THE STORY – Yves Bouvier brokers masterpieces, from da Vinci to Rothko, into the private collection of Dmitry Rybolovlev until Bouvier is accused of a billion-dollar betrayal. Rising ambitions, frayed relationships, and bruised egos fuel a decade-long all-out war between the Swiss art dealer and the elusive Russian oligarch.
THE CAST – Yves Bouvier & Alexandra Bregman
THE TEAM – Andreas Dalsgaard (Creator/Director/Writer) & Christoph Jörg (Creator)
This review is of the first episode of “The Oligarch and The Art Dealer.”
The world of prestigious art is unsurprisingly elusive. Deals are made by unknown characters, practices are opaque, and very little is regulated. As long as you’re honoring the value of the art, few questions are asked about where money is coming from or going to. But who determines artistic value? There are the experts—appraisers and curators influencing factors like the artist’s reputation, condition of the piece, and historical significance—and the market, which is influenced by demand. Most of it, ironically, is built on the honor system. Buyers have to trust that the agents and middlemen they’re working with are valuing the piece effectively and with integrity. So, when that trust is broken, it upends a deeply private industry run by the world’s wealthiest people. Premiering at Sundance and directed by Andreas Dalsgaard, the man behind 2016’s “The War Show,” “The Oligarch and the Art Dealer” examines how one man’s fraud case blew up the high-brow world of high-end art, forcing the secret elite into the spotlight.
In 2015, the story broke publicly with the arrest of Yves Bouvier, a leading art dealer, owner of a Freeport, and curator of some of the world’s most valuable art. Bouvier got his start by inheriting a shipping company from his father, where he very quickly saw the need for rich people to ship their valuable art. He later developed the Geneva Freeport, one of the most important storage facilities in the art world. Harkening back to “Indiana Jones,” there are corridors storing some of the world’s most famous pieces of art for multitudes of private clients. A camera pans down one of the aisles, and you see names like Picasso, Monet, and Klimt labeling mysterious crates. Why pay millions to keep valuable art hidden, you may ask? A freeport for art storage is a highly secure, tax-exempt (or tax-deferred), bonded warehouse in special economic zones. Meaning, once you put art in there, you’re not obligated to pay taxes on it until you take it out. The Geneva Freeport quickly became the most famous of the world’s Freeports, housing vast collections of not only art but also wine and gold. For years, Bouvier operated mostly out of Geneva but was lacking financial backing to take his operation global.
Enter Dmitry Rybolovlev, a Russian oligarch and billionaire businessman, a man who leaves no trace, cellphone-less and mysterious, with wealth accumulated through unverified means. One not afraid to get his hands a little dirty and eliminate his enemies by any means necessary, Rybolovlev fled Russia for Switzerland a few decades ago, where he met Bouvier and started housing some valuable art pieces in Bouvier’s Geneva Freeport. When Bouvier goes above and beyond for Rybolovlev in one of their first meetings, he quickly earns his trust and hires Bouvier to expand his curated collection of art. Bouvier, being at the physical center of many of the world’s most valuable pieces, quickly brokers deals for Rybolovlev worth tens of millions of dollars, helping Rybolovlev become one of the more prominent art collectors in the world. But Bouvier centers the art world upon himself. Keeping both the seller and buyer in the dark, he negotiates a price for the seller, gives himself a cushy markup without telling anyone, and sells it to the buyer. The middleman in the dark, swindling everyone. But what happens when loose lips leak details to the press? Investigative journalists come knocking, trust gets broken, and carefully devised money-making schemes start to unravel. Both Rybolovlev and Bouvier are known poker players, always thinking 2 steps ahead and willing to do whatever it takes to win.
Dalsgaard places emphasis on many characters that quickly become hard to keep track of. The fascination in this case lies mainly with our two main characters, Bouvier and Rybolovlev, but the first episode throws almost everyone at you at once. The perspectives from investigative journalists are objective, informative, and insightful, but you can tell some interviews with witnesses (or victims, depending on how you classify them) are reluctant at best, still upholding the veil of privacy to all involved in the world of art.
The first episode, titled “Opportunity,” lays the groundwork for how easy it can be to trust someone you barely know. One could easily blame Rybolovlev for not questioning or requiring proof of the value of the art, but one could also doubt that Bouvier wouldn’t try to get greedy, especially with a Russian oligarch who’s known for brutality. At times, it appears that Bouvier is painted in a sympathetic light. The lack of a clear “bad guy” in a documentary like this is at times both frustrating and exciting, especially when fringe characters are mentioned, and the web of connections becomes convoluted.
We rarely get a peek into the inner workings of billionaires and their highly exclusive art world. A world so unattainable for 99% of the population, it’s hard to fathom, or frankly hard to care, about rich people screwing each other over. The first episode of this documentary series is both interesting and convoluted, but quickly runs out of steam in holding this viewer’s interest. If the second and third installments add more elements of surprise, it’s worth sticking with, but the black-and-white exposition of Episode 1 leaves little to the imagination.
THE GOOD – Informative and a bit fascinating if you’re into the inner workings of the world’s elite art curators.
THE BAD – Too many side characters make the story convoluted and hard to follow, and a lack of transparency by first-hand accounts doesn’t peel back the onion enough to keep intrigue sustained.
THE EMMY PROSPECTS – None
THE FINAL SCORE – 6/10
