Of Fake Art And Genuine Checks

We live in complex times when good and bad news often come together. The art world, being part of life, shares all its characteristics, including this one. On the one hand, a Picasso canvas sells for as much as Rs 466 crore at a New York auction, bringing home the message that modernisation with its universal and humanist outlook has come to the top and humanity is reasserting itself. On the other, the moles and rats of this world find new ways to satisfy their greed by faking works of art to make quick profits.

It was not surprising then, to hear that some three out of 10 works put up for sale are fakes today. And for a market that is worth Rs 80 crore (with an under-the-counter Rs 40 crore backing it up), we can safely conclude that art collectors are defrauded of at least Rs 40 crore every year by dealers who come and offer works of well-known artists on the cheap. Such dealers have their links with galleries whom they serve as accessories of work, framers and the like, so that profits of fraud are covered up as profits of legitimate trade.

To this is connected the artists? own way of coping with the pressure of growing demand by employing helpers to complete works. In itself that is not fraud if an artist is transparent about this help so that collectors can look at the work carefully and decide what they ought to pay for it. The problem only arises where assistance is not given recognition. It leads to all kinds of human problems which can be avoided with a little bit of sensitivity. The worst case is perhaps that of Rodin?s female assistant who ended life in a lunatic asylum after she was discarded by the renowned sculptor. Manjit Bawa?s assistant, Mahender Soni, became an artist in his own right, but died young.

Some of this can be avoided by giving assistants credit for their work. In collaborative works, like Arpana Caur?s collaborations with tribal artists, the works carry the names of both. Similarly, Vivan Sundaram names his collaborators and gives them credit for work done in his installations and assemblages. This is a good practice. It will bring names of new artists to collectors and help to maintain the continuity of good art. But generally artists are unwilling to allow mere assistants the status of artists and certainly they do not want them to outstrip them.

This proprietary attitude is both wrong and based on false premise. Most great art has been inspired by other great art or is atelier production with a master artist overseeing production and executing key portions of the work while his or her assistants fill in major spaces or the background. It is only when the master artist fails to carry his weight and merely signs the work that the problems begin. That is why the principle of the copyright does not work in art. No image is unique, for all images are borrowed from life. But artists evolve their own forms under each other?s influence. Only those forms that are copied with the intention of defrauding viewers that the works are those of another artist (either with that artist?s faked signature or with none at all) are dishonest, and a fraud. Where the artist?s name is missing or the ?copyist?s? signature is there, the works an are not fakes even if they confuse viewers.

The fake is a fraud pure and simple as it has a faked signature of a well-known artist on it to defraud the buyer as the work is priced as an original and presented as such. This is a criminal act. Unfortunately, fakes are as old as art itself as are copies. In the old days only antique art was faked as it commanded a price. But today, with contemporary art outstripping antiquities in the market, the faking of the works of living contemporary artists has become lucrative and common. Also, where the fake antique has to be treated chemically to look old, the fake contemporary work needs no such expertise, so it is that much easier to produce.

Dealers in fake art have different ploys to sell fakes. The easiest is to mix a consignment of fake works with a few real ones and pass them all off as genuine. The second is to say that the owner belongs to a well-known collecting family, or is close to the artist, or a relative, who is in need of money immediately but wants to remain anonymous. This is to say that the artist gifted the work to its present owner. In each case, the idea is to explain why the work is being sold dirt-cheap. The best way to cope with this is to insist on knowing where a work comes from and to have concrete proof of its provenance. In fact, experience shows that most fakes are presented as incredibly cheap bargains. Then there are works that were genuinely produced as contemporary copies or under the influence or the eye of a particular great artist. To make these acts of admiration fakes, either the signature of the copying artists (if it is there) is removed and replaced with that of the major artists being copies or if the work was originally unsigned, a signature is added as a fraud. Today, with digital techniques, perfect signatures can be copied out, making the task of spotting fakes that much more difficult.

Ultimately, the only way to stop frauds is for galleries to start blacklisting dealers producing fakes. That gallery-owners by and large have not as yet blacklisted such dealers or improved their system of checking up fakes and authenticating works beyond a doubt means that they are not averse to making the odd quick buck.

Artists have come out firmly in an effort to end the production of fakes. Anjolie Ela Menon puts a thumb impression behind each work she makes. S H Raza has a special code on each canvas. M F Husain gives photographs of himself with particular works to authenticate them. These efforts by artists will help check frauds.

Names of fakers should be put on the Internet as a last resort and be made public. It is not satisfactory merely to get one?s money back if one exposes a fake. Many more may pass unnoticed. The sources must be tracked down and stopped. The artists have done their bit. Now gallery owners must follow suit.