Episode Transcript
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0:00
You can't believe me. $450,000. Give
0:02
me five. Fiddle. What
0:05
is this? Chameleon. Season 6,
0:09
Gallery of Lies. A production of Campside
0:11
Media. Oh. The devil on the ground.
0:15
The
0:17
Bench.
0:22
In the fall of 2022, a documentary
0:25
film about Helga Achenbach premiered at the
0:27
Cologne Film Festival. It's called
0:29
Der Illusionist, which, as
0:31
you may have guessed, translates to The
0:33
Illusionist. It chronicles Helga's
0:35
long life and career in the arts, his
0:38
big breaks, and even some of his less
0:40
triumphant moments. It was made by
0:42
Birgit Schulz, a film and TV director
0:44
with a long list of credits to her name.
0:48
This past spring, the film was screened in a theater in
0:50
Dusseldorf's Old Town neighborhood, and
0:53
Helga was there as an honored guest. He
0:55
attended with his friend, or girlfriend, or who
0:58
knows, Aisha. Anna
1:00
Berlitt was there, too. The auditorium
1:02
has about 190 seats, and
1:04
Helga said there was so much interest they added a second
1:07
showing that night. After
1:09
the film's credits rolled, he told us, about 75 people
1:12
gathered in a Spanish restaurant next door to
1:15
toast the movie, the successful screening, and,
1:18
of course, himself. And
1:21
he was feeling good, despite a handful
1:23
of detractors in the audience. A few critics, gallerists,
1:25
and art world denizens who aren't terribly fond
1:28
of him. Seeing
1:31
his life flicker before his eyes, up there
1:33
on the big screen,
1:34
Helga was moved. And of course
1:36
it was touchy sometimes, seeing
1:39
old history, parts of my life,
1:42
the
1:43
success time, the prison,
1:48
my first visit of a friend when
1:51
I was in the prison, when
1:54
I came out, and all these things. So
1:56
it was really, for me
1:58
also, a kind of emotion.
2:00
The release of the film and the subsequent press
2:02
attention has been like an oxygen blast for
2:05
Helga. He's attended screenings
2:07
in several cities around Germany. He's
2:09
spoken to the press about the film. From
2:11
what Mack and I can gather, Helga seems
2:13
proud of the illusionist. On
2:15
his Instagram, he penned a story that features a
2:18
14-week countdown to the Dusseldorf screening.
2:21
In between, there are shots of Helga painting in a room
2:23
at Culture Without Borders. There's Helga
2:26
on a boat wearing the Amish Pharrell hat. One
2:29
of the last images is of the illusionist
2:31
poster. Helga in a lake facing
2:33
the camera. The water is up to his lips.
2:36
He's smiling and flashing a V for
2:38
victory with the fingers of his right hand.
2:42
What he shows to the world, in other
2:44
words, is a beautiful easy life,
2:47
full of happiness, purpose, and friendship.
2:51
But the story playing out behind the pictures is
2:53
more complicated. In Helga's
2:55
wake, he's left a lake full
2:57
of broken relationships.
3:05
For Campsite Media, in association with Sony
3:07
Music Entertainment, I'm Bijonn Steven
3:10
and this is Chameleon, Gallery
3:12
of Lies. Episode 5,
3:14
Delusion.
3:25
You're listening to Chameleon from
3:27
Campsite Media.
3:38
You're
3:55
listening to Against the Rules, wherever you get podcasts.
3:59
Every
4:01
minute in your morning routine counts, and
4:04
I get that. My name is Jeff Pierre.
4:06
I'm the host of the 7 from the Washington
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Post. It's a new podcast
4:11
where we give you the 7 most important
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and interesting stories of the day, and
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all in just a few minutes. You'll be
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caught up and ready to drop knowledge without
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missing a beat, I promise. Listen
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to the 7 weekday mornings.
4:25
Follow the show now. I'll meet you there.
4:33
You're listening to Camilia from Campside
4:35
Media.
