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The trouble with Christian - Whatever Happened to - Christian Leigh - Biography
ArtForum, March, 2003 by Alexi Worth
Leigh had, as the New York Times eventually put it, a "dicey reputation," but the scope of his financial misdealings is impossible to determine, partly because several of the people once closest to him refuse to be interviewed. What's clear, though, is that money problems date back to the very beginning of Leigh's curating--to his first show, the 1987 biennial in Cuenca, Ecuador. The Buffalo firm that printed the catalogue wasn't paid. They sued, and won a judgment for $29,260.69. Leigh never paid it. A pair of later civil judgments, for smaller sums, are also outstanding. What's surprising, at least given the extent of Leigh's reputation, is that his legal trail is so faint. It's possible that other financial complaints were settled quietly or that Leigh's alleged transgressions were exaggerated. Another explanation is that Leigh was lucky to be working in the art world, where people seldom take their problems to court. The artist Sturtevant, for example, hired a lawyer to recover a presentation book (includ ing some original artworks) that Leigh had borrowed. When her lawyer told her that Leigh wouldn't return the book without a confidentiality agreement that would have prevented her from discussing the incident publicly, she dropped the whole matter in disgust. Most of those on "the long list of people Christian stiffed," as the art dealer Josh Baer puts it, never even went that far. If they called anyone to complain, it was Leigh himself.
Perhaps Leigh's biggest and most forgiving victim was Thaddaeus Ropac. During preparations for "The Silent Baroque," Leigh had gone "totally, totally over budget," Ropac remembers. But the gallery owner was grateful for the show's impact, and he continued to think of Leigh simply as "a brilliant, crazy curator who doesn't know his limits." Leigh remained on salary for almost two years. At one point, Ropac recalls, Leigh called from New York, saying he had found a terrific early Peter Halley--something Ropac had to have. Ropac wired him thirty thousand dollars. The painting never appeared. Leigh claimed he had lost the key to the warehouse where the painting was stored. Over the course of several months, other excuses followed; things got "very fishy," Ropac says. Finally, he gave up. "It was better for me if I step back," he decided. He ceased doing business with Leigh but never pursued the matter further. Today Ropac speaks about Leigh mildly, with a mixture of wonder, pity, and regret.
Several friends suggest that Leigh's missteps may have been inadvertent, the result of "administrative chaos." But Marvin Kosmin, a collector and confidant, remembers a more deliberate policy. Leigh felt, Kosmin says, that "if he did something for an artist he should get something in return." During a studio visit, "Maybe he would say he was buying something, but in fact he regarded it as a fait accompli... a payback." Another close friend, the novelist Brian D'Amato, speculates along more clinical lines. "My amateur diagnosis, arrived at too late, was that he was either a congenital sociopath--although not a violent one--or someone who for obvious reasons felt himself to be a born victim and began to believe he was above ordinary standards of behavior." By the early '90s, friends were noticing Leigh's oddly frequent use of the term "pathological liar." Dealers were warning their artists not to work with him. Increasing numbers of people came to feel, as D'Amato puts it, that "this guy is the Titanic."
