In 2011 the art market was a staggering 52 billion dollar industry, the largest it has been in history. It sounded like great news when I first read it. I reasoned there was more money for artists and the people who sell their paintings. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
In an ironic twist of fate, the increase in money flowing into the art market has inflated the price of art so drastically that if a company or private dealer deems a painting to be fake, a law suite often follows against the inspector. As a result many companies that sell art verified pieces for potential clients have shifted ceased to continue confirming art work. This makes it much more difficult for the art market to vet out forgeries as no reputable inspector is willing to deem a piece of art “false” for fear of a lawsuit. At the same time, the rewards of forging art have ballooned with the increase in art prices while the risks have dropped with the reduction in inspectors. In a nutshell, the art market has never been more ripe for forgeries.
But I for one won’t shed a tear. In fact, I find it kind of satisfying that conditions are perfect for forgeries. To me, the art market looks much like a scene that Gogol might have written after he finished “The Nose.” Today’s art market reflects on the absurdity of everyone involved. I find it ridiculous that extremely wealthy individuals spend millions of dollars on art pieces that they can not even authenticate themselves. It is mind boggling. In fact, if the purchaser of the art can not verify the piece as belonging to a specific artist him/herself, then what reason might they have for buying the piece? If the buyer of the piece is only interested in the piece for its aesthetic appeal, than the forgery that they can not differentiate from the real piece should be just as valuable. If on the other hand the purchaser of the art buys the art because of the name attached to the piece, then he/she is really buying prestige. So instead of an art market where people buy pieces of art because of the emotions they invoke or the statements they make, we have an art market in which extremely rich people drop huge sums of money on famous pieces so that they can brag about their collection. Its a giant spending game to see who can buy the finest nose.
(can you tell the which picture is Picasso’s and which is a forgery? Most people who own a Picasso painting can’t either)
I for one hope that the prices of these art paintings come crashing down, just low enough so that the art inspectors who actually appreciate the paintings can buy the work. I think Gogol would hope for the same.
It seems as though the works of past generations, made only for of the love of art have been just as tainted by commercialization as those pieces crafted today which are influenced by the preferences of sponsors and potential buyers. The expanding of the art market will, eventually lead to the fine-tuning of forgeries at the same time that inspection agencies and methods become the weakest they have been in decades. This disastrous environment will, unfortunately, place an asterisk next to the authenticity of every painting as buyers will wonder if this is a painting by a famed artist or just the next latest in a long line of forgeries.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/arts/design/art-scholars-fear-lawsuits-in-declaring-works-real-or-fake.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&
Wow. Stunning analysis; I like how you connected this situation to The Nose. It was really appropriate, considering that the novella and its libretto are concerned with social status, much like art, as you pointed out. You make an excellent point about the worth of art in today’s elite society—that it’s seen as worthy only because of the reputation that comes with it. I think that this situation really shows how some of the wealthy have utter disregard for their wealth, since they don’t even do research on art pieces to check if the pieces’ originals are possessed by other people. You also bring up the idea that art should be judged for its emotional and interpretative value, and it’s a really good idea. However, to deflate the market value for all artists would likely cheapen the art profession more than it already has been de-valued. I’m not sure that’s what would happen, but it seems that if people who can afford highly reputed art already have such artistic disregard for it, what would happen to museums if they cannot sell pieces in a market where all of the prices are low? What would happen to struggling artists who were having a hard time selling their pieces to begin with? But that aside, the idea of art for art’s sake is a very inviting one, and your analysis was very apt.
First, I just want to say your review was quite well written. You brought up some very interesting points. However, I feel that you’ve examined only one side of the coin regarding your opinion about the wealthy purchasing art that it can’t understand. How many people can actually claim to understand any art piece wholly? Being rich gives one the ability to appreciate art. And what is art if not an endeavor to express and expect appreciation for said expression. Admittedly, it’s ironic people who shell out great sums can’t discern a real masterpiece from a forgery, but the fact that this makes it easier for forgeries to thrive is not exactly a pleasant idea either. I don’t really need to say this, but forgeries, despite their evident display of the painter’s mastery, lack originality. I acknowledge – noted from Ariel Yuan’s “Just Another Romeo and Juliet Adaptation” – the belief that there’s no one artwork that’s completely original, but blatant forgery inhibits the art culture from moving forward. It prevents us from giving credit where it’s due.
I love your title for this post. It made me wonder what this post could possibly be about. I was surprised as much as your were when the 52 billion dollars the art industry had had a negative effect rather than a positive one. It makes me wonder what the value was in 2012.
Even though it is great for the forgers that the public and curators can’t tell the difference between the original and the fake artworks, but there is more than the aesthetic appeal and the name attacked to the piece that people look for. I believe that some people look for the creative value in artworks. If I was an art collector, I would want to buy an artwork for the aesthetic appeal and the artist’s name, but also for the fact that the artist was the first to create such an artwork. If such an artwork is forged, there is no creative value since the idea for the artwork didn’t come from the forger.
I really like how passionate you are about this issue!
I agree that art works are overpriced. Even artists think so. To prove this exact point, the street artist Banksy anonymously set up a stand outside of Central Park a week ago and sold his art for $60 a piece. Most people walked past, thinking the art to be average street art. The few people who did stop haggled the price down. Meanwhile, because the work was actually by Banksy, each piece could have easily gone for $1000 or more. So yeah, I guess I agree with you, Nick.
This is really interesting because people are so quick to defend the authentic work of an artist and forget that if a person can forge it, they are just as good as the original artist. On top of that, most people do not even know better if they are buying an authentic or forged piece. I love how you connected this to “The Nose” because the ideas are so parallel. People just buy art for status so that they can show off the collection without honestly appreciating the piece they bought. In “The Nose” the main issue is all about status as well. This all goes back to art being a business. People even use authentic works to make money by forging them! But I agree with you in your analysis and hope the price of art drops low enough for people who actually know the difference between the quality of art that they are buying.
I really like how you connected buying art to The Nose, and I agree with you that many people buy authentic artwork because of its prestige. I understand what you’re getting at when you said forges and original works can be valued the same since the products are identical (and there is an equal amount of effort put in both kinds of works: the real artist came up with the idea and put it on canvas, and the forger had to analyze the original, consider every detail on it, and reinvent the details exactly). But, I believe that it is wrong for people to profit by stealing artists’ unique ideas and forging their masterpieces. By allowing the forging of work, the value of the originality of the real work is destroyed. This situation of forgery reminds me of the problem with brand piracy. Why is brand piracy illegal? Because it steals product ideas from brands without permission. Consider our school’s academic integrity too: Why is cheating discouraged? Well, it’s because we don’t like people stealing our own ideas, which are very valuable to us. I feel that original artwork is priceless because of the unique ideas from which it was created rather than of the aesthetic beauty. Artists nowadays hate that art is put with a price tag, but I believe that they would be even more upset if they realized that their artwork was forged and that they were not given the credit for their work they should have gotten.