Is Anna “Delvey” Sorokin an artist, and could that help her stay in America? The scammer-turned-socialite is the subject, and star, of a Lower East Side art show opening tomorrow, March 17, “Free Anna Delvey!”
The exhibition—at 176 Delancey Street on the Lower East Side, running thru the 24th—opens as Sorokin, star of the hugely popular Netflix series Inventing Anna, remains (at the time of writing) in custody and fighting deportation to Germany.
The exhibition features work by more than two dozen artists, much of it related to Sorokin’s tabloid-tale history, and 25% of sales are pledged to her legal fees, says co-curator Alfredo Martinez. The event also features, he says, an Anna Delvey artwork, “Send Bitcoin.” It’s an enlarged, colorized image of one of her drawings and is in collaboration with Martinez, he says. He, not incidentally, served federal time two decades ago for faking Jean-Michel Basquiats on loan from Sotheby’s.
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“I am working as her assistant,” says Martinez, who notes that such studio workers and arrangements are common in the art world (from Rembrandt to Jeff Koons).
The art show was first leaked on the social-media app Clubhouse. Painter and Whitehot magazine founder and publisher Noah Becker, whose works will also appear in the exhibition, runs a buzzy Friday Art Gossip room with young Miami conceptual artist John Barrymore.
Becker, founder of Whitehot and its podcast, says he talked to Sorokin from Orange County prison about the art show and she was looking forward to it–“She wants to make sure that whatever she does is legal.” She wants to “push her narrative away from her past behavior.”
Indeed, the art show could serve a deeper purpose for Delvey. U.S. Immigration has an exempt category for “creatives,” a so-called O-1 visa, and Delvey might hope as an artist she meets its very specific criteria. The O-1 visa “is for the individual who possesses extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business, or athletics, or who has a demonstrated record of extraordinary achievement in the motion picture or television industry and has been recognized nationally or internationally for those achievements,” according to the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service.
Sorokin does indeed appear to identify herself as an artist, noting in a recent podcast interview from prison with Whitehot, that people are saying “I was just like Warhol, in a suit.” She’s not quite classically trained though, she admits. Before incarceration, “I wasn’t necessarily an artist but I took some fashion illustration courses,” said Sorokin. But while in prison, she said, art became a comfort and a constant.
Sorokin was charged in 2018 for fleecing New York City’s high society, bankers, luxury hotels and restaurants by pretending to be a German heiress. She was convicted of grand larceny in 2019 and sentenced to four years in prison. She was released in 2021 for good behavior and was slated to be deported to Germany earlier this week but missed the plane, according to her immigration attorney.
Sorokin’s criminal attorney Manny Arora did not return calls seeking comment. His office referred us to her commercial attorney, Ira Meyerowitz, who was not accepting phone messages and didn’t reply to emails seeking comment. We were told to contact various other lawyers and managers involved, but they were identified only by first names, such as “Blake” or “Gregori.”
Indeed, many of the people surrounding Delvey identify themselves with only first names and are somewhat difficult to trace. Many are hanging around her “to make money,” says Julia Morrison, co-curator of the “Free Anna Delvey” show. “They want to make an NFT [digital artwork] of her f-ing toothbrush.”
The Orange County Correctional Facility in Goshen, NY, declined to pass on messages to inmates, saying only lawyer messages would be passed on. Their website says she has been released from there, but not necessarily from state custody.
The exhibition opening is invite-only but it least has attracted some of the right crowd. One major New York art collector—shortly after he enjoyed a private tour of Sotheby’s upcoming auctions this week—confirmed he will be stopping by. He’s a fan of Sorokin, or of her ambitiousness, he says, but he’s not quite pulling out his wallet yet. “The drawing is unsigned,” he notes, skeptically.
