Tomaselli bonded with Moody and Lethem over their creative approaches but also over music. The three are members of the Brooklyn Record Club, a group of about 14 admitted music geeks who meet quarterly, usually at Tomaselli’s house. After dinner prepared by Tomaselli’s wife, Laura Miller (“a stunningly good cook,” Moody says), each member plays two songs, which everyone then discusses. MP3s are “slightly frowned upon,” Moody explains. “To be really cool at Record Club, you have to bring vinyl.”
Tomaselli and Miller’s Brooklyn set is decidedly arty, and their 11-year-old son, Desi, plays piano well and certainly knows his way around an easel. But perhaps in an early fit of filial rebellion, “he just really, really loves money more than anything,” Tomaselli says, somewhat chagrined. “I bought him some stocks one year for his birthday, and he reads the financial section of the Times every morning to see how the stocks are doing. The joke around our house is that he’s the cutest little Republican we know—he’s into guns, he’s into money, and he’s into, like, Nascar.” But there may be an upside: “He could take care of us in our old age because we know s--- about money.”
Tomaselli himself is still conflicted about the commercial aspects of being a successful artist, though he has tried to rationalize that, since his paintings are in many ways about desire, it’s appropriate that they be desired. “But I still have some issues with that, especially in the last 10 years or so,” he says. “The dialogue in the art world has been way tilted towards money and status and celebrity. Now nobody’s selling any art, and a lot of nice people are going to go out of business. But there are a lot of a--holes that are going to leave too, so it’s a blessing in disguise.”
While he says works in a spring show at White Cube in London are moving respectably, he admits he’d grown accustomed to his shows selling out before even opening and to his primary gallery, James Cohan in New York’s Chelsea, having a waiting list of collectors. “Well, they can name their price now,” he says with a laugh. “They also get a chance to kick the tires and to, like, grouse a little bit, you know, ‘I couldn’t get one when things were good, now you’re coming at me on your hands and knees, huh? I want you to dance first.’”
Joking aside, Tomaselli seems to have a healthy ego when it comes to the vagaries of the art market. When one collector recently admired a Tomaselli that was not available and inquired whether he would make another in the same vein, the artist’s answer was a simple no, he doesn’t make work to order. Still, Tomaselli wasn’t offended that the collector rejected other paintings that were for sale. “He’s a guy with a lot of money. That doesn’t make him an arbiter of what’s good and what’s bad,” Tomaselli says.