4:37
I should point out that the illusionist isn't
4:40
just hagiography. As
4:42
Helga mentioned, Schultz has also captured
4:44
some of the less photogenic moments of his life. When
4:47
someone mentions that Helga hosted a seminar on
4:49
the concept of radical honesty, for example,
4:52
his ex-wife Dorothy simply bursts out
4:54
laughing. A review of
4:56
the film on a German culture website says
4:59
that it, quote, portrays a man whose
5:01
desire for advancement eventually turned
5:03
into greed. The review
5:05
also offers this comment on Helga. Aachenbach
5:08
seems like a nice guy. He's enthusiastic
5:11
and can be very convincing.
5:13
But once you've listened to him for a while,
5:15
you discover the less honorable motivations
5:17
behind his behavior. At a fair,
5:20
he tries to explain his fascination with art to a camera
5:22
crew. But all he really talks about
5:24
is money and prestige. With
5:27
the illusionist screening around Germany and Helga
5:29
back in the news, not everyone has
5:32
been thrilled to see his re-emergence. In
5:34
the spring, according to Helga's lawyer, he
5:37
was negotiating with Babette Albrecht's lawyer, Andreas
5:39
Erban, to avoid further court action.
5:43
Part of what was at issue, according to
5:45
Helga's lawyer, was how Babette was
5:47
discussed publicly. Helga's
5:49
lawyer seems to suggest that Erban wanted
5:51
there to be no public discussion of Babette
5:54
at all. When Helga first
5:56
told us about having Erban back in his life,
5:58
he sounded defiant. He
6:00
said it was his right to say what he wanted. He
6:03
has his freedom of speech.
6:05
He sounded like he relished
6:06
the idea of going back to court against
6:09
Erban, confident that this
6:11
time he would emerge the winner.
6:13
But by the time we spoke with Helga again, after
6:16
the Düsseldorf screening, something in
6:18
him had changed. When Mack and
6:20
I brought up what he told us about the recent threats by Erban,
6:23
Helga seemed much more resigned to accepting
6:25
the lawyer's demand that he not utter
6:27
Bebet's name. He seemed tired
6:29
of fighting.
6:30
It was Dr. Erban. We
6:33
agreed that whatever,
6:36
and
6:36
we should not even talk now
6:39
about it
6:40
in the details, but
6:43
I think they are not interested to
6:45
be with me on court. Helga says
6:48
now that it's best for everyone
6:50
if he keeps quiet and the Albrecht stay
6:52
out of the spotlight. I think they
6:55
would get a lot of public relations through
6:58
this.
6:59
So the situation is
7:01
that we
7:02
decided I'm not talking anymore
7:05
about Bebet and I
7:08
let be everything
7:10
like it was.
7:14
It occurs to me that this should be
7:16
a moment of triumph for Helga. He's
7:19
the star of a largely flattering feature documentary.
7:22
The German media is once again paying attention
7:24
to him, and this time that's
7:26
not because of the way he screwed over a client.
7:30
If Helga has some Norma Desmond in him, which
7:32
I believe he most certainly does, he's
7:35
been pining for another close-up for years.
7:38
But just when it arrives, he's not able
7:40
to fully enjoy the warmth of the bright lights.
7:43
Instead, he's got the aggressive lawyer of one of
7:45
the world's wealthiest women watching his every
7:48
move. And when he turns his
7:50
gaze away from the movie screen, he's
7:52
forced to confront the real toll his actions
7:54
have had on his friends and family. While
7:58
we're in Düsseldorf, Mack and I want to out
8:00
a gallery that David Akenbach owns and
8:02
runs with his girlfriend. We're curious
8:04
to see the space and the art, sure, but
8:07
more than anything we'd like to talk with one
8:09
of the sons Helga had with his second wife. David,
8:13
after all, is the only one of Helga's
8:15
eight children who has gone into the family business,
8:18
and so it's easy to assume he's got a unique
8:21
perspective on his dad's slippery psychology.
8:25
We pilot Bertie through a gentle rain and
8:27
park around the corner from the gallery.
