Basquiat with Oxidized Portrait by Warhol, 1987. Photo: Tseng Kwong Chi, Courtesy Eric Firestone Gallery.
Basquiat’s sister claims Christies offering Fakes
The New York Times reported that a $US1 million lawsuit was filed on 4 March by the sisters of the late Jean–Michel Basquiat against Christies over the sale of purportedly fake works by the celebrated artist.
On Monday (10 March), Christies announced in a statement on its website that it will postpone its online auction in response to the impending case. It stated: ‘our goal is to allow time for all parties involved to reach an equivalent level of confidence in the validity of these items, so that the sale may resume at a later date.’
The online sale of approximately 50 pieces was to run online through to 17 March, items from scribbled poems and sketchbooks to hand-painted sweaters. The collection comes from the artist’s former girlfriend Alexis Adler.
The suit disputes the authenticity of many of the available lots, and accuses the auction house of using language in the catalogue that implies that the sale has the approval of the Basquiat estate.
Seven of the works up for auction were reviewed by the estate’s authentication committee before it was disbanded in 2012; six of which were given the “green light”. The other 43 works apparently were not presented for verification said the claimants.
Jeanine Basquiat Henveaux and Lisan Basquiat claim that Christie’s implied that all the items have been authenticated by the Basquiat estate, and added that in February the estate denied Christie’s permission to reproduce work by Basquiat in its auction catalogue. The catalogue apparently states that the works are copyrighted by Basquiat’s estate, and the suit contends that such language could mislead collectors.
The complaint was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan.
Art Base Hong Kong changes dates
Athens-based Bernier/Eliades gallery at Art Basel Hong Kong 2013. (Courtesy MCH Messe Schweiz)
This increasingly popular art fair has drawn dealers globally to Hong Kong, the gateway to a lucrative Chinese market. Last year it became part of the Art Basel conglomerate.
It announced last week that it will be changing its dates from 2015, moving from May to March. Why? Simply the organisation stated that spring was ‘deemed more convenient for exhibitors’. But with New York’s Armory traditionally held in March, one wonders whether they are setting up for battle of the fairs or presenting a roll-on junket for both collectors and dealers? The dates scheduled are 13-17 March 2015.
How did Etchell’s new fair do in New York?
Art14, New York. Photo Michael Light.
Last week was art week in New York, a collection of fairs – the first of the year in a crammed and competitive calendar. While all eyes are on The Armory Show, it is one of ten fairs that opened including Pulse, Scope, Independent, Volta NY, and the blue-chip ADAA Art Show – The Guardian give a good wrap of the week.
We are curious how Tim Etchell’s fair did – the founder behind Sydney Contemporary, Art London and will next be turning his sites on Melbourne in August. Art 14 started last year, the brainchild of Etchells and Sandy Angus, known for their success in Hong Kong before selling their fair to Art Basel. It is not surprising then the New York event had “an Asian flavor”, with a particular interest this year in modern works.
artnet News described last week’s event as a ‘decisive moment for Art14’ and that despite positive sales the ‘fair is still finding its feet. More than thirty galleries didn’t come back for Art14′s second year. Though, approximately fifty have joined.’ Their report added that ‘one of the most interesting things about Art14 is that it’s not Frieze, which means that it isn’t a fair where one is sure to find familiar exhibitors with their host of vetted contemporary artists.’
The booth price per square meter at Art14 was £360 (US$602), almost exactly the £362 (US$605) charged at Frieze for their top spots.
Manila Contemporary closes shop
Veteran Malaysian Dealer Valentine Willie announced last week he will close up operations of his Philippine space Manila Contemporary immediately. The gallery’s warehouse-style space on Chino Roces Avenue (formerly Pasong Tamo Extension) on the edges of Makati, will be turned into a performing arts venue. Willie closed his Singapore and Kuala Lumpur branches in December 2012, reducing activities to a consultancy, project and research basis out of their Bangsar office. The reason? A well-deserved retirement coincided with the redevelopment of the Manila’s Whitespace venue; Willie assuring he will always continue to work on independent projects in the region.
