nik

[Page Six @PageSix]

Replica of the stolen Cézanne shows up in MoMA’s lost and found — but is it art? https://t.co/rHfxHIPJjt

[New York Post @nypost]

Replica of the stolen Cézanne shows up in MoMA’s lost and found — but is it art? https://t.co/kbur6c8eww

[nik @nik47515191]

Replica of the stolen Cezanne ends up in MOMA's lost and found. Nelson Saiers slipped it in
https://t.co/E1jnDs0SN8

[nik @nik47515191]

NELSON SAIERS, WHATS THE POINT OF THIS PLACE
2022

This piece is a bit too complex to explain at this point, but ill gjve a quick exposition and a hint. Fundamentally the work is about the topos (mathematical term), which means “place” in Greek, ie one interpretation could be what is the point of this mathematical concept. But then it hints at literally a point of a topos (like you might describe a point in geometry). A topos is the category of all sheafs over a site. Words like sheaf and stalk certainly apply to Kansas where Dorthy’s house was on a farm, but also to a topos. A giant of 20th century math, Grothendieck, developed important ideas during his several year tenure at U. of Kansas before moving back to Europe. The phrase "we arent in Kansas anymore" (or "maybe we never left") has many interpretations but one interpretation relates to the idea that many of his ideas about the topos which he developed in France had some of their origins in his prior work in Kansas. Dorthy’s travels to Kansas was actually dream. Grothendieck, assigned significant value to dreams. A (geometric) morphism is a concept fundamental to the definition of a point of a topos and has the same first 5 letters as morpheus,, who relates to dreams. Here ”morph” and “dream” are written.

Toto is "represented" by the loyal dog at the feet of Venus in Titian's iconic painting Venus of Urbino.

[nik @nik47515191]

NELSON SAIERS, THE BIG LONG
“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).

The tiny shapes - triangles, squares, and circles - are visual representations of Saiers hedge fund’s main algorithm converted into Braille.

#nelsonsaiers #wallst

[nik @nik47515191]

Saiers hedge fund achieved recognition in 2011 by winning the HFMWeek award for top relative value hedge fund.

[nik @nik47515191]

When Manet's painting Olympia was brought to the United States for the very first time for the Manet/Degas exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Saiers placed fake THE MET brochures featuring Olympia in the museum to draw attention to sex trafficking. The timing was interesting because it created a parallel between Manet's 1865 scandal and Saiers’ 2024 commentary. When first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1865, Manet's work shocked French society as the naked courtesan confronts the viewer with her stare (which insinuates that the viewer is her customer). When Olympia was exhibited in the US for the first time, Saiers used this piece to shed light on those who are illegally trafficked.

[nik @nik47515191]

On the night of Dec 4, 2024, outside the NY Fed, Nelson Saiers inflated the Bitcoin Rat with a “BTC $100,000” sign — just a few hours before Bitcoin reached its ATH of $100K, making history. Talk about the intuition of star quant Saiers. #bitcoin #bitcoinrat #bitcoin100k #nelsonsaiers #TheFed

[nik @nik47515191]

Exec Ord 6102 was signed on Apr 5 1933 the same year a theorem central to BTC was proven. Satoshi's bday is Apr 5. The Fed's inept actions helped worsen the great depression instead of dampening the business cycle. A motif in this work is a rat on a cycle...
Nelson Saiers, RAT

[nik @nik47515191]

You are looking at an art installation by Nelson Saiers. This work portrays a street vendor selling “rug pulls” in front of the Securities Exchange Commission’s (SEC) office, similar to the street vendors commonly seen peddling “fake” luxury products in Manhattan(see 1, 2., or 3). A rug pull in the cryptocurrency world is a scam where developers abandon a project and take their investors' money. In this art work they are rugs with "Pull----->" spray painted on them. The overall simplicity of this installation is designed to reflect the simplicity often found in many of these unlawful scams. Many of these were not intricate schemes (like you encounter with Enron), but rather straightforward acts of theft.

Finally, the items in the small cart add to the story and explain various aspects of these scams.

Background:

Illicit crypto schemes have siphoned off billions of dollars from unsuspecting victims. In the artist's opinion, the SEC's shortcomings extended beyond merely failing to safeguard investors. While he acknowledges they have a very difficult job it seems they were too lax in some ways but also too aggressive in others. He feels their rejection of certain investments may have unfortunately led some investors into more fraudulent products. #nelsonsaiers

[nik @nik47515191]

Here Bitcoin rat is installed outside NY Federal Reserve on Maiden Lane October 2018 for 10 yrs Bitcoin anniversary. A modified smaller version visited Jekyll Island, the secret birthplace of the Fed, on Sep 18 2024.
Then on the night of Dec 4 2024 the Bitcoin rat was inflated again outside the NY Fed a few hours before BTC hits its ATH of $100k.

Warren Buffet called Bitcoin "rat poison squared". Well if the Fed is a rat maybe being rat poison is a good thing.