8:30
We're buzzed into the door on the street, walk
8:32
up a flight of stairs, and arrive in a small,
8:35
well-lit room. An assistant
8:37
greets us. After some confused
8:40
back and forth about what exactly we're doing there,
8:42
she wanders into a back office to see if David
8:44
is available to speak, which
8:47
means we have a moment to check out the current
8:49
show. It's called Shift
8:51
and Shine by the German artist Sabrina
8:53
Podemsky. The central piece,
8:56
hanging in the middle of one of a few rooms, is
8:58
a boxing heavy bag rendered in white
9:01
ceramic. It's held to the ceiling
9:03
by chains. Looking at it, in
9:05
the context of our mission to speak with Helga, our
9:08
dealer son, feels at once strange,
9:11
appropriate, and evocative. David's
9:14
assistant returns. Later
9:32
that day, our producer Henry emails the
9:34
gallery to see if we can make an appointment with David.
9:37
The response is positive, and it seems like
9:40
it might actually happen. But
9:42
then the messages become less certain. The
9:45
assistant writes, Unfortunately,
9:48
David will not be able to do an official
9:50
podcast interview at all. His
9:52
PR agent advises him not to do
9:54
it. He's open for a conversation about him,
9:57
but not about his father.
10:00
I have to say, I find the honesty
10:02
in this note refreshing. And I get
10:05
it, touchy subject and all. That's
10:07
fine, Henry responds. Let
10:09
us know when we can set something up with David.
10:12
At which point, the gallery assistant
10:15
ghosts. And Mack and I are
10:17
forced to confront the accumulation of ghosts
10:20
all around us. Like when we tried
10:22
to talk with Dorothy, Helga's ex-wife, and
10:24
Lily, his daughter. Almost
10:27
the exact same thing happened. Initially,
10:29
Dorothy and Lily sounded game to talk, and
10:32
we got as far as sorting out a time to meet
10:34
on the Saturday night that Mack and I were in Dusseldorf.
10:37
But then, Dorothy texted, saying she
10:39
wanted to cancel the interview. She
10:41
didn't want to meet. She did say,
10:44
however, that we could read the text
10:46
she wrote explaining why. Here's
10:49
our intrepid interpreter, Minu, again. This
10:52
time, playing the role of Dorothy
10:54
Aachenbach.
10:55
Good morning, Mack. We just discussed
10:57
a bit. Neither Lily nor I want
11:00
to talk about the person. Sorry,
11:02
but after all these years of tears,
11:05
pain, incredible fights, and fears
11:07
he caused to me, to the children, to the
11:10
whole family, and his employees, we
11:12
have a good and happy life with a fulfilling
11:15
job now. Whenever somebody
11:17
dares to say just a little bit the truth
11:20
or criticize him, he's insulted,
11:22
and he gets very, very unpleasant. Please
11:25
understand this. We just want peace.
11:28
Good luck and success, Dorothy.
11:31
I can't argue with that.
11:33
But I still wondered what specifically
11:35
Dorothy was alluding to. Some
11:38
clues can be found in an interview she gave to
11:40
a German television station. Here
11:42
she is talking about the first chaotic moments
11:45
after Helga's arrest.
11:46
The
11:49
first time a marshal came, the children
11:51
were alone at home.
11:53
My son called me. He was completely
11:55
beside himself. And I thought,
11:57
no, this can't really be happening.
12:00
It was a dreadful day and it started
12:02
to dawn on me that our lives would
12:04
change forever.
12:06
Dorothy quickly came to terms with the realities
12:08
of a new life for her and her children.
12:11
I
12:14
don't buy clothes anymore, we don't go out
12:16
for food, but I don't mind that
12:19
at all. What's awful is
12:21
losing your sense of security, not
12:23
knowing how to get by the next month,
12:26
how to cope with the situation. That's
12:28
the worst part, not knowing that the
12:31
next day will bring. It really
12:33
took a toll on all of us.
12:35
There's even a clue or two in the illusionist,
12:38
like when Dorothy describes how she felt the
12:40
day Helga was released from jail.
12:42
I am convinced, and that's what
12:44
I've learned from all of this, is that
12:46
people cannot really change, not on
12:48
a fundamental level anyway, especially
12:51
if they don't want to.