San Francisco Galleries Face Eviction
Catharine Clarke Gallery in new Potrero Hill space
Geary Street in San Francisco has been home to the city’s art scene for decades. While 49 Geary and 77 Geary survived the dot come boom in the late 1990s, they are again under pressure with escalating rents and demands from the tech sector.
Last September four key galleries moved from this traditional downtub hub to the Potrero Hill neighbourhood with its more industrial setting (and just 20 minutes from the city’s centre), a shift that was felt doubly as the nearby SFMOMA closed its doors for renovations, not scheduled to reopen until early 2016.
San Francisco Business Times reported that Brian Gross Fine Art, Catharine Clark Gallery, Jack Fischer Gallery and George Lawson Gallery, relocated simultaneously. The neighbourhood is already home to Hosfelt Gallery and the artist run space Southern Exposure, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, and auctioneers Bonhams & Butterfields.
This month a second wave of galleries moved. artnet News reports that three galleries in 77 Geary Street – Rena Bransten Gallery, George Krevsky Gallery, Patricia Sweetow Gallery have been ‘forced out in favor of a techie neighbor, MuleSoft. The internet services company, which has officed on four continents, has reportedly offered to pay double the current rent.’
While in 2008 six galleries occupied the building, today Adler&Co remains the building’s lone gallery tenant, due to an existing long-term lease. With the loss to the city’s inner art heart, the East Bay has been picking up as a more affordable hub.
The Art Newspaper reported that Potrero Hill rents are ‘around 10% cheaper than in Union Square, where landlords charge as much as $45 per sq. ft for a gallery on an upper floor, according to the San Francisco-based real estate agent Hans Hansson.
It has also been touted that the Union Square gallery gulch had become stale.
Stolen works from Cuba Surfaces in Miami
The National Museum of Fine Arts of Havana (Cuba) – pictured above – discovered last week that works had been stolen from its collection store, alerted by Miami-based Cuban art dealer and collector Ramon Cernuda.
The Museum issued a statement confirming the theft on 1 March, and UNESCO published on 10 March a list of 70 artworks that have been identified as stolen from the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana. The Havana Times reported: ‘Access to the site was not violated, so it cannot be ascertained the exact date the theft took place’, said the National Council of Cultural Heritage in a statement in late February.
The authors of the theft cut the canvases and ‘neatly repositioned the frames, so that at first glance the heist would not be detected,’ said the Council which asked for help to locate the stolen works.
As of 1 March the FBI took possession of Cernuda’s documentation, and the painting he had purchased in Miami, which is expected to be turned over to authorities and returned to Cuba.
It is a timely reminder of our own precautionary measures here in Australia, with the establishment of the Art Crime Consultative Committee, a collaboration between the University of Western Sydney (UWS) and NSW Police Force, earlier this year.
Holocaust Survivor Sues for Pissarro
Pissarro’s contested painting Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep (1886). Source South China Morning Post.
As the film The Monuments Men hits Australian globally, this real life story has consequences in real time. This week it has been reported that France will be returning three paintings to their original owners, however in the USA the University of Oklahoma faces a battle over this much-celebrated Pissarro.
French Holocaust survivor Leone Meyer, and daughter of the panting’s pre-war owner, is suing the university over Pissarro’s painting Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep (1886), gifted to the university’s art museum in 2000.
Reuters reported that a university spokesman said the school is honoring a court decision made in 1953 in Switzerland that allowed the painting to remain in the United States.
It argues the painting passed through many hands and was purchased in good faith from a New York art gallery by Aaron Weitzenhoffer in 1956. When his wife, Clara died in 2000, the Pissarro painting was among 33 pieces of art donated to OU’s Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art.’
Raoul Meyer fled the Nazis to the US, returning to Europe in 1945. By the time he tracked down the Shepherdess in Geneva in 1951, the statute of limitations had run out, and a Swiss court ruled in favor of the work’s post-war owners.
But this issue has become political. The Oklahoman reports that a resolution directing university officials to return the painting was introduced to the Oklahoma House of Representative Monday, 10 March. The resolution is non-binding and the university has said that it will only return the painting under a court order.
