ANNA’S ARTFUL DODGE
If you work with a notorious scammer, you can’t be too surprised when things get messy.
Julia Morrison, a Los Angeles artist, claims she is owed $8,000 in connection to one of Anna “Delvey” Sorokin’s recent art shows — and that the “socialite” scammer has blocked her text messages asking for help getting her money.
Morrison, who co-curated the “Free Anna” group show — featuring works by 15 artists, including Sorokin — at a pop-up gallery on the Lower East Side in March, told The Post she “put around $8,000 on my credit card to cover the costs of framing, printing, scanning, transportation, making T-shirts, etc.”
She claims she was promised by her co-curator, Alfredo Martinez — an associate of Sorokin’s who was sentenced to three years in prison in 2002 for making and selling counterfeit JeanMichel Basquiat works — that she’d be paid back.
“She will get paid,” Martinez told The Post. “We are still in the spending money phase of the project.”
Morrison also alleged that there was a spoken understanding between art dealer Chris Martine (whose Founders Art Club represents Sorokin and Martinez), Martinez and herself that the co-curators of the group show would curate Sorokin’s solo show which took place last week at the Public Hotel and receive a cut of the profits.
But “I was completely cut out,” Morrison alleged.
When multiple calls and texts went unanswered by Martine, who told The Post he did not owe her anything, Morrison went to Sorokin herself.
“This is the first I’m hearing of this,” Sorokin wrote to Morrison in a May 18, text exchange. She then blocked Morrison’s number, the artist said.
A spokesperson for Sorokin confirmed to The Post that “Morrison is owed expenses,” but added that “[Anna] most definitely did not promise Julia any money.”
The spokesperson said that Sorokin stopped communicating with Morrison because there was nothing Sorokin could do for her.