12:52
It was the reason why I decided to get
12:54
a divorce in the end.
12:56
On the day my ex-husband was allowed
12:58
to leave prison temporarily for
13:00
the very first time, I wanted to go
13:03
for a walk with him, with our children and
13:05
our dog.
13:06
But the first thing Helga Aachenbach decided to
13:08
do was to meet with a journalist and do
13:10
some kind of report. The journalist
13:13
accompanied him to his lawyer, to
13:15
the doctor and the supermarket. It
13:17
was a huge PR thing,
13:19
and that's when I realized he hadn't
13:21
changed after all. He was still
13:24
the same old Helga.
13:25
We asked Helga what he made of Dorothy's
13:27
statement in the film, and he emailed.
13:31
Quote, I understand her a bit.
13:34
She built her opinion to get away from
13:36
me, which I accept. The
13:39
truth is different. But in
13:41
one point, it's clear. If you understand
13:43
what you have done wrong, you always must
13:45
work on yourself, not fall back in
13:47
old habits. David
13:50
has also spoken in the past about his father
13:52
and his father's fall. In an interview
13:54
published on a German news website
13:55
in 2019, David
13:57
says he believes his dad was under financial...
13:59
stress by the time he started working with Berthold. He
14:02
said, quote, over
14:04
the years, my father had built up a life
14:06
that was too expensive for himself, which
14:09
constantly had to be fed with money.
14:11
This is something I'd wondered myself. Was
14:14
Helga simply hurting for cash when he decided
14:16
to defraud Berthold? Helga had
14:18
waved this idea away when I'd brought it up on Lanzarote,
14:21
but at other times he told us he often had
14:23
plenty of art in his possession and very little
14:25
money. After his dad's arrest,
14:28
David had a hard time adjusting. He
14:30
told the German website, for
14:32
a month after the catastrophe, I didn't
14:34
dare go out the door. I buried
14:36
myself. Didn't say a word. But
14:40
ultimately, despite everything, David
14:42
seems to side with his dad in thinking that
14:45
the collection Helga built for Berthold was truly
14:47
remarkable, while his crime was
14:50
perhaps mad. I
14:53
remember an abstract painting by Gerhard Richter,
14:55
which is very important and was also shown
14:57
in important exhibitions, David said. Without
15:00
my father, Berthold would never have gotten
15:02
there. If the collectors and gallery
15:05
owners were honest, they would still work
15:07
with my father again today.
15:16
You're listening to Community from Campside
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Media. This
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Is History is back for our third
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England's most diabolical ruler,
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Bad King John. Join
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me, Dan Jones, to find out what
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happens when a king turns his back on morality,
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the law, and even God. From
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Sony Music Entertainment, This
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Is History, a dynasty to die for.
15:45
Listen and follow on Apple podcasts,
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Spotify, Amazon Music, Stitcher,
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or wherever you get your podcasts.
15:59
the rich and famous. From
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what went down at Gwyneth Paltrow's ski
16:03
trial to the wild drama behind
16:06
the scenes of the Fifty Shades of Grey movies,
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we're going to tell you about the other
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terrible thing Harvey Weinstein did, and
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we'll figure out how some rumours about
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Kylie Jenner's lips led
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to a scandal about her billions.
16:21
Listen to Infamous wherever you get your podcasts.
16:34
You're listening to Camellia from Campside Media.
16:38
When Mack and I first met Helga Ackenbach on
16:40
Lanzarote several months ago, he told
16:43
us he thought that 80% of his art network
16:45
abandoned him when he went to jail.
16:47
Wanting to better understand why they ditched him, we
16:50
tried to speak with a couple of the bigger names
16:52
on that list. Larry
16:54
Gagosian has been among the most famous
16:57
gallerists and dealers in the world for about
17:00
45 years. He opened his first
17:02
gallery in Los Angeles in 1980 and,
17:04
a couple years later, put on a show of Jean-Michel
17:07
Basquiat's work. Over decades,
17:09
he's represented Warhol, Cy Twombly,
17:11
Willem de Kooning, Damien Hirst, and
17:13
Jeff Koons, among many other
17:16
stars. Just last year, Gagosian
17:18
bought a Warhol painting for $195 million, the most ever
17:20
paid for a 20th
17:25
century work of art in a public sale.
