OK – not arts related. Although in my defence, I did find this whilst in search of arts things. Googling away, looking for the ALP’s arts policy, this popped up in the search engine. Madam Prime Minister – I know you must be frantically busy, but you may want to update the ALP website links.
Only yesterday, the air in Sydney was filled with the fug of burning fakes. Yes – in fine Australian form, the three artworks that were determined to be fakes in a landmark Victorian Supreme Court case last month were tossed onto the barbie by artists Charles Blackman and Robert Dickerson and turned into so much worthless charcoal. But proving the popular wisdom that it’s not always just the cream that floats to the surface, yet another questionable painting has bobbed into view. In an article published in The Age today, journalist Gabriella Coslovich reveals that a painting by Brett Whiteley that would qualify as significant if it were authentic (above), may well be yet another example of what is often euphemistically described as ‘problematic’.
It is reported that Associate Professor Robyn Sloggett of the University of Melbourne was given the painting for testing by a Sydney collector who had been advised by Whiteley’s widow that she believed it to be a fake. The monumental painting measures 121 x 215 cms, and changed hands at a cost of $1.1 million, and according to the article, testing revealed that the paint used in the painting did not ‘behave’ like paint that was 22 years old. Although Victoria Police launched an investigation, the collector has subsequently withdrawn his complaint after receiving a full refund with interest and costs. No mention is made of the whereabouts of the painting now, and there is a suggestion that there are two other major Whiteley fakes/forgeries in the hands of collectors that came from the same source.
Robyn Sloggett has estimated that 10% of the paintings circulating in the art market, both in Australia and internationally, are misattributed. It’s important to note that this doesn’t necessarily mean all of these are forgeries… at which point I should offer a brief definition or two. A forgery is an artwork deliberately made with the intention of deceiving a buyer; a fake is a work of art that, somewhere along the way, has been misattributed to another artist. So if I were to source paper from the 1950s and put together a Blackman Schoolgirls charcoal drawing, sign it ‘Blackman’, and submit it for auction as a Blackman, that object is a forgery. But if an art student decided he or she wanted to learn from Blackman’s style, and produced a series of drawings that closely replicated the senior artist’s work, and at some point those drawings found themselves on the open market where a keen auction house representative innocently attributed them to Blackman and entered them in the catalogue as such, these would be fakes. This is why the painting at the NGV formerly attributed to Van Gogh is a fake, not a forgery. Whoever did make that painting did not intend for us to think it was by the Dutch master.
Of course, fakes can also become forgeries – for example, if an unscrupulous individual discoverers the folio of drawings in the style of Blackman, adds a Blackman signature, and then submits them to an auction house for sale as Blackmans, these become forgeries. This happens. In fact, it happened to me once. A small, unsigned drawing in the style of a very well-known Australian artist passed through a Leonard Joel weekly auction when I was running the art department. It was brought back to the auction house some time later, although this time it had a signature, and the seller wanted it offered for sale as an authentic work by that artist. And here’s a conundrum for you to contemplate – what if the small, unsigned drawing really was by said artist, which it could have been? What does the addition of a forged signature do to its authenticity?
The only reason the aforementioned drawing didn’t end up offered for sale as an authentic work was because I remembered it from the weekly auction. In an auction house, where specialists can see hundreds if not thousands of artworks a week, when dealing with relatively modest artworks at the low end of the market, it’s not financially viable to undertake exhaustive research to confirm that a $1,200 drawing has a secure provenance. It’s customary to take a seller’s representations about provenance and ownership at face value. Although there are slip-ups on the part of people trying to sell questionable artworks. My favourite example was when someone bought me a painting that was purported to be by the Melbourne painter, Bill Coleman. I took one, very quick, look at it and declared it a forgery. The would-be seller was indignant and asked me how I knew. I responded with some gobbledy-gook about stylistic inconsistencies because my gut told me that this person knew exactly what he was doing and I didn’t want to point out what was an obvious error that would, I hoped, be obvious to anyone else who looked at the artwork. The problem? ‘Coleman’ was spelt ‘Colleman’.
This highlights some big issues in the world of fakes/forgeries. For one thing, the market in dodgy artworks is not limited to the top end of the market. Even if it had been authentic, the Coleman painting would only have been worth $900 or so. Artworks at this end of the market are barely scrutinised under normal circumstances, whereas significant paintings are usually expected to have a secure provenance (exhibition history etc.). But the matter of greatest concern is that dodgy artworks generally are reabsorbed into the darkest depths of the market. The destruction of the Blackman and Dickerson fakes is, to date, an exception to the rule – even where a painting is determined beyond doubt to be inauthentic, after refunds and restitution are paid to the buyer, the original seller gets the artwork back. This is the case with the Whiteley Lavender Bay painting discussed in The Age today. The painting has been returned to the seller, and even if he or she never intends to offer it for sale, what happens in thirty years’ time when all this has been forgotten?
