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You can't believe me. 450,000. Give me five. What is this? Chameleon. Season six, Gallery of Lies. A production of Campside Media. Oh. Devil on the ground. The Bench. In the fall of 2022, a documentary film about Helga Achenbach premiered at the Cologne Film Festival. It's called Der Illusionist, which, as you may have guessed, translates to The Illusionist.
It chronicles Helga's long life and career in the arts, his big breaks, and even some of his less triumphant moments. It was made by Birgit Schulz, a film and TV director with a long list of credits to her name. This past spring, the film was screened in a theater in Dusseldorf's Old Town neighborhood, and Helga was there as an honored guest. He attended with his friend or girlfriend or who knows, Aisha. Anna Burlett was there too.
The auditorium has about 190 seats, and Helga said there was so much interest they added a second showing that night. After the film's credits rolled, he told us, about 75 people gathered in a Spanish restaurant next door to toast the movie, the successful screening, and, of course, himself. And he was feeling good, despite a handful of detractors in the audience. A few critics, gallerists, and art world denizens who aren't terribly fond of him.
Seeing his life flicker before his eyes, up there on the big screen, Helga was moved. And of course it was touchy sometimes, seeing old history, parts of my life, the success time, the prison, my first visit of a friend when I was in the prison, when I came out and all these things. So it was really, for me, also a kind of emotion.
The release of the film and the subsequent press attention has been like an oxygen blast for Helga. He's attended screenings in several cities around Germany. He's spoken to the press about the film. From what Mac and I can gather, Helga seems proud of The Illusionist. On his Instagram, he pinned a story that features a 14-week countdown to the Dusseldorf screening. In between, there are shots of Helga painting in a room at Culture Without Borders. There's Helga on a boat wearing the Amish Pharrell hat. One of the last images is of The Illusionist poster.
Helga in a lake, facing the camera. The water's up to his lips. He's smiling and flashing a V for victory with the fingers of his right hand. What he shows to the world, in other words, is a beautiful, easy life, full of happiness, purpose, and friendship. But the story playing out behind the pictures is more complicated. In Helga's wake, he's left a lake full of broken relationships. I'm sorry.
From Campside Media, in association with Sony Music Entertainment, I'm Bijan Stephen, and this is Chameleon, Gallery of Lies. Episode 5, Illusions. You're listening to Chameleon from Campside Media.
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You're listening to Chameleon from Campside Media. I should point out that the illusionist isn't just hagiography. As Helga mentioned, Schultz has also captured some of the less photogenic moments of his life. When someone mentions that Helga hosted a seminar on the concept of radical honesty, for example, his ex-wife Dorothy simply bursts out laughing. A review of the film on a German culture website says that it, quote, portrays a man whose desire for advancement eventually turned into greed.
The review also offers this comment on Helga: "Achenbach seems like a nice guy. He's enthusiastic and can be very convincing." But once you've listened to him for a while, you discover the less honorable motivations behind his behavior. At a fair, he tries to explain his fascination with art to a camera crew. But all he really talks about is money and prestige. With the illusionist screening around Germany and Helga back in the news, not everyone has been thrilled to see his reemergence.
In the spring, according to Helga's lawyer, he was negotiating with Babette Albrecht's lawyer, Andreas Urban, to avoid further court action. Part of what was at issue, according to Helga's lawyer, was how Babette was discussed publicly. Helga's lawyer seems to suggest that Urban wanted there to be no public discussion of Babette at all. When Helga first told us about having Urban back in his life, he sounded defiant. He said it was his right to say what he wanted. He has his freedom of speech.
He sounded like he relished the idea of going back to court against Urban, confident that this time he would emerge the winner. But by the time we spoke with Helga again, after the Dusseldorf screening, something in him had changed. When Mack and I brought up what he told us about the recent threats by Urban, Helga seemed much more resigned to accepting the lawyer's demand that he not utter Bebet's name. He seemed tired of fighting. With Dr. Urban, we agreed that...
whatever, and we should not even talk now about it in the details, but I think they are not interested to be with me on court. Helge says now that it's best for everyone if he keeps quiet and the Albrechts stay out of the spotlight. I think they would get a lot of public relations through this. So the situation is that we decided I'm not talking anymore
It occurs to me that this should be a moment of triumph for Helge. He's the star of a largely flattering feature documentary. The German media is once again paying attention to him. And this time, that's not because of the way he screwed over a client. If Helge has some Norma Desmond in him, which I believe he most certainly does, he's been pining for another close-up for years.