17:28
Helga told us that, at an LA art fair in 1990, Gagosian
17:32
borrowed his booth for meetings with potential clients
17:34
and producers. That seemed
17:36
like an innocuous enough event, but
17:39
when I called Gagosian and asked if
17:41
he had a few minutes to talk about Helga, he
17:43
repeated just a single word, no,
17:46
and hung up on me before I could even ask to record
17:48
the conversation. Your
17:51
Hard Richter is one of Helga's oldest friends,
17:53
and while his response to my inquiry was not quite
17:56
as cold as Gagosian's, the result
17:58
was the same. Yeah, I think
18:00
we just have a few questions for you about
18:04
Helga and your relationship with him.
18:07
It's not me. Mr.
18:10
Richter is not
18:13
at the phone.
18:14
Ah. OK. Right, of course. So
18:16
you are here in the studio. That's OK. But
18:20
you can't speak him. Is there
18:22
a chance we could maybe speak to him later? Do you think he
18:24
would be interested in talking to us?
18:27
I don't think so, no. He
18:31
doesn't speak or
18:34
doesn't give any more interviews or something
18:36
like this.
18:37
I was told to email my questions for Richter,
18:39
which I did. Then I was told
18:42
Richter was not going to reply. To
18:44
be honest, this was not a shock.
18:47
The artist gives very few interviews. And
18:50
now, still enormously successful
18:52
in his 90s, he has very little reason
18:54
to. If I was surprised at all
18:56
by the brush off, it's because of how close Richter
18:59
and Helga once were, how important
19:01
each man was to the other one's career through
19:03
their respective rises in the industry. On
19:06
Lands of Roté, Helga told us that they'd grown
19:08
so close that in 1991, they'd
19:10
traveled to Japan together to make a documentary
19:13
film. Helga had always wanted Richter
19:15
to paint Mount Fuji. My idea
19:17
is, God, Richter, to
19:19
travel to the Fuji Sun. That
19:22
was my
19:23
theme.
19:24
And I said, you know what, Gerhard,
19:26
I invite you and I pay everything.
19:29
Helga says he pulled out all the stops,
19:31
even hiring a highly regarded cinematographer.
19:34
And then the question was, and
19:37
who is going to
19:38
be our cameraman? I
19:41
said, well,
19:43
whom you like?
19:44
He said, the best is David Lynch.
19:47
I said, okay, I'm getting
19:50
the cameraman from David Lynch. So
19:52
I got the cameraman from David
19:55
Lynch. Helga could not remember the
19:57
name of David Lynch's cameraman, and
19:59
we were not able to see it. to independently confirm
20:01
this. But it's a nice thought, isn't
20:03
it? And while it appears there were
20:05
many grand production ideas, the adventure
20:08
quickly fell apart. Helga had
20:10
booked their trip in the middle of typhoon season.
20:13
Helga says a storm destroyed the train tracks leading
20:15
to the mountain and washed away any chance they
20:17
had of reaching Mount Fuji. The trip
20:20
was doomed and some 90 hours
20:22
of film footage will likely never see the light
20:24
of day. Helga says
20:26
he has no idea where this film is now. He
20:29
says he and Richter's wife fought bitterly throughout
20:31
their time in Japan. A rift grew
20:33
between the two friends and they didn't speak to
20:35
one another for 10 years. And I don't
20:37
know what he was thinking. I was thinking
20:40
what the fuck is this? These days Helga
20:43
says he has little contact with the great artist.
