Friday, July 31, 2015

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.

Sunday, July 26, 2015

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.'"

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

"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.

Monday, July 20, 2015

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."

Sunday, July 19, 2015

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.

Thursday, July 09, 2015

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.

Wednesday, July 08, 2015

"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.

Saturday, July 04, 2015

"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."