story warehouse facility on West 37th Street near the Jacob Javits Convention Center, But I also want to get involved in selling Mark’s work in the international market. Kostabi already has one Japanese dealer and a few foreign dealers, but for the most part the foreign potential seems untapped, and I realize that there is significant money to be made. I feel like all I need is a few good suits and a new briefcase, and I can talk my way through selling these paintings and prints to anyone, based on the press we’re creating. Day one for me on the road feels like I’ve been doing this for years—I’m confident, organized, relaxed, and energized to make sales at a 10% commission. I look like I’m making the buyer a good deal; I don’t get turned down. I’m still busy hustling other clients and a new one, a condom company called Rubber Ducky. (I mail thousands of condoms to media people across the country hailing this condom as the hottest new contraceptive available on the market, and there’s nothing even special about it except for the graphic of the Rubber Ducky on the package.) I even have my hand in pornography, working for Oui, the men’s adult magazine, to promote its editorial content (political, media, sex, health, and exercise) in other print media. It’s not a successful project. At the other end of the spectrum I launch a fragrance and bath-product line for children, called William & Clarissa, at F.A.O. Schwarz. For two years I use my apartment as an assembly plant, devoting ten to twelve hours a day during holiday season to the project, managing promotions and sales. The number of clients I am promoting is out of hand, and they range all over the map. My apartment looks like a warehouse of condoms, bubble bath, and diet books stacked from floor to ceiling. I think seriously about scaling back on my clients so that I can focus on Kostabi, but the rush I get from all these simultaneous projects is too good to give up.
Cashmere and Caviar
I am obsessed with working ridiculously long hours, earning plenty of money, and spending it as quickly as I make it—on anything I can get my hands on: frequent weekend trips to Los Angeles and San Francisco to visit friends; shopping sprees at Barneys and Bergdorf Goodman; dinner dates at Petrossian and Le Bernardin. I believe that the more risk I take on in a business deal, the better the payoff will be. All of this gives me an amazing sense of power and control—and tremendous elation. When I get my salary or hefty commissions, I sometimes cash the large checks so I can have the money in my hands. I love paying the bills and the tabs—especially in cash, for the attention it gets me from salespeople, waiters, and even dinner par
tners. I’m crazy when it comes to the sight and touch of money. When I go to the bank, I withdraw $5,000 from my account in $20 and $50 bills; the look and feel of so much money give me a jolt and a great sense of security. I try not to worry about what the teller is thinking when she’s counting out the cash. I like the power of being able to buy anything I see that I want and just shelling out the cash as if it’s no big deal. Losing control during a shopping spree is probably the ultimate high for me now; it causes a strange sense of panic, a near blackout state. My heart races—I’m nervous, I’m frightened, I’m pressured, I’m stressed. My body becomes numb and tingly, and everything around me is spinning and I feel like I’m going to pass out, but there’s a force inside driving me forward.