20:46
They speak maybe a few times a year and
20:48
it never goes too deep. So
20:50
we are in a let's
20:52
say a polite situation but there
20:54
is, I have the feeling no
20:58
intention from him anymore
21:00
and for me it's a different thing. I like him because
21:03
I like his paintings. I love him. I think
21:06
I did too much for him for this situation
21:09
and he keeps it in
21:11
a little distance now
21:16
which I agree. Helga
21:18
says that his friendship with Richter essentially ended
21:20
when he went to prison. He didn't write
21:22
me. He didn't do
21:25
anything but he gave interviews and they
21:27
asked him, is that
21:29
now Helga has done good things and
21:31
the only thing is everyone knew that he's
21:34
a filo. Filo. It's
21:36
French meaning a trickster, a rascal,
21:39
a rogue, a crook. But
21:42
Helga isn't the only filo in the market.
21:44
Some people in the art world think that the business
21:47
is often not on the level. When
21:50
I first started looking into Helga, one former
21:52
director of a powerful New York City gallery
21:54
told me they thought that most people in the art world
21:57
are up to something shady. If
21:59
not, out. criminal. That
22:02
former director left the art world because
22:04
of that tendency.
22:06
Helga feels like
22:07
he got caught up in this shadiness. He
22:09
sees himself and his crimes as a
22:11
product of his environment. He
22:13
wrote in his second memoir, My narcissism
22:16
has played an important role in this.
22:19
But there is also a culture of the art market that encourages
22:21
cynicism and corruption where honesty doesn't
22:23
pay. The value of art is arbitrary.
22:26
There are few rules or supervisors and no
22:28
balance sheets and ratings that establish values.
22:32
A couple things here.
22:33
Yes, there may be a culture of cynicism
22:35
and corruption in the art world, but not everyone
22:38
responds to that by breaking the law. Most
22:41
people don't. So for Helga to suggest
22:43
that his behavior was a product of his environment
22:46
feels
22:47
not entirely
22:47
honest. But at the same
22:50
time, it's also true that a lack
22:52
of transparency and regulation in a market
22:54
makes it easier for bad actors to take advantage
22:56
of other people. The opaque quality
22:58
of the world Helga moves in is something that came
23:01
up in our conversation with Colgate professor Bryn
23:03
Hatton. Art's value is a
23:05
fiction and it's just
23:07
a set of agreements that are being made between
23:10
the various players of the game. And
23:12
this kind of thinking about what art, you know,
23:14
inherently is and what kind of value it
23:16
represents in the world is
23:19
an old question that artists have been messing with
23:21
for a long time. Even so,
23:23
not everyone feels that the art market
23:26
is more corrupt than any other business. Benjamin
23:29
Godsell is an art advisor with 20 years of
23:31
experience. He's also a co-host
23:33
of the podcast, Nota Bene, this week in
23:35
the art world. So you'd say you're familiar
23:38
with the art market. Yeah, I'm an expert.
23:40
People pay me an awful lot of money to know what the
23:42
fuck I'm talking about. And he's emphatic
23:44
that the larger art world is not the sea of corruption
23:47
Helga would have us believe. Although
23:49
he's quick to say that art is one of the last
23:51
not fully transparent markets and
23:53
that it runs on information asymmetry.
23:56
There's very little from my experience at
23:58
least of a recent art, Art of Life. last 25
24:00
to 30 years, there's very
24:02
little fake art. What you see are things on the margin.
24:05
People selling things they don't maybe really have access to
24:07
and then trying to get access to it after the fact,
24:10
things of that nature. But
24:12
you don't really see that much theft, I
24:14
wouldn't say, or outright fraud. You
24:17
see people trying to take a bigger slice of the pie
24:19
than maybe their ethically, that
24:21
ethically is rightfully theirs, but don't see that
24:24
much wholesale stealing of the pie. It's
24:26
also a very small world, a place where
24:28
you might bump into someone you're making a deal with at
24:30
a midweek cocktail party. The only thing
24:33
you kind of have in this world is your reputation, your
24:35
good name. And I think it's very easy for
24:37
your reputation to be corrupted in such a small
24:40
space. Within such
24:42
an intimate community, it makes sense that
24:44
if you're someone who has poisoned their reputation, someone
24:47
who can't ever be entirely trusted, very
24:50
few people would want anything to do with
24:52
you. Post-prison, Helga's
24:54
reputation is shot.