(image: ‘Orange Lavender Bay’, sold as a Brett Whiteley painting; via The Age)
Yes – things have been busy. Very busy. Exhaustion and sleeplessness have kicked in. But no fungus infections as yet, I’m happy to say (note to the repulsed – I’m referencing Roy Lichtenstein at left).
(Image: Roy Lichtenstein, ‘Takka Takka’, via www.artchive.com).
On top of the symposium I’m co-convening at the University of Melbourne next week, with speeches by the Minister for the Arts, Peter Garrett, 2010 Archibald and Wynne winner Sam Leach, and other venerable members of the visual art community, I’ve also been writing an article, ‘Joining the dots: analysing the sustainability of the Australian Aboriginal art market’, for publication in UNESCO’s humanities journal, Diogenes. Yes, I know. Enough of the self-serving plugs, already. But at the moment I’m so busy I don’t have anything else for you.
So here’s the pre-publication version of the paper, which looks at the sustainability of the Aboriginal art market using empirical evidence drawn from auction figures. My conclusion is that Aboriginal art, rightly or wrongly, is treated by the market as anthropological, rather than fine, art, and that this has implications for the mid- to long-term sustainability of the market. There are charts, tables and everything.
Please note, it’s the pre-publication form, and will be edited and formatted differently when it appears in Diogenes. It’s also a necessarily ponderous academic piece of writing. And long. (I’m a good salesman, aren’t I?) But there are some interesting bits and pieces in there that should be useful. I hope. It’s a formal version of a paper I delivered at the 2009 Art Association of Australia and New Zealand conference, and it attracted a fair bit of interest from a number of luminaries at said event. Then again, perhaps they were just being polite.
Anyways, here it is – the abstract first, to whet your appetite, and the rest of the article after the jump. Please take heed of the requisite copyright notice from Diogenes and Sage Publications. Because this is all original research put together by me and to be published exclusively in their lovely publication. And if you copy any of it and use it without requisite acknowledgment, they’ll have your proverbial guts for garters.
Enjoy.
“This paper has been accepted for publication in Diogenes and the final (edited, revised and typeset) version of this paper will be published in Diogenes Vol/Issue, Month/2010 by SAGE Publications Ltd, All rights reserved. © ICPHS. For more information please visit: www.sagepub.com .”
Title:
Joining the dots: analysing the sustainability of the Australian Aboriginal art market
Abstract:
Sotheby’s estimates between fifty and seventy percent of the Aboriginal art it sells at auction is bought by international collectors. How do those buyers view their acquistions? On the Sotheby’s website, you will not find Aboriginal art listed with ‘Australian’ and ‘Contemporary Art’ under the ‘Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture’ department. Rather, it is classified as one of the ‘Ancient and Ethnographic Arts’, alongside ‘Antiquities’ and ‘Pre-Columbian Art’.
This paper will show that the promotion and perception of Aboriginal art as ethnographic rather than contemporary in nature is but one of a number of important aspects of the market that have implications for the industry’s long-term sustainability. This distinction has a significant effect on the way Aboriginal art is distributed, promoted and received by buyers and sellers. Collectors measure the value of ethnographic material by assessing its proximity to a culturally immaculate source. An object has the greatest ethnographic integrity if it emanates from a primitive, isolated community.
Author’s biography:
Dr. Meaghan Wilson-Anastasios is a researcher and sessional lecturer at the University of Melbourne. Her research interests include art price formation and how and why economic superstars emerge in the auction market. Part of her research was the focus of a Four Corners program, Art for Art’s Sake, aired on ABC television. Meaghan co-authored a paper with Professor Neil de Marchi of Duke University for the Congress of the International Committee of the History of Art: ‘The impact of unscrupulous dealers on sustainability in the Australian Aboriginal desert paintings market’. She is a registered art valuer and has seventeen years’ art-industry experience in public and commercial art institutions. Read the rest of this entry »
Look! Sad-eyed puppy!
