TOPLINE Anna Sorokin, whose impersonation of a wealthy German heiress inspired the wildly popular Netflix series Inventing Anna and landed her in prison, will be the subject of her first solo art show next month, which will feature works she completed while incarcerated, according to her art dealer and curator.
Heiress-in-waiting
During jury deliberations in her New York State trial, Anna Sorokin converses with a court official.
FACTORS TO KNOW
According to Chris Martine, who is organizing Sorokin’s art sales while she remains in jail at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility, between 15 and 20 of her paintings will likely be offered for $10,000 apiece during an April gallery display in New York.
Martine told Forbes in a statement that Sorokin’s artwork would show moments from her life over the last several years, both before and after her confinement, and will offer spectators a look into “her side of the tale.”
Because additional art materials he sought to send to Sorokin were disallowed by prison authorities, Martine characterized the paintings as a combination of “fashion drawings and sarcastic cartoons” done only in pencil and ink on 9-by-12-inch watercolor paper.
Martine told Forbes that Sorokin has been “extremely active” in the development of her first solo performance, despite the fact that she is still jailed, and that she is excited to share her own tale “not skewed through someone else’s perspective.”
Martine told Forbes that Sorokin is working on finishing the collection’s last pieces this week and that the show’s opening date and venue would be determined after she’s finished, but he added that there has already been interesting from potential purchasers.
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WHERE TO BEWARE
Sorokin continues to put up art displays. Martine told Forbes that Sorokin has said that she wants her work to be available to her “lovers and admirers” all over the globe and that she and her team intend to produce limited-edition reproductions of some of the exhibition’s pieces after the event, at a more reasonable price. Martine also said that plans are in the works to bring the exhibition to other major art markets, including Miami, Los Angeles, London, and Paris.
FACT THAT WILL STUN YOU
The solo exhibition followed the popularity of the “Free Anna Delvey” pop-up show in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, which included artists’ interpretations of Sorokin with five pieces she did while imprisoned. Alfredo Martinez, a New York artist and curator who served almost two years in jail for wire fraud after selling fake Jean-Michel Basquiat paintings to unsuspecting customers, curated the event.
Martinez told The Art Newspaper earlier this month that he hoped the exhibition would encourage officials to release Sorokin from ICE detention and cease “handling her like Hannibal Lecter.” Rina Oh, one of the show’s participants, told the newspaper that Sorokin was “using these guys in the male-dominated art industry in order to push forward.” “That’s extremely New York.” According to The Art Newspaper, “a lot of individuals, particularly women,” in the art scene “feel that the only way to advance forward is to cheat.”
TANGENT
Sorokin was convicted in 2019 of defrauding more than $200,000 from acquaintances in New York’s high society, luxury hotels, fine restaurants, a private aircraft operator, and banks while masquerading as a rich socialite with a $67 million trust fund. She pleaded not guilty and denied being a con artist in a recent interview on the famous podcast Call Her Daddy, but subsequently added that she “never said any foolish falsehoods.”
” Unless they’re a bank, for example.” Later in the interview, she admitted that she had done something wrong, but said that “so many people are doing worse things.” Sorokin rose to prominence when a New York Magazine profile about her went viral in 2018. Inventing Anna, a Shonda Rhimes-produced series, became the most-watched English-language series in a single week last month, according to Netflix.
IMPORTANT HISTORY
Sorokin was freed from jail last year, but she is still being held by ICE due to an accused visa overstay. Rumors circulated earlier this month that she was being deported to Germany, but an ICE spokesman informed Forbes that Sorokin is still being held in jail awaiting the acceptance of an emergency stay request submitted in November. Sorokin was born in Russia and moved to Germany with her family when she was 16 years old. Page Six was the first to report about her solo art exhibition.