But just when it arrives, he's not able to fully enjoy the warmth of the bright lights. Instead, he's got the aggressive lawyer of one of the world's wealthiest women watching his every move. And when he turns his gaze away from the movie screen, he's forced to confront the real toll his actions have had on his friends and family. While we're in Dusseldorf, Mac and I want to check out a gallery that David Achenbach owns and runs with his girlfriend.
We're curious to see the space and the art, sure. But more than anything, we'd like to talk with one of the sons Helga had with his second wife. David, after all, is the only one of Helga's eight children who has gone into the family business. And so it's easy to assume he's got a unique perspective on his dad's slippery psychology. We pilot Bertie through a gentle rain and park around the corner from the gallery.
We're buzzed into the door on the street, walk up a flight of stairs, and arrive in a small, well-lit room. An assistant greets us. After some confused back and forth about what exactly we're doing there, she wanders into a back office to see if David is available to speak. Which means we have a moment to check out the current show. It's called Shift and Shine by the German artist Sabrina Podemsky.
The central piece, hanging in the middle of one of a few rooms, is a boxing heavy bag rendered in white ceramic. It's held to the ceiling by chains. Looking at it, in the context of our mission to speak with Helga's art dealer son, feels at once strange, appropriate, and evocative. David's assistant returns. Okay, so we'll... Oh, we have to make an appointment? We can't. No. Because we have to...
Yeah, we have to. That's okay. That's fine. We appreciate him taking the time to decline to speak with us. Later that day, our producer Henry emails the gallery to see if we can make an appointment with David. The response is positive, and it seems like it might actually happen. But then the message has become less certain. The assistant writes, Unfortunately, David will not be able to do an official podcast interview at all.
His PR agent advises him not to do it. He's open for a conversation about him, but not about his father. I have to say, I find the honesty in this note refreshing. And I get it. Touchy subject and all. That's fine, Henry responds. Let us know when we can set something up with David. At which point, the gallery assistant ghosts. And Mac and I are forced to confront the accumulation of ghosts all around us.
Like when we tried to talk with Dorothy, Helga's ex-wife, and Lily, his daughter, almost the exact same thing happened. Initially, Dorothy and Lily sounded game to talk, and we got as far as sorting out a time to meet on the Saturday night that Mac and I were in Dusseldorf. But then, Dorothy texted saying she wanted to cancel the interview. She didn't want to meet. She did say, however, that we could read the text she wrote explaining why.
Here's our intrepid interpreter Minoo again, this time playing the role of Dorothy Achenbach. Good morning, Mac. We just discussed a bit. Neither Lily nor I want to talk about the person. Sorry, but after all these years of tears, pain, incredible fights and fears he caused to me, to the children, to the whole family and his employees, we have a good and happy life with a fulfilling job now.
Whenever somebody dares to say just a little bit the truth or criticize him, he's insulted and he gets very, very unpleasant. Please understand this. We just want peace. Good luck and success, Dorothy. I can't argue with that. But I still wondered what specifically Dorothy was alluding to. Some clues can be found in an interview she gave to a German television station.
Here she is, talking about the first chaotic moments after Helga's arrest. The first time a marshal came, the children were alone at home. My son called me. He was completely beside himself. And I thought, no, this can't really be happening. It was a dreadful day and it started to dawn on me that our lives would change forever. Dorothy quickly came to terms with the realities of a new life for her and her children.
I don't buy clothes anymore, we don't go out for food, but I don't mind that at all. What's awful is losing your sense of security, not knowing how to get by the next month, how to cope with the situation. That's the worst part, not knowing what the next day will bring. It really took a toll on all of us.
There's even a clue or two in The Illusionist, like when Dorothy describes how she felt the day Helga was released from jail. I am convinced, and that's what I've learned from all of this, is that people cannot really change, not on a fundamental level anyway, especially if they don't want to.
It was the reason why I decided to get a divorce in the end. On the day my ex-husband was allowed to leave prison temporarily for the very first time, I wanted to go for a walk with him, with our children and our dog. But the first thing Helge Achenbach decided to do was to meet with a journalist and do some kind of report.
