Nelson Saiers

This work comments on the extreme compensation and in some instances large exit packages (golden parachute) many Wall Street CEOs received leading up to 2008 crash. The painting includes a gold $1-dollar coin next to the words "heads I win tails you lose". These elements point to the fact that executives were often handsomely rewarded whether their institutions were profitable or not. Many of these institutions were subsequently bailed out by the US taxpayer, i.e. us. The choice to use Warren Harding's image on the coin has several interpretations including an interesting anecdote from his life. Harding, who was president from 1920-23, paid off a personal poker debt by giving away White House china, property owned by the US taxpayer. Other elements of the piece include crossed out versions of the word "win" written in larger and larger font. This points to the never-ending pull of money and greed that played a major role in the crisis: no matter how great the win, even more was desired.

“What a Mess” tells the story of JP Morgan’s purchase of Bear Stearns through a complex personification and imagined exchange between the heads of each at different moments in time. During financial panics, the legendary investor J.P. Morgan was known for playing the card game solitaire while contemplating different strategies and bailouts. Jimmy Cayne, the ex-CEO of Bear Stearns, would regularly disappear from work to play bridge even as his firm plunged towards it demise. The failing of Bear Stearns led to JP Morgan (the firm not its deceased namesake) buying Bear for $2 (later upped to $10). These two elements motivate the fictional letter scribbled on the piece: "hey jimmy, I’ll give you $2 (10) but next time you should play solitaire. Regards, jp morgan."

Drawing on the actual events of the negotiations between the companies, Saiers also brings the practical elements to life. During a frantic weekend of negotiations between JP Morgan, Bear, and the Fed, one potential offer disappeared, only to be replaced by another after the Fed invoked section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act which allowed it to help “bailout" a portion of Bear Stearns. The urgent and exhaustive communications over this pivotal weekend demanded a cell phone that was well charged and not dead. The artist used numerous cell phone

chargers dangling from the painting as a reminder of the multitude of actors at play in a deal of this magnitude, and how the complexity plays out practically.

“Getting long” is a phrase that means to buy a security. One of the greatest trades of the last 10 years was getting long (buying) bank stocks/debt in early spring 2009. At the time people were very fearful that the banks would continue to fail and even be nationalized by the government.  It turns out the US Treasury had just published a white paper outlining their plans to protect the banks and in some regards buy stock significantly over the levels that they were trading at.  One could think of it as knowing the plays of a football team. In many ways buying bank securities was the ultimate case of “bottom fishing” (buying deeply depreciated assets hoping they will turn around).

Citibank was one of the pioneers of complex offshore off balance sheet products. More broadly speaking these complex derivatives were one of the causes of the 2008 crash. The CEO of Citibank Charles Prince notoriously and delusionally told the Financial Times as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance. We’re still dancing,” a short time before the 2008 Crash .  "Purple rain" references the musician Prince's iconic dance song and purple drank points to the almost drunk blindness of Citis Princes' remark before the "power went out" on the financial markets.

Much of the cause of the crash was caused by excessive and unrealistic greed across the entire spectrum of society. This concept is one of the themes of F Scott Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby. An important line form the book was "It was when curiosity about Gatsby was at its highest that the lights in his house failed to go on one Saturday night “.

Yo Cuz is a commentary on the advent of WW 1 and the global stock exchange closures that resulted from it.

Archduke Francis Ferdinand was assassinated by a Serbian terrorist after his driver made a wrong turn.  The resulting aggression between Serbia and Austria Hungary drew two of their allies Germany and Russia into the possible conflict.  A series of wires between their respective leaders Kaiser Wilhelm and Czar Nicholas (who were first cousins)  failed to thwart all of Europe being dragged into a bloodbath that would kill 30 million people and cause the closure of almost every global exchange on July 31 1914.

The piece turns these wires into a modern day iphone conservation and abstractly asks various financial questions such as where the VIX would have been on July 31, 1914 (given the nonstandard uncertainty of WW1 and the inability to forecast how and when options would mature).

The imagery also points to a cue ball in the process of striking another ball causing a chain reaction of motion.  This is relevant to the events leading to WW1, but it also hints at the cause of some financial crashes. Often a triggering event such as the collapse of Lehman Brothers (or the Knickerbocker Trust) causes the rest of the market to follow suit leading to a market crash.

Midas Loses His Touch Chashing His Tail addresses the hyperinflation experienced by Germany in 1923 (the ultimate financial "tail event"}. A decade earlier Germany took their currency off the gold standard.  Due to the substantial reparations levied on them after WW1 they aggressively printed money only to see their currency depreciate at a similar rate leading an important English commentator to remark,  "In the whole course of history, no dog has ever run after its own tail with the speed of the Reichsbank." The series of pairs of circles hints at the head and tail chasing one another.  The space-like imagery points to the exchange rate of Germany whose exponential rise would best be described by the phrase "to the moon".

At age 17, Michelangelo almost died after being punched in the nose by a jealous rival potentially in response to a well-timed boast. As an artist, the great Florentine believed every piece of marble had a sculpture in it that needed to be set free which he was unrivaled at accomplishing. Once stating "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free". Unlike private equity which attempts to take a company and reshape it into a profitable improved enterprise, a derivative on an asset doesn't attempt to improve or affect the asset but instead uses the asset as merely a cog with which the derivative is based. In the piece, the word "derivative" is spelled out over a marble counter (over the counter derivative). The bespoke nature of these products is pointed to as the owner of the piece can adjust/stack the blocks in a number of ways as long as they continue to spell "derivative". Finally, Paul Volker criticized some of these products stating “The only thing useful banks have invented in 20 years is the ATM”.

This piece primarily centers around Gatsby, but more broadly, it wrestles with the unattainable pursuit of happiness through the constant accumulation of wealth, power, and success. In Gatsby's narrative, the green light perpetually lingered in the distance, symbolizing his unreachable dreams. In my artwork, the green light represents affluence. Within my painting, this green light sits at the end of a pathologic object (topological space) that has the property that if you start at a point on the curve point and travel along the curve to the left, you will never reach the origin. No matter how close the green light may appear—it remains infinitely far away. This is meant to respresent the never ending and futile quest for more and more and more power.

The word camel serves a dual purpose. Firstly, it references the camelback shape, but more profoundly, it embodies a creature well-suited to thrive in the barren desert—a hostile environment akin to the challenges we face. Rather than an oasis the lure of power and money is an elusive mirage.

2018

This piece addresses 3 important schemes and their inventors. Embedded throughout the work are hints and references that would point to (Charles) Ponzi scheme, Bernie Madoff’s scheme, and a scheme (the brilliant mathematical innovation of Grothendieck), a space of fundamental importance in modern algebraic geometry.

Quick Notes: Madoff’s published returns were remarkably consistent (like DiMaggio’s hitting streak that ended on the 57th game). (57 also relates to a “mistake” by Grothendieck). DiMaggios’s hit streak captivated the country during the summer of 41 and Ponzi arrogantly said his scheme was the “greatest show on earth”. Ponzi’s organization was called the Securities Exchange Company and the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) is an important regulatory agency. Two fundamental questions resulted in Madoff’s scheme: first, were people going to receive a 0 for their investment (here its represented with a standard math symbol being slightly modified to resemble a zero). Second, would SIPC cover account losses. One final point the math hinting at the scheme is written in a particularly confusing/complex way to obscure it. This is a a metaphor for Madoff’s ploy to hide his real intentions from plain sight with a very complex organizational structure..

Finally, prime ideals are important to algenbaic geometry’s schemes. Ponzi’s and Madoff’s scheme weren certainly not ideal.