“Sugar,” I said, “I didn’t know de Kooning talked like the Oracle in The Matrix.”
“No no no, I’m serious, Erickson. Don’t you get it?” Those dark bright eyes on me. “De Kooning has given me my first truly epic idea. I’m ready for it, too. I’m blooming, finally.”
“I think you need a second opinion,” I told her.
But she wasn’t listening. She’d already decided what this dream meant, and if I didn’t get it, she didn’t care.
LINCOLN REED: No, I didn’t understand the de Kooning dream at first. When she explained her interpretation of it, I thought she was kidding. Because she had somehow decided, from this one little dream, that de Kooning had appeared to her to tell her to steal her portrait out of the Whitney.
“I’d be very careful with this concept,” I told her. “It’s one thing to sneak a few fancy dresses out of Bergdorf’s, or even FedEx-deliver yourself a bathtub. But to attempt to illegally remove your own art from a famous museum? Why would you bite the hand that’s feeding you? And why risk being arrested, and having that on your record?”
“No, no, Linc,” she answered, “I’m replacing the portrait in the Whitney with a video of me stealing me. I’m taking back what’s mine. I’m claiming what is valuable. I’m swapping one art form for another. So everyone will come away happy. Best possible outcome.”
I said, “Jail is also a possible outcome.”
ADDISON STONE (from her own recorded notes): I’m moving ahead with this project. De Kooning knew better than anyone how artists need to be in constant metamorphosis. We make something, and we want the world to see it, but then we want to make it all over again, with a new skewering. Which reminded me of that Emily Dickinson quote that English teachers love too much: “tell all the truth but tell it slant.” Because your truth, your way, is always slant. And I think I could make my slant amazing. I want to be my own curator, to give with one hand and grab with the other. Now that I’ve been handed this idea, I’ll do everything in my power to execute it.
DOMINICK LUTZ: Addison was a straight-up adrenaline junkie. She disguised her junkie need by calling it art. But. When she came to me with this objective—to steal her own self-portrait, the only self-portrait she’d ever done, out of the Whitney, and then swap in a video of herself performing this magic trick, I had to say, “Well, f**k yeah. Let me in.” I thought it was so pure, so courageous. It made me think about—What is theft? What’s this act that is defined as “theft” when you’re stealing the property you yourself created? Is it a felony? Is it art?
I didn’t know. I didn’t care.
CAMERON LUTZ: Getting on board with Addison’s vision took me a while. Okay, it took me a whole night out with Addison and Lincoln and Paloma and Dom. In the end, I agreed. I was—still am—the cautious brother. I’m also the tech brother. So it was up to me to learn about the security system in the Whitney. We ended up calling the whole job Project #53, because that was Addison’s placement in the show, hers the fifty-third piece of art. That number was how Addison’s work appeared in all the security blueprints and maps. If I live to be a hundred, and I need to bullet the top ten most incredible things that I ever did, Project #53 would be—bam—right at the top of that timeline.
LUCY LIM: Addison was calling me a lot around then. She didn’t write me emails. She was paranoid that Zach was paying spies and moles at Bing and Yahoo and Google to report all her activity back to him. But she’d call to talk through Project #53. How the Lutz brothers were going to master the technical aspects. Sometimes she spoke about the general risk aspects—she sometimes worried about how they might all get caught, and what the punishment would be.
Mostly she was on a high from the idea.
“Finally, Lu!” Practically screaming it into the phone. “Finally, Lu! Finally!” So sincere, I’d never have the heart to pop her balloon. I mean, finally? She’d been in New York for less than a year!
But for the very first time, my gut told me she wasn’t taking the best care of herself. “Don’t forget, Addy. An apple a day keeps Glencoe away.”
“Not if it’s Snow White’s apple,” she answered.
“Ha ha ha. Keep eating right, and take your Z,” I’d always say it jokingly, casually. But I was also creeping around online, reading up on antipsychotic medications, hoping Jones and Tuttenbauer and the Fieldbenders were listening to Addy as hard as I was.
Lincoln also called me a few times, because he suspected that Addy had been self-weaning onto a lower dosage. Lincoln said that Addison often spoke about wanting to “get clean,” a.k.a. off Z completely. And he told me she was definitely borrowing some of his regime, not skipping meals, getting her sleep, taking Citi Bike. She felt good and strong, and she hated that her personality was being filtered through an anti-psychotic medication. Getting off Z would be the last step to health.
One thing that can be true of people with Addy’s exact mental health problems is they think if they’re happy and busy and the sun is out and life is smiling on them, then why do they need this little pill? So they think maybe the pill’s got nothing to do with it. Maybe, hallelujah, they’re cured? Then they go off the pill on the DL, and they’re back in the storm with their demons before anyone knew they’d wandered off. The other downside is that once you ease off a medication like Zyprexa, there’s no assurance it stays the right key to lock those demons back up and get you out safe.
All to say, I wanted Project #53 to be over and done with.
MAXWELL BERGER: Project #53. Did I know about it? No. Did not. Not until it happened. Not until I read it in the headlines. When I saw Addison, at various galleries and shows, she’d give me her usual earful. She’d never forgiven me for the Mirror Mirror piece, which had come out in February. Although frankly, I’d thought it had been very good for her brand. But she disrespectfully disagreed.
Addison caught in conversation with Max Berger at the Joaquin Capa exhibit, spring, courtesy of Kate Volkmann.
MARIE-CLAIRE BROYARD: Well, she wasn’t going out as much—not at night, certainly, but not much by day, either. Over that winter, we used to have these fun “Red Door” afternoons, where I’d scoop Addison off to Elizabeth Arden and pummel her into a manicure and brow wax and facials. General maintenance! Skin gets so dry in winter, dearie.