Too much screen time is devoted to storylines involving her lawyer and Pressler’s fictionalised alter ego, a magazine writer called Vivian Kent. Her attention to styling – after a business meeting where she isn’t taken seriously, she undertakes a transformation from platinum-haired socialite in sparkly dresses to brunette in thick-framed Céline glasses – is presented not as ‘dress-up’ but as meticulously considered craft.ĭelvey’s con reaches beyond the art world: there is also plenty of schmoozing with tech bros and bankers in five-star hotels. This is a moment in art.’ The implication is that Delvey’s scam, her consummate self-fashioning as a wealthy entrepreneur, should similarly be appreciated as a ‘moment in art’. ‘And then one day she steps into her own frame, considers herself to be worthy, rather than being forced into a role in the male-dominated art world. ‘Before this series, Sherman was just another photographer hiding behind the lens,’ she says. Delvey misinterprets the photograph of Sherman as an act of feminist self-reclamation. Like all of Sherman’s self-portraits, these images present identity as something which is constructed – not innate but born out of our desires and projections. Fuming at the camera while having her mugshot taken in the first episode’s opening montage, she proclaims: ‘Anna Delvey’s a masterpiece, bitches.’ In her first encounter with Talia Mallay at an auction-house sale preview, she looks with what appears to be real admiration at a photograph from Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills, a series from 1977–80 in which the artist posed as various female character types portrayed in Hollywood cinema: the blonde bombshell, the femme fatale, the abused housewife. One of the few people to respect the creative process, the series contends, is Delvey herself. Room with no view: Julia Garner as Anna Sorkin in prison in Inventing Anna. In general, the dialogue in the series is terrible – loaded to breaking point with exposition and cliché – but during these moments it is almost convincing. The art-world parties are a circus of pretentious champagne-guzzlers saying things like, ‘It’s a celebration of garbage as artefact’ and ‘Immateriality in dialogue with transitory spaces’. If an unconnected nobody could use art and clothes and fancy dinners to buy clout amid the moneyed elite, it’s because everyone else was doing the same thing. In Inventing Anna, not only does Delvey manage to fool a bunch of VIPs, but these VIPs are also portrayed as fools. Perhaps Shonda Rhimes, the show’s creator, wanted to avoid offending specific high-net-worth individuals. (This is probably for the best – at nine episodes, some running to more than 80 minutes, the series is already too long.) The billionaire collector and museum founder Michael Xufu Huang does make an appearance, though his role is minimised. There is also a made-up gallerist called Sasha Thomas, tasked with curating the art collection for the dubiously named Anna Delvey Foundation. Mallay is one of several fictional characters in the series, filling in the gaps left by the real people who were unnamed in reports. As one of her first targets, the fabulously wealthy collector Talia Mallay, explains when asked how their ‘connection’ formed: ‘I appreciate a woman who doesn’t try to impress And she had great taste in art.’ Delvey wants her club to be filled with sculptures by the likes of Doris Salcedo and claims to have commissioned Christo to wrap the building she plans to lease on 281 Park Ave South. Played by Julia Garner with a bewitchingly strange pan-European accent, dressed to the nines in designer garb, she wrangles invites to gallery drinks receptions and museum fundraisers, where she sniffs at abstract paintings that aren’t ‘worth a dime’ and pitches her business plan. In Inventing Anna, the Netflix miniseries that chronicles Delvey’s rise and fall – adapted from a New York Magazine article by Jessica Pressler that went viral on publication in 2018 – the New York art scene is the aspiring mogul’s hunting ground. This is particularly important if, like Anna Delvey (real name: Sorokin actual birthplace: Russia), you are borrowing money to realise your vision for a visual arts centre-cum-private club with locations around the world, starting with Manhattan. Here is a top tip, for if you ever want to trick people into thinking you’re a rich German heiress and then scam them out of thousands of dollars: know a lot about art.
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