Person of Interest Detained Regarding Death of Brent Sikkema

Police in Rio de Janeiro have arrested a suspect in connection with the death of New York galleristBrent Sikkema. Sikkema, the founder and co-owner of noted contemporary art gallery Sikkema Jenkins & Co., was found dead in bed at his home in the city’s tony Jardim Botânico neighborhood on January 15. He appeared to have been stabbed repeatedly with an object thought to be scissors, a box cutter, or a screwdriver, in the course of a robbery. Multiple outlets report that the suspect, a thirty-year-old Cuban man named Alejandro Triana Trevez, was nabbed at a gas station in the inland Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, and that he had with him cash and jewelry thought to have been stolen from Sikkema. Brazilian television networkO Globorevealed that Trevez was believed to have arrived in Rio de Janeiro in a car borrowed from a friend in São Paulo, and, after returning there, to have purchased a car with some of the funds he is alleged to have swiped from the unfortunate dealer.RelatedJOAN MITCHELL FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES 2024 ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCEGORDON PARKS FOUNDATION NAMES 2024 FELLOWS Footage from security cameras outside Sikkema’s residence showed a man exiting the passenger side of a car parked across the street from the gallerist’s building at about 3:42 a.m. on January 14.

He enters the building and departs about fourteen minutes later, appearing to strip off a pair of gloves—unusual, since it is summer in Brazil. He reenters the vehicle on the driver’s side, and drives off at 4:02 a.m. According toHyperallergic, which spoke with the security firm that owned the cameras, the car had been parked outside the residence for fourteen hours. TheAssociated Pressreported that Detective Felipe Curi, who helms the state police homicide unit, said that Trevez was believed to have driven from São Paulo to Rio for the purpose of committing thecrime, which is being investigated as a theft leading to homicide. Trevez is being held on a thirty-day prison warrant, while law enforcement officials work to determine whether the two men knew each other. Sikkema in 1991 established Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

as Wooster Gardens in SoHo before renaming the operation and moving it to Manhattan’s then-burgeoning Chelsea district in 1999. The gallery gave Kara Walker her first-ever New York show, in 1995, and helped to launch the careers of artists including Mark Bradford, Deana Lawson, Arlene Shechet, Shahzia Sikander, and Amy Sillman..