Mea culpa. Apologies for being so slack with the posts of late. But I have good reason. Things have been very busy in the offline world. But the outcome of all this hard work is that if you’re in Melbourne, or have reason to be here on 15-16 July, I’m co-convening a symposium at the University of Melbourne with speakers drawn from across the art world talking about all things current in the Australian art industry – from fakes and forgeries, to the sustainability of the Aboriginal art market, and the potential effects of the resale royalty legislation and the proposed changes in the Cooper Review on the market. Artists, dealers, auction house representatives, legislators, academics, all going head-to-head. It’s going to be juicy. Keynote addresses are to be given by the Minister for the Arts, Peter Garrett, AM, MP, and Sam Leach, the winner of the 2010 Archibald and Wynne Prizes, and there’s an associated Melbourne Conversations event at Fed Square on the evening of Thursday 15 July. More details can be found here – including how to register. More updates to follow.
And so, another instalment in my series of poor-quality photos – this time taken in the rain with my phone. But, I couldn’t help myself. Until Never (the gallery) is running an exhibition of noted American street artist Shepard Fairey’s work at the moment, and the wall that leads from the corner of Hosier Lane to the gallery’s entrance is completely plastered with a veritable gallery of Fairey’s most iconic images. It’s quite a sight to see.
The juxtaposition of the posters in their natural habitat with their presentation in the 2nd floor, white-cube gallery space, is curious and telling. On what was a chilly, drizzly Melbourne afternoon, the posters in the lane, which as you can see have already attracted the attention of taggers, were torn, discoloured and peeling off the wall in places. They have a texture and immediacy to them – you know they will continue to deteriorate, exposed as they are to the elements and the activities of other makers of marks on walls. Wait much longer, and there won’t be much left to see. And what better way to speak of commodification, dehumanisation and the industrial machine than to churn out images on paper intended to be pasted on walls in the urban jungle and destined to end up buried under layers of street-art detritus, painted over by diligent council clean-up teams, or squished into great, coloured gobs of soggy torn paper? Knowing that these artworks are ephemeral makes the messages they communicate all the more powerful. And then, upstairs in the gallery, posters are transformed into commodities. Not that I should be complaining – I couldn’t resist buying an Obey Giant print. Yes, I can be a nasty, acquisitive beastie. But watching the transition of street art from the cobbled laneways to the austere confines of the commercial gallery space is intriguing. Relying, as it has, on subversive means of communication and guerilla tactics, how will the movement adapt to a radically altered environment?
For those of you who have asked how to channel your inner sun-god/dess, the iPhone/iPod/iSanitaryPad application you need to download to drive Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s Solar Equation, now showing at Fed Square, is up and running. Detailed instructions for finding the free app can be found here. Have yourself a blast of a time conjuring up a solar flare or a scatter of sun spots. Right. That’s enough of that.
(image: www.fedsquare.com)
OK. Just back from the launch of aforementioned Rafael Lozano-Hemmer installation, Solar Equation for Fed Square’s Light in Winter Festival. Hot off the presses, an extremely poor-quality photo from my little digital camera that only communicates a tiny sense of how extraordinary the experience is.
The projection on the three-dimensional sphere pulses and swirls – as impossible as it sounds, its scale and luminosity is such that it actually seems to warm you. I had dinner at an outdoor table at one of the restaurants in the Square, and kept doing a double-take at the looming orb above us. It really has to be seen to be believed. And, as amazing as it looks from the Flinders Street Station approach, it’s even more stunning when ‘happened’ upon – at one point, I wandered off behind the building now housing ABBA World (!?), and rounded a corner to find the sun peeking out at me from behind the edge of the building.
Best of all, I had a go at an iPad control that allowed me to interact with the display, changing colours and solar ‘seasons’. Apparently it will be possible to download a free app for iPhone or iPad so that we can all channel our inner supreme being, and control the sun at will when we’re within WiFi range of the display (there’s a delay on the application for a couple of days, but if you search for ‘Solar Equation’ in the Apps store early next week, I’m told you should be able to find it. In the meantime, if you go to the fine Fed Square restaurant, Il Pomodoro, and hand over your credit card for security, there are ten iPhones uploaded with the app, and you can have a play for free).
My only regret? That my first live encounter with Solar Equation didn’t occur late at night after a few too many liquid refreshments. Because that would be truly mind-blowing.
Much to the annoyance of contemporary art dealers everywhere, in 2007 auction leviathan Christie’s acquired the suitably obscurely-named London gallery, Haunch of Venison (in answer to the inevitable question, it was so named because the building in which it first took up residence is located in the wonderfully named, ‘Haunch of Venison Yard’). The gallery was launched in 2002 under the tender ministrations of Harry Blain and Graham Southern, who was head of Christie’s contemporary art department in London until 2001, and established in the premises formerly occupied by retired über-dealer, Anthony d’Offay. Its sale to Christie’s caused no end of consternation amongst dealers, because in the then-buoyant marketplace of the mid-ish ‘naughties, there seemed to be a considerable potential for conflict of interest in a circumstance where an auction house that was aggressively promoting its contemporary art auctions also owned a large commercial contemporary art business. How would Christie’s manage to maintain a disinterested outlook if, for example, it was selling a major work by one of the artists represented by its commercial gallery?
