LA Dealer Stefan Simchowitz Aiming for Dianne Feinstein’s Senate Seat

Controversial Los Angeles–based gallerist Stefan Simchowitz has revealed that he isrunning for the US Senate seatleft vacant when California Democrat Dianne Feinstein died last fall. The South Africa–born Simchowitz, famouslydubbedthe “patron Satan” of the art world, is running as one of fifteen Republicans vying for the role against a number of Democrats, among them Representatives Barbara Lee, Katie Porter, and Adam Schiff. Announcing via anInstagram storyshortly after Feinstein’s death that he would be running as a “progressive compassionate Republican,” Simchowitz, who gained a reputation for snapping up young emerging artists for his eponymous gallery and thendividingtheir work to reap greater profits, has said he is pursuing a centrist platform, and that he has no illusions about actually winning. “I’m a Don Quixote character,” he told theArt Newspaper. “I’m running to basically build a platform that I believe is correct and fair.”RelatedIAN WARDROPPER TO DEPART AS DIRECTOR OF FRICKPOLAND ANNOUNCES ARTIST CHANGE FOR 2024 VENICE BIENNALE Simchowitz toldArtnetNewsthat though he does not expect to win, his candidacy is “not a joke, this is not some stupid art performance.

This is a real thing.” He hopes to focus on homelessness and on revamping the economy, which he believes can be done by printing more currency until there is enough to ensure full employment for all citizens, in accordance with modern monetary theory. “Every day I drive around Los Angeles and I see homeless people,” he told theArt Newspaper. “I speak to friends who lose their jobs and can’t find a place to live. I speak to friends who can’t afford health insurance.

I see fear and terror economically. I see young people in their twenties not having fun or dating, and sharing rooms with five other people. It’s totally dehumanizing, and it’s not the country that I moved to.” Other planks of hisplatforminclude education, regarding which he champions vocational training and the increased enrollment of freshmen by institutions in accordance with the growth of their endowments; and government reform, in regard to which he advocates for bipartisan cooperation in Congress..