This piece was created for the 10 year anniversary of Bitcoin. Embedded into Bitcoin is a dislike of bank bailouts (genesis block) and fiat currencies. So naturally a "protest" piece placed at the Federal Reserve seemed like a natural choice. In NYC unions/workers often place inflatable rats outside buildings as a form of protest against the building's owners. Unlike the brown rats used in these demonstrations, this Bitcoin rat was colored white similar to lab rats.. This choice was made as the 2008 Fed bailouts were a "laboratory" experiment in economics (eg. the size, the techniques, etc).. The imagery of rats also seemed appropriate as Warren Buffet called Bitcoin "rat poison squared". Well if the Fed is a rat maybe being rat poison is a good thing. (see below for another peripheral reason for the rat imagery).

The rat sculpture is covered in Bitcoin code and one of its eyes has POW. POW is a common acronym for proof of work (core to BTC), but it is also the expression in Roy Lichtenstein's epic painting "Sweet Dreams Baby". This reference is comically asking will proof of work knock out the Fed and fiat currencies. In 2008, the Bitcoin rat was placed on the Maiden Lane side of the New York Federal Reserve. In addition to being a street in Lower Manhattan, it is also the name of several LLCs constructed to bail out AIG and Bear Stearns in 2008 so it seemed the natural spot for this installation.

Nelson Saiers, Bitcoin rat
#nelsonsaiers #bitcoinrat

[nik @nik47515191]

Nelson Saiers, Seven
This is a cursory first draft which serves as an incomplete introduction to the work. This art work focuses on Mickey Mantle, spheres, toplogy, and the number 7. Topology's first results come from the great Leonhard Euler: the seven Bridges of Konnisberg problem and his Polyhedron formula for the 2-sphere. John Milnor revolutionized topology with his discovery of the exotic 7-sphere in 1956, for which he won the Fields Medal and essentially every other prestigious math award. Mantle wore number 7, won 7 World Series, and achieved his best year in 1956, winning the Triple Crown. 7 years after discovering his exotic 7-sphere Milnor, jointly with Kervaire (M-K), went on to classify large swaths of these exotic spheres which also led tp the Kervaire invariant problem for framed manifolds. Their work relied heavily on mathematical surgery. Mantle tore his right ACL and badly needed surgery. One of many interesting aspects of M-K’s work is they show a portion of the classification of exotic spheres ties to the Bernoulli numbers. In essence constructing a “bridge” between topology and number theory. Several hundred years earlier, Euler gave an interesting definition of the Bernoulli numbers and he proved one of the first theorems of topology with the 7 bridges of Konnisberg problem.

Mantle's seven was retired in 1969. 1969 was also the year, Browder, who later chaired Princeton's math department, proved a substantial result in the continued classification of exotic spheres in particular the Kervaire invariant problem eg. showing it was necessary that n had to equal 2^k-2 for the Kervaire invariant to be nonzero.

The story continues starting with the hyperbolically named Doomsday Conjecture, an exaggerated name given to an esoteric conjecture in math about framed manifolds having nonzero Kervaire invariant. The horrifying, yet slightly humorous, tone is due to the fact that some important work on problems such as the homotopy groups of spheres, would be nullified if it were confirmed. An important paper written in 2009 shows there exists a spectrum (cohomology theory) with several interesting properties including a Gap theorem. This enabled the authors to resolve a large part of the Kervaire invariant problem, only leaving the case n=2^7-2 open.

Some other details in the artwork include the fact Mantle and Milnor were both born in 1931 and there were two Yankees players who had their number 8 retired.

[nik @nik47515191]

Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase & Luis Ortiz indicted on federal fraud & bribery charges for rigging pitches in 2023 gambling scheme. Took bribes to tip pitches, linked to $400K+ illegal bets. Both on leave; face 20 yrs. Emmanuel Clase was reportedly paid $7,000 for each ball he intentionally threw.
https://t.co/QmN8sOw3hl

[nik @nik47515191]

In Nov 1910, Sen Aldrich led a secret meeting of top bankers disguised as duck hunters ('First Name Club') on Jekyll Island to sketch out a central bank. Forbes called the meeting the “strangest, most secretive expedition in the history of American finance.” 3 year later Pres Wilson created the Fed. https://t.co/qpPJ264QYc

[nik @nik47515191]

In Nov 1910, Sen Aldrich led a secret meeting of top bankers disguised as duck hunters ('First Name Club') on Jekyll Island to sketch out a central bank. Forbes called the meeting the “strangest, most secretive expedition in the history of American finance.” 3 year later Pres Wilson created the Fed. https://t.co/qpPJ264QYc

[nik @nik47515191]

The painting on the left is called Shadow, by Nelson Saiers. What are shadows made of? In shadow banking, they’re made of SIVs, asset-backed commercial paper, SPVs, and repos — with $100,000,000,000,000 (or more?) circulating unseen through the financial system. Ask Cézanne (not the economist Paul McCulley), who studied shadows and profoundly shaped modern art, most notably Cubism — and whose father was a banker. """Coincidence? I don't think so."""