Not an authentic authentication issue

Been meaning to comment on the recent hubbub about Gerhard Richter deciding to exclude certain early works from his forthcoming catalogue raisonne.  Some people are talking about this as if it were another "authentication" issue, but I don't think that's quite right.  There's no question that these works -- made from 1962 to 1968, when he apparently "experimented with a realistic, figurative painting style" -- were painted by Richter.  There's no question of their "authenticity"; they are not fakes.  He just doesn't think they're any good, or worthy of consideration as part of his development.  It seems to me he has every right to make that judgment ... and collectors and others who like the work have every right to disagree.  Who knows -- the market may, someday, side with them.  But in any case it's not a question of authenticity.

The shouldn't charge for admission and they shouldn't sell anything ever ...

. . . and they shouldn't have anything to do with "commercialization."  Instead they should go to the Magic Money Tree and get the funding they need.  Simple as that; just ask the Deaccession Police for directions.

"A genuine Jackson Pollock painting should cost a lot more than $60,000."

The Washington Post has a review of Anthony Amore's "savvy and informative" new book on art fraud.

Tyler Cowen on Germany's proposed new "public trust" law

He notes that "so far the proposed policy is not working out well.  Collectors are rushing to take their loans off museum walls and get them out of the country, or hold them incognito."

Also:  "Apparently Gerhard Richter is a hard-core libertarian, like most other painters, because he asserted: 'No one has the right to tell me what I do with my images.'"

"A grandiose argument that imagines the existence of a unsullied ivory tower of independent and un-corruptible museums that simply has never existed in the United States"

I think it's fair to say The Art Market Monitor did not find Christopher Knight's recent piece on the "relentless commercialization" of museums that convincing.

Isn't this just what happens when you take the notion of "public trust" seriously?

Germany's culture ministry is proposing legislation that "would give regional authorities the power to designate specific artworks as protected national treasures if they are more than 50 years old and valued at more than 150,000 euros. Regional boards would then have the power to approve or deny export licenses for those works."

Bubbling Up

Peter Schjeldahl had some thoughts on the state of the art market earlier this week.

The Art Market Monitor wasn't impressed:  "It’s always sad to see a smart and perceptive writer struggle with concepts that are unfamiliar and irrelevant to his work."  Ed Winkleman had some thoughts here (check the comments too).

The Monitor also says "we’ve known the art market isn’t a bubble and won’t crash for five years now."  On that point, Tim Schneider disagrees.

I would listen to these two discuss their grocery lists ...

... so this Slate podcast between Felix Salmon and Amy Adler is self-recommending.  Art, pornography, and a really interesting discussion of Richard Prince's recent Instagram series.

I haven't really been following the Danh Vo lawsuit in Rotterdam ...

... because it's hard enough keeping up with developments under U.S. law.  But his recent proposal to collector Bert Kreuk is too good not to pass along.

Michael Heizer's "City" is now a national monument

Details here.

Greg Allen says "it's as if Heizer has out-Earthworked all the Earthwork artists with the biggest Earthwork on Earth."

The Sherlock Holmes of the Art World

Art Recovery Group is now two years old.

"The charges carry a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison, and potential fines of over $10,000."

Shepard Fairey turns himself in in Detroit.

"Ann Pellegrini, a professor of performance studies at New York University, called the case a classic example of 'performance becoming performative' ...'"

"...an act that questions 'the relationship between actor, audience and enactment.'"

Performance artist Joe Gibbons sentenced to a year in prison for his bank robbery piece.

"The return of the passport does not completely end Ms. Bruguera’s standoff with the Cuban government ..."

A good week for Tania Bruguera.

Yielding to Outrage (UPDATED)

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is no longer inviting visitors to try on a replica kimono.  But they may "touch and engage with" them.

UPDATE:  More from the Boston Globe.

"A complicated system of financing in which third-party money is used by Christie’s to offset risk but not in the form of a traditional 'guarantee'"

The Art Newspaper's Charlotte Burns on third-party "partners" vs. third-party "guarantors."  (I'm quoted.)

The Art Market Monitor has some thoughts.

"Trumped by a Stifled Voice"

Holland Cotter on the Havana Biennial.  The stifled voice is Tania Bruguera's:

"As soon as she announced her intentions, the police took her into custody on charges of disrupting public order. The authorities confiscated her Cuban passport and threatened to bring her to trial. If she ventures beyond the city limits, she has been warned, she can be expelled from the country and prevented from returning. Her case has gone nowhere since."

"Proving substantial similarity is a thorny issue. It isn’t enough for her work and Starbucks’ campaign to look alike."

Wired has a piece on artist Maya Hayuk's lawsuit against Starbucks.  It's the old idea vs. expression problem once again.