Yeah, It’s Possible to Have Too Much Money

Huh. Art is a tough business and apparently even millionaire artists have to take on the occasional private commission to get by.

Whether you loved or hated J. Seward Johnson Jr.’s life-sized, hyperreal bronze statues that popped up across downtown Albany this past summer, it’s interesting to note that some other works by the sculptor recently got drawn into a lawsuit brought by Prince Jefri of Brunei against his former business advisors.

But back to the statues—the best illustration of the strangely over-the-top nature of this case. There are a half dozen of them, made of bronze with a surface of skin-toned trompe-l’oeil, depicting the prince and his fiancée, Las Vegas siren Micha Raines, naked and life-size (and in certain particulars bigger than life-size) in various graphic sexual positions.