The journalist accompanied him to his lawyer, to the doctor, and the supermarket. It was a huge PR thing. And that's when I realized he hadn't changed after all. He was still the same old Helge. We asked Helge what he made of Dorothy's statement in the film, and he emailed. Quote,
But in one point, it's clear: if you understand what you have done wrong, you always must work on yourself, not fall back in old habits.
David has also spoken in the past about his father and his father's fall. In an interview published on a German news website in 2019, David says he believes his dad was under financial stress by the time he started working with Berthold. He said, quote, This is something I'd wondered myself.
Was Helga simply hurting for cash when he decided to defraud Berthold? Helga had waved this idea away when I'd brought it up on Lanzarote, but at other times he told us he often had plenty of art in his possession and very little money. After his dad's arrest, David had a hard time adjusting. He told the German website, But ultimately, despite everything...
David seems to side with his dad in thinking that the collection Helga built for Berthold was truly remarkable, while his crime was perhaps not. I remember an abstract painting by Gerhard Richter, which is very important and was also shown in important exhibitions, David said. Without my father, Berthold would never have gotten there. If the collectors and gallery owners were honest, they would still work with my father again today. You're listening to Chameleon from Campside Media.
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In 1976, a man in Florida tells a cop he has a confession to make. Arriving in Miami, I proceeded to do certain things that I considered to be necessary in the crime that I planned to commit. I was looking for a hitchhiker, potential victim. But instead of becoming his victim, I became his confidant, one of the people closest to him, as he recounted and was tried for his horrific crimes.
From Orbit Media and Sony Music Entertainment, listen to My Friend the Serial Killer. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts to binge all episodes now, or listen weekly wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to Chameleon from Campside Media. When Mack and I first met Helga Achenbach on Lanzarote several months ago, he told us he thought that 80% of his art network abandoned him when he went to jail.
Wanting to better understand why they ditched him, we tried to speak with a couple of the bigger names on that list. Larry Gagosian has been among the most famous gallerists and dealers in the world for about 45 years. He opened his first gallery in Los Angeles in 1980, and a couple years later put on a show of Jean-Michel Basquiat's work. Over decades, he's represented Warhol, Cy Twombly, Willem de Kooning, Damien Hirst, and Jeff Koons, among many other stars.
Just last year, Gagosian bought a Warhol painting for $195 million, the most ever paid for a 20th century work of art in a public sale. Helga told us that at an LA art fair in 1990, Gagosian borrowed his booth for meetings with potential clients and customers. That seemed like an innocuous enough event, but when I called Gagosian and asked if he had a few minutes to talk about Helga, he repeated just a single word,
No. And hung up on me before I could even ask to record the conversation. Gerhard Richter is one of Helga's oldest friends. And while his response to my inquiry was not quite as cold as Gagosian's, the result was the same. Yeah, I think, you know, we just have a few questions for you about Helga and your relationship with him.
That's not me. Mr. Richter is not at the phone. Ah, right, of course. So you're here in the studio, that's okay, but you can't speak to him. Is there a chance we could maybe speak to him later? Do you think he would be interested in talking to us?
I don't think so, no. He doesn't speak or doesn't give any more interviews or something like this. I was told to email my questions for Richter, which I did. Then I was told Richter was not going to reply. To be honest, this was not a shock. The artist gives very few interviews and now, still enormously successful in his 90s, he has very little reason to.
If I was surprised at all by the brush-off, it's because of how close Richter and Helga once were, how important each man was to the other one's career through their respective rises in the industry. On Lanzarote, Helga told us that they'd grown so close that in 1991 they'd travel to Japan together to make a documentary film. Helga had always wanted Richter to paint Mount Fuji. My idea is Gerhard Richter to travel to the Fujisan. That was my theme.
And he said, you know what, Gerhard, I invite you and I pay everything. Helge says he pulled out all the stops, even hiring a highly regarded cinematographer. And then the question was, and who is going to be our cameraman? I said, well, whom you like? He said, the best is David Lynch. I said, OK, I'm getting David.
the cameraman from David Lynch. So I got the cameraman from David Lynch. Helga could not remember the name of David Lynch's cameraman, and we were not able to independently confirm this. But it's a nice thought, isn't it? And while it appears there were many grand production ideas, the adventure quickly fell apart. Helga had booked their trip in the middle of typhoon season. Helga says a storm destroyed the train tracks leading to the mountain and washed away any chance they had of reaching Mount Fuji.
