Tom Sachs Promised a Fun Cult

The sculptor likes to call his studio part of his art practice. Working there could often be scary.

- KATY SCHNEIDER AND ADRIANE QUINLAN

IN FEBRUARY, an anonymous “Art World Family” posted a job listing for an executive personal assistant on the New York Foundation for the Arts’ website. The listing sought someone who could “make life easier for the couple in every way possible.” This meant picking up clothes from “high-end stores,” managing “all medical need requests,” helping with “rooftop garden maintenance” and “in-studio cats,” and learning complicated-sounding “closet” and “dog systems.” It went viral, and the New York Times covered it (the paper’s summation: “The ad combined a tone so blithe with a detailed list of tasks so unreasonable”). A few days later, Artnet revealed that the couple was likely artist Tom Sachs and his wife, former Gagosian director Sarah Hoover. Of course it was Tom Sachs, thought anyone who had ever worked for him. Those “systems” were the tell.