24:59
You're listening to Camilia
25:01
from Campside Media. You're
25:07
listening to Camilia from Campside Media.
25:10
I've spent months thinking about Helga's life and
25:12
work, and at this point I feel like
25:14
I have a sense of what he's about. He's
25:17
a man who's continually looking for strategic
25:19
advantages over his competitors and
25:21
his clients, and sometimes even
25:23
his friends. And that, I
25:26
can imagine, pisses a lot of people
25:28
off. No one wants to be treated
25:30
like a fool, especially if you're a client
25:33
and you've given your trust and money to someone
25:35
else. Which was, Colgate's
25:37
Brinhatton thinks, the dynamic with the
25:39
Albrechts that led to Helga's collapse. When
25:42
they began to invest in art, they
25:44
understood none of its weird,
25:47
particular machinations or
25:49
any of the social systems or any
25:52
of its particularities.
25:54
Not to mention even just the art
25:56
itself. These were not art people. They
25:58
were not
25:59
collectors.
25:59
who were in their lane. They were kind of plunging
26:02
headfirst into a 60 million
26:05
euro investment into
26:07
this world that they didn't understand. Haddon
26:09
believes that even though the collection Helga bought
26:11
for them appreciated greatly, the resentment
26:14
Babette felt over the deception, the way
26:16
it made her look foolish, was what drove her
26:18
to seek justice. Everybody was still
26:20
ending up in the blast, right? Everything
26:23
worked out, essentially. Better
26:25
than expected, even. But
26:27
this is the deal with sort of, you know, the
26:30
ultra rich. They like to play
26:32
games with money. Money doesn't have,
26:35
oftentimes, very tangible meaning, right?
26:38
But they just really, really don't like
26:40
the idea that they're being taken advantage
26:43
of, even if it's just the principle of
26:45
the thing and there's no real
26:47
kind of loss. Even
26:49
if the effect of all of this game
26:52
playing affects them zero
26:54
in the real kind of tangible, physical, real
26:57
sense, even if they come out on
26:59
top, it's just the idea that they're being messed
27:01
with that will send people like the
27:03
family in question into really
27:06
lengthy court proceedings just to prove a point.
27:10
If you didn't know Helga, it'd be easy
27:12
to think that in his remaining years, in
27:15
the third act of his life, he'd cultivate
27:17
a quieter, more peaceful existence.
27:20
Sleepy nights on the renovated pig form of
27:22
Culture Without Borders or under the brilliant
27:24
stars of Lanzarote.
27:27
Having been burned once, he might be
27:29
reluctant to fly too close to the hot
27:31
center of the art world.
27:32
He appears chastened by Babette's latest
27:35
legal threats.
27:36
But I know Helga,
27:38
and I remember conversations like this one
27:40
we had with him back on the island. And it's
27:43
when you're here and it's so peaceful and quiet,
27:45
do you miss the excitement of
27:48
the deals, the big deals?
27:50
No, you don't.
27:53
But honestly, this is
27:58
out of record? Yeah. But
28:05
right now I am a consulting project
28:08
for NU-MIR-CM and
28:12
it could be possible, 70% could
28:18
be. I have the video
28:20
I can show you. Tell
28:22
us more about that. I
28:25
cannot talk about it yet. I am closed.
28:29
But it's
28:31
in the east and
28:35
it's a very rich man. I
28:39
don't know him but I
28:41
know his friends. And
28:43
his friend came and said he is 75
28:47
and he is thankful for his life.
28:49
He has something like 17 billion
28:53
and he was looking
28:55
for a donation for
28:58
his country. I said well I
29:00
have something for him. Eighteen
29:03
most beautiful paintings
29:06
of Picasso. It's
29:09
really true.
29:12
So you think maybe I'm
29:14
nuts. Scratch the
29:16
new Helga and the old one appears. The
29:19
deals are beginning to flow again. Or
29:22
at least Helga would like us to believe that. It
29:25
remains difficult to know if what he's telling us
29:27
is the unvarnished truth. Nonetheless
29:30
if the deal is real, moving these paintings
29:32
from the old master would be a tangible triumph.