The trip was doomed, and some 90 hours of film footage will likely never see the light of day.
Helge says he has no idea where this film is now. He says he and Richter's wife fought bitterly throughout their time in Japan. A rift grew between the two friends, and they didn't speak to one another for 10 years. And I don't know what he was thinking. I was thinking, what the fuck is this? These days, Helge says he has little contact with the great artist. They speak maybe a few times a year, and it never goes too deep. So we are...
in a, let's say, a polite situation, but I have the feeling no intention from him anymore. And for me, it's a different thing. I like him because I like his paintings. I love him. I think I did too much for him, for this situation. And he keeps it in a little distance now, which I agree. Helge says that his friendship with Richter essentially ended when he went to prison. He didn't write me anything.
Filou. It's French, meaning a trickster, a rascal, a rogue, a crook. But Helga isn't the only filou in the market. Some people in the art world think that the business is often not on the level.
When I first started looking into Helga, one former director of a powerful New York City gallery told me they thought that most people in the art world are up to something shady, if not outright criminal. That former director left the art world because of that tendency. Helga feels like he got caught up in this shadiness. He sees himself and his crimes as a product of his environment.
He wrote in his second memoir: "My narcissism has played an important role in this." But there is also a culture of the art market that encourages cynicism and corruption where honesty doesn't pay. The value of art is arbitrary. There are few rules or supervisors, and no balance sheets and ratings that establish values.
A couple things here. Yes, there may be a culture of cynicism and corruption in the art world, but not everyone responds to that by breaking the law. Most people don't. So for Helga to suggest that his behavior was a product of his environment feels not entirely honest. But at the same time, it's also true that a lack of transparency and regulation in a market makes it easier for bad actors to take advantage of other people.
The opaque quality of the world Helga moves in is something that came up in our conversation with Colgate professor Bryn Hatton. Art's value is a fiction, and it's just a set of agreements that are being made between the various players of the game. And this kind of thinking about what art inherently is and what kind of value it represents in the world
is an old question that artists have been messing with for a long time. Even so, not everyone feels that the art market is more corrupt than any other business.
Benjamin Godsell is an art advisor with 20 years of experience. He's also a co-host of the podcast Nota Bene, This Week in the Art World. So you'd say you're familiar with the art market? Yeah, I'm an expert. People pay me an awful lot of money to know what the fuck I'm talking about. And he's emphatic that the larger art world is not the sea of corruption Helga would have us believe. Although he's quick to say that art is one of the last not fully transparent markets and that it runs on information asymmetry. This is
There's very little, from my experience, at least of recent art, art of the last 25 to 30 years, there's very little fake art. What you see are things on the margin. People selling things they don't maybe really have access to and then trying to get access to it after the fact.
things of that nature. But you don't really see that much theft, I wouldn't say, or outright fraud. You see people trying to take a bigger slice of the pie than maybe they're ethically, that ethically is rightfully theirs, but I don't see that much wholesale stealing of the pie. It's also a very small world.
A place where you might bump into someone you're making a deal with at a midweek cocktail party. The only thing you kind of have in this world is your reputation, your good name. And I think it's very easy for your reputation to be corrupted in such a small space. Within such an intimate community, it makes sense that if you're someone who has poisoned their reputation, someone who can't ever be entirely trusted, very few people would want anything to do with you. Post-prison, Helga's reputation is shot.
You're listening to Chameleon from Campside Media. You're listening to Chameleon from Campside Media. I've spent months thinking about Helga's life and work, and at this point, I feel like I have a sense of what he's about. He's a man who's continually looking for strategic advantages over his competitors and his clients, and sometimes even his friends. And that, I can imagine, pisses a lot of people off.
No one wants to be treated like a fool, especially if you're a client and you've given your trust and money to someone else. Which was, Colgate's Brin Hatton thinks, the dynamic with the Albrechts that led to Helga's collapse. When they began to invest in art, they understood none of its weird particular machinations or any of the social systems or any of its particularities. Right?
And not to mention even just the art itself. These were not art people. They were not collectors who were in their lane. They were kind of plunging headfirst into a
It was a 60 million euro investment into this world that they didn't understand. Hadden believes that even though the collection Helga bought for them appreciated greatly, the resentment Babette felt over the deception, the way it made her look foolish, was what drove her to seek justice. Everybody was still ending up in the black, right? Everything worked out, essentially. Better than expected, even. But...