So Haunch of Venison flourished and expanded. It now has premises in Manhattan, Zürich and Berlin, in addition to the London gallery, and represents a stable of commercially stable artists including Dan Flavin, Bill Viola and James Rosenquist, and the requisite headline-grabbing enfant-terribles, including yBa alumni Mat Collishaw, and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (who, quite coincidentally, featured in my last post about his latest installation in Melbourne’s Fed Square). The current exhibition at Haunch of Venison’s Berlin campus is a collaboration between Michael Joo and Damien Hirst, featuring a couple of Hirst’s emblematic sectioned and formaldehyde-sodden beasties, a pill cabinet, a fly painting, and one of his super-sized human anatomical models.
But could Christie’s great pipe-dream be coming to an end? The Wall Street Journal has reported that, as of 31 August this year, Blain and Southern will be leaving Haunch of Venison to “pursue new projects”. Although there is much brave talk of future directions and evolution, in the world of commercial art dealers, cachet and power resides in the hands of individuals rather than institutions. Personal relationships with artists and collectors are paramount, and the simultaneous departure of Blain and Southern is sure to carve quite a chunk out of the Haunch’s client base.
(image: www.aubreyallen.co.uk)
Let me set the scene. Early morning. Patently crisp, fragrant, autumnal Melbourne air. Jostling, shoulder-to-shoulder with my fellow commuters, I emerge, blinking mole-like from the bowels of Flinders Street station, momentarily blinded by the morning glare. Look east, towards the expanse of the Fed Square forecourt, convinced my retina has finally thrown in the towel and detached itself from whatever it is that it’s supposed to be attached to. BUT WAIT! That’s not a piece of optical tissue floating around inside my eyeball. It’s SOMETHING HOVERING OVER FED SQUARE. A very big, round something. Apparently tethered to the buildings around the plaza with giant dog leads.
Now, I’m hazarding a guess here, but could this be the first element in what promises to be a pretty astounding installation by Mexican-Canadian electronic artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer? Solar Equation is set to be launched with much fanfare at 6pm this Friday 4 June as part of Fed Square’s Light in Winter festival. As we look down the barrel of another Antipodean winter, this festival, which runs for a month and is directed by cultural denizen, Robyn Archer, really warms the cockles. It’s free, it’s cozy, and it’s spectacular. The installation has been commissioned specially for the Festival, and given Lozano-Hemmer’s past efforts, whatever it is that’s being erected above the pavement in Fed Square is sure to be worth seeing once it’s completed. In the dark. Because the whole ‘illuminated’ thing loses a bit of its punch when viewed in daylight. Obviously.
A small but portentous victory for artists and art buyers alike today, with the ruling of Justice Peter Vickery that three works of art by Charles Blackman and Robert Dickerson are forgeries and must be destroyed. The artworks, one of which is illustrated at left, were sold by art dealer, Peter Gant, although the court found that Gant did not know the works were fakes or that he had acted improperly. The case was brought against Gant by Dickerson and Blackman in the Victorian Supreme Court, their lawyers claiming that the fake artworks damaged the artists’ reputations by “‘occasioning uncertainty in the market and damage to the financial value of the artistic works owned by each plaintiff.” Gant has spoken in the past about how easy it is for a dealer to be caught out by a dodgy artwork – in a 1999 Four Corners program, Rogue’s Gallery, (as an aside, the transcript makes fascinating reading) in response to the question “You’ve been caught with duds?”, Gant responded “Oh yeah, I don’t know any dealers that haven’t.” A trap for young players, it would seem.
This has major implications for the market as it gives great weight to the value of connoisseurship when determining whether or not a work of art is authentic. It also highlights something I’ve been banging on about for a while, and that is that the most successful forgeries are those that appear in the lower half of the art market. To attempt to fake a significant painting is difficult – catalogues and records from exhibitions during an artist’s lifetime can be reasonably easily accessed to determine whether or not a major work is authentic, and artists’ records and personal recollections will be fairly reliable when it comes to ‘hero’ artworks. But when it comes to minor pieces – such as the works soon to be incinerated – it’s another matter altogether. Two of the Blackman fakes were sold to a buyer for $13,500 – no small amount in a general sense, but small change in the art market. Sales at this level rarely attract the level of scrutiny dedicated to sales at the top end of the market.
Prepare for some pretty significant fall-out.
(image: www.theage.com.au)
