Freire and Boone went on to collaborate on an additional project—a
exhibition that stretched from Team to both of Boone’s New York locations—and they maintained a social relationship.
“I love to go to the movies, and Mary Boone, it seems, also loves to go to the movies,” Freire said. “It was like, why bother going to an art dinner in a boring art restaurant where you’ve got to whisper because everyone at the other tables works at some other art gallery? We would go to movies on the Upper West Side, on Sunday afternoons, Sunday mornings.”
Freire couldn’t recall any special, shared cinematic taste between the two of them, but he does have a visceral memory of bringing her to see Michael Haneke’s slow-burn thriller Caché (2005) at the New York Film Festival. “There’s a point in that movie where someone, seemingly out of nowhere, slits their own throat. And Mary grabbed my arm—she has kind of, you know, couture-y nails—and they went right into my arm. I thought to myself, ‘Make a note: Never take Mary Boone to see a scary movie again!’”
I asked Freire if he thought Boone would make a return to the New York art world once her prison term is up. Somewhat surprisingly, he said no—but not due to any failing on Boone’s part, nor because of any backlash from the community regarding her financial crimes.
“It’s not because of her, it’s because of the art world,” he said. “The increased corporatization of the art world is so accelerated that I think, give it another six months, and we won’t even recognize what it is
now. I look back on last year with nostalgia!” (Freire’s past year hasn’t been without
its own drama.)
It might just be that Boone—who cut her chops in the high-flying 1980s and became a dashing personality to be reckoned with—simply can’t compete in an age where international mega-galleries gobble up artists and estates.
“If she comes back, what is she going to come back
with, and what is she going to come back
to?” Freire asked. “Is she going to be a director at
Hauser & Wirth?”