This is the deal with sort of, you know, the ultra rich is they like to play games with money. Money doesn't have oftentimes very tangible meaning, right?
but they just really, really don't like the idea that they're being taken advantage of. Even if it's just the principle of the thing and there's no real kind of loss, even if the effect of all of this game playing affects them zero in the real kind of tangible, physical, real sense,
Even if they come out on top, it's just the idea that they're being messed with that will send people like the family in question into really lengthy court proceedings just to prove a point. If you didn't know Helga, it'd be easy to think that in his remaining years, in the third act of his life, he'd cultivate a quieter, more peaceful existence.
Sleepy nights on the renovated pig farm of Culture Without Borders or under the brilliant stars of Lanzarote. Having been burned once, he might be reluctant to fly too close to the hot center of the art world. He appears chastened by Babette's latest legal threats. But I know Helga.
And I remember conversations like this one we had with him back on the island. When you're here and it's so peaceful and quiet, do you miss the excitement of the deals, the big deals? No. You don't? No. But honestly, this is out of record. No, it's still recording. But right now I'm a consulting project for a new museum.
And it could be possible, 70% could be. I have it here, I can show you. Can you tell us more about that? Where is it? I cannot talk about it yet. I'm closed. But it's in the east and it's a very rich man. I don't know him, but I know his friends. And this friend came and said he's 75 years old.
And he is thankful for his life. He has something like 17 billion. And he was looking for a donation for his country. I said, well, I have something for him. 18 most beautiful paintings of Picasso. It's really true. So you think maybe I'm nuts, huh? Scratch the new Helga and the old one appears.
The deals are beginning to flow again. Or, at least, Helga would like us to believe that. It remains difficult to know if what he's telling us is the unvarnished truth. Nonetheless, if the deal is real, moving these paintings from the old master would be a tangible triumph. Never mind that it goes against the advice of his friend and priest, or that this M.O. drove Anna Burlett to keep her distance. This is what he's lived for, as Birgit Schulz depicts in The Illusionist, and it's what he's still living for.
While the film has won some praise in the German press, not everyone sees it as such a — radical honest — portrayal of a reformed man. One reviewer summed it up like this: "The film intends to portray an art market gone crazy.
However, it very much stays at the surface. It fails to depict that the protagonist is not just good at selling art, but also good at selling himself. Towards the end, Birgit Schultz barely challenges him. He's given a stage to portray himself as a victim of law enforcement. He plays with the image of having lost everything and living in poverty, while having a huge estate all to himself and getting the opportunity to reinvent himself as an artist. The title of the documentary almost takes on a double meaning.
as if the director also fell for the illusionist a little. Mack and I understand this dynamic. You want to believe him. But the stories are always just a little too tidy, like he's writing a fairy tale. Next time, on the final episode of Chameleon Gallery of Lies. I am tired. Tired of talking again and again and again and again. So for myself...
I decided that I'm not, for the future, will talk in public about my case. Helga wants to change his ways. But that doesn't stop him from working on what could be his biggest deal yet. One German billionaire came to me and said, "Mr. Achenbach, you may be wondering that I'm coming to you, but I know that you have done this thing with Mr. Albrecht."
And you will not be so stupid to take more than we decided together what you can take. Or looking for new advantages. This is my honest talking to you. You know, what I need is, I need from you the serious way. And I don't like to manipulate, of course. All that and more on the finale of Chameleon Gallery of Lies.
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Gallery of Lies is hosted by me, Bijan Steven. It's reported by me, Henry Lavoie, and Mac Montandon. And produced by me and Henry Lavoie. Mac Montandon is our executive producer. This episode was written by Mac Montandon. Our story editors are Emily Martinez and Matt Scher. Original music, sound design, and mixing by Garrett Tiedemann. Recording by Iwen Lai-Tremuen.
Our theme song is Wonder Bar by Dina Summer, Kalipo, and Local Suicide. Our fact-checking is by Mary Mathis, translating and interpreting by Bino Mushtagi, archival research by Vanessa Christophers Trinks, and additional field production by Jonas Voigt. A special thanks to Emma Simonoff, Valentina Delicia, and our operations team, Doug Slawin, Ashley Warren, and Destiny Dingle.
Campside Media's executive producers are Josh Dean, Vanessa Gregoriotis, Adam Hoff, and Matt Scherer. If you enjoyed Chameleon, please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts.