Brooklyn Museum’s Crop of Coptic Art a Historical Farce

One of the earliest Christian carvings, according to Scripture and various Charlton Heston movies, is the Decalogue: the Ten Commandments.  Inscribed by a Divine Hand, the stone tablets revealed a collection of ten laws, including one that the Brooklyn Museum probably wished that their 1960s-era Egyptian art suppliers had followed a bit more closely:

“Thou Shalt Not Lie.”

Before the official revelation of the fake Coptics, Brooklyn Museum was billed as housing the second largest collection of Coptic Art in North America (immediately after New York’s Metropolitan Museum).  With 30 Coptic sculptures, the vast majority of which acquired in the years between 1960 and 1970 from Switzerland and New York, who acquired the sculptures directly from Egypt, the Brooklyn Museum’s collection of Coptics was nothing to sneeze at.

Coptic Sculpture refers to Christian sculpture created in Egypt between the 4th Century Anno Domini and the year of the Arab Invasion, 641 AD.  Carved from limestone, coptic sculpture has served as the artistic bridge uniting the artisan styles of Pagan and Christian cultures.  It is also credited with existing as historical evidence of the continuity of the large-scale sculpture form made standard during the Classical period.

For scholars like Coptic art specialist Thelma Thomas, a professor at New York University, Coptic art represents something besides continuity and cultural conduits–Coptic art has practically become synonymous with “fake,” as more and more supposedly authentic Coptic sculptures, upon closer inspection, prove to be false.

10 of Brooklyn Museum’s collection of 30 sculptures have been officially declared false.  An additional ten have been determined to have been recarved and repainted in the modern era.  The remaining 10 may well be authentic–but the damage has clearly been done.

What is Brooklyn Museum doing in response to the recent official denouncement (rumblings have been heard in the past, but no voice from the mountain had come down quite yet) of the authenticity of their collection?

Why having an exhibition, of course!

On February 13, 2009, the Brooklyn Museum will unveil an exhibition detailing the voyage of the forgeries.  The false sculptures have gleaned their own history from the fraud, and have become valuable in their own right (though clearly  not so much as the 1,000 original, authentic Coptic sculptures which supposedly still exist).

Never underestimate a national art gallery’s ability to spin fraud into profit.

Cydney Payton Moves On

MCA Denver Director Cydney Payton

I’ve followed Cydney Payton’s career for a number of years. It’s always incredible, and perhaps it shouldn’t be, but it is, when a woman of such talent is recognized for her visionary attributes and celebrated.

Cydney Payton took the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver from a collection of exhibits housed in a converted fish market to a stunning edifice designed by Tanzanian-born British minimalist architect David Adjaye.

As director of the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver (MCA Denver), Cydney Payton depended on private fundraising (though she admits to first courting the public fundraising angle), a pragmatic switch in financing which not only came more naturally to the museum but also allowed for the eventual showing of more “risky” exhibitions thanks to its private funding.

Cydney Payton’s intricate direction of Denver’s landmark Contemporary Art Museum is illustrated best in the small tweaks she made to her processes. Her attention to detail and consideration of all aspects of a situation make her a remarkable director and an impressive leader in the art world.
It is precisely her sensible realism and practical moves in the art world which separates Cydney Payton from the rest of the pack. When shopping for architects for the new museum building, Cydney insisted that each of the finalists present a public lecture to the community, rather than the traditional closed-door presentations typically requested in these types of deliberative processes. By keeping the community involved, the museum’s planning had a far greater impact, and the greater Denver community felt valued and involved. MCA Denver was also recognized for its environmentally-conscious, progressive design.

In October of this year, Cydney Payton will resign. I hope she will retire to a tropical island somewhere and enjoy her success, but odds are she will probably keep working, subtly tweaking the art world, making it better and better and better.

Discus Throwers Grace China With Their Presence

Photo: EFE / José Álvarez Díaz. (http://www.artdaily.com)

The British Museum allowed a priceless collection of over one hundred sculptures and porcelains to be temporarily exhibited in Shanghai in the months preceding Beijing’s Olympic Games.

The Sisters Koplowitz

Esther Koplowitz is the recluse.  The sister who shies away from media, who keeps to herself, who—even when her Chamartin luxury apartment was burgled in 2001 –refused to speak to the media other than to communicate through a spokesperson that her enviable collection of fine art was uninsured.  Though both sisters married a set of cousins nearly simultaneously and divorced in unison over separate counts of adultery, the similarities between Esther and Alicia Koplowitz are about as rare as the paintings the sisters house in their respective homes.

While both sisters are listed among Spain’s richest individuals, and both are counted among the billionaire socialites of the world, Esther Koplowitz runs FCC, Fomentos de Construcciones y Contratas, and does so remarkably.  Esther’s shrewd business sense has garnered her a position on the board of France’s Vivendi International.

Alicia Koplowitz is considerably more visible in the art world than her sister, recently slated as attending the European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht, the Netherlands.

No Old for Ordinary Countrymen: Bertrand Meunier

Bertrand Meunier’s “Ordinary Countrymen” showcases a collection of photographic images meant to demonstrate the plight of the modern Chinese peasant, uprooted and lost in the shuffle of industrialization and urbanization. It may seem to the casual bystander, however, that this collection of images does little more than turn up a snooty nez at our Eastern brothers.

Take this image, for example:

© Bertrand Meunier - agence Tendance Floue / Musée Nicéphore Niépce

A Chinese man stands with an umbrella in the snow with a dog at his feet. The landscape is barren—frozen over like the peasant’s memories of a happier time. The peasant’s dress is in good condition—not threadbare. His umbrella is of decent quality. He doesn’t look malnourished.

What we have here is an image of quite a normal man in an umbrella, posed and smiling for the camera. This man’s experience seems no different from out own, and what we gain from this photo in terms of information is paltry at best. We see that the man can walk, that he is living during a cold season, and that he’s not afraid of a camera.

Bertrand Meunier is a social historian, and has tracked the progress of the 800 million Chinese peasants over the course of China’s emerging capitalism. The peasant exodus from the countryside is a motif seen often in our international cultural history. The story of China is not a new story: it is a recycled story of what happens when tired political processes rewrite themselves, not necessarily for the better.

The idea of China being an “old story” brings us back to our nondescript photo above. This average photo of this average man and this average dog on this average street isn’t just a shot of nothing. It isn’t just a throwaway snapshot, or a racist glance looking down on the lower class. It’s a statement of the exhausted Chinese story. It’s a demonstration of the way things have been, the way things will be. This man’s face isn’t visibly worn. His clothes are intact. His umbrella is whole. There is nothing in this photo to be outraged about.

But for the 800 million peasants in China struggling to keep afloat, this normalcy and lack of outrage is what keeps the growing country in limbo. Caught in a purgatory between poverty and sustainable comfort, the Chinese peasant class is what this man in Bertrand Meunier’s photo is: still, posing, and waiting for a flash.

Jeffrey Deitch: the Optimistic Impresario

While waiting in a doctor’s office a few weeks ago (or perhaps months…) for Vero to get out of her third evaluation this year, I caught a quick glimpse of the New Yorker. For the life of me, I can’t remember if it was a cover or a full color photo somewhere in the interior of the magazine, but somehow the Yorker begged further investigation. I didn’t have time to fully absorb the content (hence my confusion on the placement of the photo, and whether it was prominently splashed on the cover or hidden amongst type-written paragraphs detailing cultural trends and political diatribes) but I do remember reading about Jeffrey Deitch’s optimism.

The photo showed a bespectacled, well-dressed, somewhat diminutive man holding a few dozen balloons at the end of what appeared to be some kind of walkway or dock. The headline read “A Fool for Art.”

I believe I read the first paragraph, in which I learned that Jeffrey Deitch had indeed designed his own perfectly circular eyewear, and had worn his signature frames for the greater part of the last 20 years. While watching an interview with Deitch on the Art Newspaper’s video channel, it reminded me of the long-forgotten article that I hadn’t had time to read.

In the interview, unfortunately hyphened Art Newspaper reporter Anna Somers-Cocks politely grills art dealer Jeffrey Deitch on his economic projections on the art world, his relationship with visual images, and the personal brand of optimism that won him that special mention in the New Yorker.

Anna Somers-Cocks congratulated Jeffrey Deitch on his New Yorker profile (which she no doubt read thoroughly and knew whether or not the photo was on the cover or simply splashed on the interior of the magazine) and described him as a multi-faceted figure in the art world, widely professed as an art dealer, an art consultant and a prominent art impresario.

Jeffrey Deitch: For Love or Money?

Jeffrey Deitch has a decidedly karmic approach to understanding art collection. He speaks candidly about energies, about the balance of give and take, essentially giving the “what goes around comes around” answer to the question of how to foment an art culture.

The kinetic excitement that this middle aged, 1980’s-coiffed white man exudes comes out of what appears to be a very pure, very invigorating, deeply seated passion in visual art. Jeffrey Deitch appears to be one of these people that have discovered their task, cemented their singular interest, and dedicated themselves to using this passion to fuel a great, positive impact on the members of his or her surrounding community.

In Deitch’s case, his community is the art industry. Deitch has declared the art world no longer simply a market, but an entire industry incorporating countless businesses supported by the visual community. According to Deitch, art collection is not just a business: it is a platform for cultural interchange.

Where others have taken to viewing art collection as a purely financial endeavor (Deitch does not deny the profitability in this viewpoint, calling art collection the most solid intergenerational asset of the modern world, though he does call profiteers of today’s unusually buoyant art market “lucky”), Deitch sees art collection as a deeply personal process. Jeffrey Deitch seems a thoughtful matchmaker, taking into consideration all aspects of a piece of art and a potential buyer, eager to create a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship with the buyer rather than a one-time financial transaction.

