Billionaire art collectors fight over Giacometti sculpture The Nose

Billionaire art collectors rarely air their deals or dirty laundry out in public. But a battle between a pair of boldfaced names over an Alberto Giacometti sculpture is now playing out in the open, shining a rare light on a global market featuring unlicensed agents, multi-million-dollar handshake deals and pervasive secrecy.

- Ephrat Livni

Chinese crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun, 34, and American entertainment executive David Geffen, 82, are slinging written accusations at each other in federal court in New York, each claiming to be the rightful owner of Giacometti's Le Nez (The Nose).

Along a trail stretching from New York and Singapore to Paris and back to the United States, Mr Sun says the sculpture was secretly sold by a dishonest adviser and sued for its return from Mr Geffen, who recently struck back, accusing Mr Sun of devising an elaborate fraud because he regrets the sale.

Adding to the tangle is an agent who might or might not be to blame, and might or might not be in a Chinese detention centre.

At a 2021 auction in New York, Mr Sun, who founded crypto platform Tron in Singapore, paid US$78.4 million (S$102.4 million) for Le Nez, a mid-century work of bronze, steel and iron depicting a head, suspended in an open cage and boasting a very long nose.

Mr Geffen, who is the founder of Geffen Records, in turn, bought the sculpture in 2024 while it was on loan to the Giacometti Institute in Paris.