Arts and Culture

NFT artist claims Anna Delvey has not paid back for past art exhibition

June 1, 2022 | 12:07pm

NFT artist claims Anna Delvey has not paid back for past art exhibition

In this file photo taken on May 9, 2019 Anna Sorokin is led away after being sentenced in Manhattan Supreme Court following her conviction last month on multiple counts of grand larceny and theft of services. Fake heiress Anna "Delvey" Sorokin, who was jailed in 2019 for scamming hundreds of thousands of dollars from hotels, banks and friends, and who inspired a hit series on Netflix, was to be extradited to Germany on March 14, 2022, US media said.

AFP / Timothy A. Clary

MANILA, Philippines — Anna Sorokin, better known as Anna Delvey, is looking to be in even bigger trouble after an art curator claimed Sorokin has yet to pay her back for expenses made for the "Free Anna Delvey" exhibition in New York City last March.

Sorokin is widely known for pretending to be a German heiress, scamming New York's high society and dodging having to pay hotels, restaurants, and banks, among others. Her mischievous acts became the subject of Netflix's miniseries "Inventing Anna."

She was sentenced to prison where she shifted her focus to creating artworks, which led to exhibitions like "Free Anna Delvey" and "Allegedly," which were held while she was incarcerated.

However, Julia Morrison, a non-fungible token (NFT) artist and curator who helped organize "Free Anna Delvey," has said Sorokin owes her around $8,000 (P419,000) for expenses made on her own credit card.

Morrison told the New York Post that she paid for “framing, printing, scanning, transportation, making t-shirts" and Sorokin has yet to pay her back, neither has the exhibition's co-curator Alfredo Martinez — once convicted for selling counterfeit artworks.

“I can’t afford to just throw $8,000 worth of Anna Delvey’s expenses on my card,” Morrison said. “I wasn’t doing it to be a good friend to her. I did it for the show, knowing that I’d be paid back."

A spokesperson for Sorokin said Morrison was mistaken and the convict was not directly responsible for Morrison’s exhibition expenses. Martinez meanwhile said, “She will get paid... We are still in the spending money phase of the project.”

Sorokin and Morrison are both represented by the Founders Art Club, the organization that held the "Allegedly" exhibition in New York.

Because of the incident, Morrison has said she no longer wants to work with Sorokin, “I try to see the good in people, their potential. Anna sees the good in people as something to exploit, surrounding herself with whoever has the potential to enrich her. Forget her.”