Inside the David Geffen–Crypto Banana Guy Legal Brawl #CriptoNews

According to the complaint, also included in the exchange was a lawyer named Laura Chang, from a large Beijing-based firm, who claimed to represent APENFT and Sun and who had been instrumental in reassuring the Tunkls and Lerner of the legality of the deal that Xiong allegedly orchestrated. Chang used a Gmail email address, the suit alleges. Even weirder: The suit claims there was no one named Laura Chang among the thousands of attorneys at the firm she said she represented—and it speculates whether Laura Chang was actually Xiong.

The suit says they all soon drafted an exchange agreement, in which Nose would be traded for two of Geffen’s works that were valued at $55 million (valued by whom, the suit does not say) and $10.5 million in cash—well below the $80 million Sun had initially given as his number, with most of the value tied up in two as-yet-unidentified works that had to be off-loaded in order to access the cash. Xiong also allegedly arranged for Geffen’s funds to be wired directly to her via the Tunkls—in crypto.

In late March they drafted an authorization agreement, with Sun’s signature on it—forged, the suit alleges, by Xiong. Geffen released the two works, and transferred $13 million to the Tunkls. According to the filing, the duo sent $10.5 million to Xiong, and then she took $500,000 for herself. She sent the rest to a crypto wallet held by Sun. As the suit claims, The nose, the work that was in the Macklowe collection for nearly 30 years and the Sun collection for three, went to David Geffen’s penthouse at 785 Fifth Avenue, which he reportedly bought for $54 million in 2012.

In December 2024, Sun circled back on Nose in the midst of a busy few weeks. He had just become one of the most famous collectors in the world after he dropped $6.2 million on Cattelan’s Comedian and then proceeded to eat the banana live in front of reporters in Hong Kong. (The work is still his, as the banana is meant to be periodically replaced.) On December 3, he invested $30 million in then president-elect Donald Trump’s crypto concern, World Liberty Financial. He’s been extremely vocal about his love for the current president. He is also, it’s worth noting, facing charges from the SEC for allegedly fraudulently manipulating the crypto market by, among other methods, having a rollicking grab-bag of celeb gadflies—including Lil Yachty, Lindsay Lohan, and Jake Paul—promote his coin without disclosing they were being compensated. TRON filed a motion to dismiss the following March, and last August a New York judge denied the SEC’s wishes to request a pretrial conference. At the time reps for Sun declined to comment on “pending legal matters.” (Lil Yachty, Lohan, and Paul agreed to settle with the SEC without admitting wrongdoing.)

According to Sun’s complaint, he asked Xiong for an update on the buyer for the Giacommeti—back in May she had said that David Martinez, the Wall Street titan who has been said to have a $140 million Jackson Pollock hanging in his New York apartment, was interested in buying it. Months had passed—did Xiong have an update?

According to the complaint, Xiong’s response was “incoherent.” She initially put Sun on a text thread with the Tunkls, saying they were responsible for the delay. Sun hopped on the thread and told them, in “imperfect” English, he was killing any potential deal because it was taking too long. At this point, the lawsuit claims, Xiong allegedly copped to the entire scheme, and Sun had his attorneys reach out to Nagy to demand the work be returned. A month later, in late January 2025, another letter was sent. The suit claims that Geffen’s team then said they would not be returning the work, which they said was rightfully theirs.

“Receiving the letter from Mr. Sun’s attorneys, nearly a year after the transaction, claiming that Nose had been stolen, was a total surprise,” Nagy said. Nagy contends Sun knew all about the deal, but became dismayed when he couldn’t sell the two Geffen paintings for his desired price.

“The litigation filed by Mr. Sun is a desperate and bizarre attempt to hide reality,” Nagy said. “Mr. Sun received two paintings and $10.5 million for the sculpture he knowingly sold. After trying and failing to sell the paintings, he now wants to re-trade the deal based on the implausible claim that his own art adviser and liaison to the art world duped him.”

The art world is torn on whom to side with here. Sun is one of the few young collectors buying at high prices at auction, going after a wide variety of artists—but he’s also using his crypto billions to do it, in a world that’s not always enamored with such arrivistes. And then there’s Geffen, who has spent the last few decades unwinding his biggest trophies and donating to a dizzying number of cultural institutions, making him a hero to many art, music, and theater lovers. That goodwill aside, the sort of machinations that the suit alleges resulted in Geffen’s ownership of Nose are the stuff of blue-chip-collector nightmares.

Whatever happens, the case is barreling ahead. Barring a settlement, legal counsel for both parties will be present before Judge Analyzes towers at the Patrick Moynihan US Courthouse on Pearl Street bright and early in the morning on April 7.

The Rundown

Your crib sheet for the comings and goings in the art world this week and beyond…

…Sotheby’s is getting ready to move into the Marcel Breuer–designed landmark on Madison Avenue later this year, and we here at True Colors have been fixated on one thing in particular: What restaurant is gonna take over the space in the basement? When the Met Breuer had the lease it was occupied by Flora Bar, a restaurant from Estela owner Ignacio Mattos; when it was the Frick Madison, the space had a Joe Coffee. Now we can reveal that the new Sotheby’s HQ will come with a restaurant owned, run, and dreamed up by the duo Roman and Williams—the nom de design of Stephen alically and Robin Standefer. They’ve designed a number of iconic spots in the city, such as the Boom Boom Room and Le Coucou. This will be the second restaurant where they are the proprietors as well, after La Mercerie in lower SoHo. Perhaps that spot’s chef, Marie-Aude Rose, will be at helm in the kitchen as well? We can only speculate. Regardless, great choice all around.

…Cattelan’s Comedian may have been the starriest artwork in the Meta ads for its AI collaboration with Ray-Ban—but if that’s all you watched, you missed another equally awesome artist cameo. In one of the shorter spots, we see Chris Hemsworth in front of Urs Fischer’s Untitled, a 2011 work that’s a self-portrait of the artist sitting with a bottle of wine, a life-size sculpture made of wax that’s meant to be melted down and then replaced. Sort of like the banana, if you eat it. And then Chris Pratt walks up and asks the Meta AI function inside his glasses, “Hey, Meta, tell me about this artist.” “Urs Fischer is known for his unconventional work,” says the AI, in what I suppose is meant to be the robot’s curator-like lilt. And then they knock off Fischer’s wax head and freak out. What a time for conceptual art! Urs Fischer and Maurizio Cattelan in Super Bowl ads!

…Big news for Justified fans: Walton Goggins has a pretty decent art collection upstate. Our pals at Architectural Digest visited the Hudson Valley home of Goggins and his wife, Nadia Conners. Not only does it have a speakeasy where Edna St. Vincent Millay scrawled her name on the wall, there are works by Danny Fox, Wes Lang, and Tracy Nakayama. “Walt doesn’t buy a Porsche; he buys a Kerry James Marshall. That’s what he’ll stretch for,” said Conners. Amen to that.

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