29:36
Never mind that it goes against the advice of his friend
29:39
and priest or that this MO
29:41
drove Anna Berlett to keep her distance. This
29:44
is what he's lived for, as Bergeith Schulz
29:46
depicts in The Illusionist, and it's what
29:48
he's still living for. While
29:51
the film has won some praise in the German press, not
29:53
everyone sees it as such a radical
29:56
honest portrayal of a reformed man.
29:59
One reviewer summed it up like this. The
30:02
film intends to portray an art market gone
30:04
crazy. However, it very
30:06
much stays at the surface. It fails
30:09
to depict that the protagonist is not just
30:11
good at selling art, but also good at selling
30:13
himself. Towards the end, Brigitte
30:16
Schultz barely challenges him. He's
30:18
given a stage to portray himself as a victim of law
30:20
enforcement. He plays with the image of
30:22
having lost everything and living in poverty, while
30:25
having a huge estate all to himself and
30:27
getting the opportunity to reinvent himself
30:29
as an artist. The title of the documentary
30:31
almost takes on a double meaning, as
30:34
if the director also fell for the illusionist
30:36
a little. Mack and I understand
30:39
this dynamic. You want to believe him.
30:42
But the stories are always just a little too
30:44
tidy. Like he's writing a
30:46
fairy tale. I'm
30:51
tired. Tired of talking
30:54
again and again and again
30:56
and again. So
31:01
for myself, I decided
31:04
that I'm not for the future,
31:06
will talk in public
31:09
about my case. Helga
31:11
wants to change his ways. But that
31:13
doesn't stop him from working on what could be
31:15
his biggest deal yet. One
31:17
German billionaire came to me and said, Mr.
31:20
Aachenbach, you maybe are wondering
31:22
that I'm coming to you, but I know that you
31:25
have done this thing with Mr. Albrecht
31:28
and you will not be so stupid to take
31:30
more than we decided together what
31:33
you can take. Or looking for
31:35
new advantages. This is my honest
31:37
talking to you. You know what
31:40
I need is, I need from you,
31:42
the serious way. I don't like
31:44
to manipulate,
31:47
of course. All that and more on
31:49
the finale of Chameleon Gallery of
31:51
Lies.
31:59
wait for that next episode, you don't have
32:02
to. Unlock all episodes of Chameleon,
32:04
Gallery of Wise, ad-free right
32:06
now by subscribing to the Binge podcast
32:08
channel. Just click subscribe at the top of
32:11
the Chameleon show page on Apple Podcasts or
32:13
visit GetTheBinge.com to get access
32:15
wherever you get your podcasts. As
32:18
a subscriber, you'll get Binge access to new
32:20
stories on the first of every month. Check
32:22
out the Binge channel page on Apple Podcasts or
32:25
GetTheBinge.com to learn more.
32:30
Gallery
32:34
of Wise is hosted by me, Bichon Steven.
32:37
It's reported by me, Henry Levois,
32:39
and Mack Montanden, and produced by me
32:41
and Henry Levois. Mack Montanden
32:43
is our executive producer. This
32:45
episode was written by Mack Montanden. Our
32:48
story editors are Emily Martinez and Matt
32:50
Sherrard. Original music, sound
32:53
design, and mixing by Garrett Teigen. Recording
32:56
by Ewan Lai-Chramewin. Our
32:58
theme song is Wonder Barters by Dina Summer,
33:00
Dilipo, and local suicide. Our
33:03
fact checking is by Mary Mathis. Translating
33:05
and interpreting by Mito Mushtagi. archival
33:08
research by Vanessa Christopher Strinks. And
33:10
additional field production by Jonas Moy.
33:13
A special thanks to Emma Simonoff, Valentina
33:15
Delicia, and our operations. Doug
33:18
Slawin, Ashley Warren, and Destiny
33:20
Depp. Campsite Media's
33:22
executive producers are Josh Neen, Vanessa
33:25
Gagoriatus, Adam Hoff, and Matt
33:27
Sherrard. If you enjoyed Chameleon,
33:30
please rate and review the show wherever you get the audio.
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