Jeffrey Deitch’s faith in the art market doesn’t allow him to predict a crash. In simple terms (citing liquidity conditions, a potential credit crunch, and old world supply and demand qualifications) Jeffrey Deitch supports his claim, though he leaves the viewer wondering if his infinite love for visual art, that art that fuels his entire being and his entire life, wouldn’t allow him to be objective in predicting the future of the art world.

Cryptic “Triptych” Shows Unsunny Side of Bacon

Francis Bacon’s 1976 “Triptych” sold for a record-shattering $86.3 million, making the Irish artist’s 3-panel work the most expensive contemporary work ever sold at auction, ever. And I do mean ever.

The figurative painter died in 1992, keeping this nightmare flesh-melting painting in the contemporary era. But for so many records to be broken at Sotheby’s yesterday is yet another slap in the face to so many Recession Chicken Littles determined to bring art collectors under the collective gloom-umbrella of economic downturn.

It’s hard to say whether this recession would have bothered Bacon, a direct descendant of the English statesman of the same name and a figure of angst and gender ambiguity if there ever was one. The life of Bacon was riddled with torturous thoughts and events, and calm was something he may never have heard of. His work largely reflects this, and one wonders what the buyer of 1976’s “Triptych” was looking for in the way of reassurance.

Jose Mugrabi, the Manhattan collector who walked away with a $9.5 million steal with Warhol’s “Detail of the Last Supper” was quoted by the New York Times as saying:

“I don’t understand why it did so well if the economy was mediocre…Maybe people feel safer with art.”

It seems ironic to me that the disquiet nature of Bacon’s 3-Panel is the symbol for ill-placed economic optimism in the art world. Should people feel safe with art? Or is there a bubble that art collectors are fabricating for protection?

Spencer Tunick: Naked White People

It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke.

What’s the difference between an Spencer Tunick and a peeping tom?

Answer: Organization.

Spencer Tunick’s sweeping, grand photos of mass nudity have garnered attention, well, because they are grand photos of mass nudity. If you haven’t had your morning’s dose of massive caucasian flesh, look no further.

I don’t know how hard it is to get hoards of Austrians to strip down for a camera, but if Tunick’s scope of work in any indicatoin, it’s not all that difficult.  His latest work happened  at the Ernst-Happel Stadium in Vienna. From the NYT: The “ephemeral installation” was “devised to capture and combine the spirit of sports, the grand sweeping waves of stadium architecture and the abstract relation of the human form to modern structures.”

Where Would We Be Without Scandalous Death?

Vincent Fantauzzo’s portrait of late superstar-friend Heath Ledger didn’t earn him the 2008 Archibald prize, but a popular vote awarded the portrait the “people’s choice” award according to the 32,000 voters at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

This popular voting of pop-culture art is unsettling on many levels.  The popular fascination with scandalous death never dwindles, and the skepticism surrounding Ledger’s “accidental” overdose continues to fuel gossip and rumor.  But when does the subject of art become more important than the brush strokes themselves?

Fantauzzo’s piece is not a great work.  It is a human study in anatomy and personality, with philosophical musings illustrated by the “whispering” of the shoulder-Heath’s on either side of the main subject’s head.  The work is done accurately and well, but it is no master work.  It was chosen as a prize winner because of the subject, and only because of the subject.

It leaves me wondering what the true purpose of art is.  Does Fantauzzo feel robbed for his talent being wasted by the spotlight of his subject?  Where does art end and marketing begin?  What, readers, is the point of all this?

Does all art simply boil down to the fascination with scandalous death?

Fine Art’s Bull Market: the Middle Class Horns in on a Trend

Fine art is the new black.  Individuals from all walks of life are turning to fine art as the latest investment trend–which means exactly what you think it means.

The bourgeois is in.

The middle class is snapping up Josef Albers and Rothkos like Krispy Kreme donuts at 5am. Calling the art pieces “an investment” these Johnny-come-lately’s are viewing 20th and 21st century masterpieces as the perfect addition to the stock portfolio. And are they wrong to do so?

According to a recent US News & World Report article, art collecting is not just for the rich anymore. Down-home folks who would never consider a bite of foie gras are scooping up Degas’ and Daumiers’ like crudites on a platter.  Has the art world taken an unprecedented turn for the financial?

The art world is notorious for its dependence on the cash-driven, money-hungry subset of the population.  But bear in mind, if you would, that though this portion of the Earth has always been money-hungry, we have never gone unsatisfied.   We do not thirst for fine art with the parched throats who have nothing.  We thirst for fine art because of its inherent value, not out of some desperate need.  Separated from necessity only do we recognize true value.

Luxurious spending has always been synonymous with the purchasing of fine art.  But when fine art become equity, and master strokes become mere dollars and cents, what are we left with?  Is tomorrow the day when a Renoir is seen only for its liquidity?  Is nothing in the art world sacred?

I hope my reader will not fault me for my class-derived POV.  My point is simple, and, I think, valid.  When the upper echelons purchase art, it is out of respect for the artist and the value of a piece.  When the middle class, as this recent US News & World Report article points out, they do so as an investment for the future, with as much emotion and reverence with which one chooses a mutual fund.  When beauty is stripped of art, what are we left with?