2012 has been an interesting year for art. Munch’s “The Scream” set a new bar for art sales at auction; the Olympics paved the way for countless new and controversial developments in the world of British art, not the least of which is Hirst’s Verity sculpture; and the Turner Prize’s 2012 opening generated the usual mix of vitriolic indifference and outright acerbic apathy among art critics at the Tate Britain that we’ve come to expect, albeit mixed in with some surprisingly high praise. Post-postmodernism and the almost disturbingly nihilistic elements of popular Dadaism have taken an even more notable front seat in seminal arts culture, and exhibits such as the upcoming Picasso vs Duchamp in Stockholm look set to challenge even our most basic cultural assumptions on a field that has lain stagnant for decades, if not centuries.
It’s easy to miss, then, underneath the veneer of self-absorbed egotism that art so proudly displays, the little things that make us wonder why names, art culture and the ubiquitous pushed envelope are so valuable and quality itself is so often ignored. Where does the value lie, if not in the aesthetic appreciation of the work? Why does the painter’s identity matter so much? Questions like these can give even the most educated art critics pause, and the Beltracchi art forgery scandal that rocked the European art scene this year demonstrates exactly why these plutocratic elements make something that should be so basic and intrinsic to our culture so aloof and complex to consume. This year, one of the biggest art forgery scandals of the 21st century has brought this dichotomy of art values to light, with aplomb endemic only to the baby boomer generation.
Wolfgang Beltracchi (formerly Fischer), artistic virtuouso extraordinaire and genius forger, was imprisoned in 2011 for his on-again, off-again practice, persistent from his youth. Noted for his nigh-unmatched skill and the perceived authenticity of his work, Beltracchi was particularly notorious for the lies he told that so many art brokers fell for enthusiastically, and the assistance of his wife, Helene: together they “forged” the Sammlung Werner Jagers, a priceless collection belonging to Helene’s grandfather Werner Jagers that had come into his possession from legendary German collector Alfred Flechtheim. Supposedly containing a range of paintings from Heinrich Campendonk to Max Ernst, each of stunning technical quality, the Beltracchis used this front to sell their technically high-quality forgeries to a wide range of art seekers, from comedian Steve Martin to corporation Sotheby’s, some (such as an imitation of Campendonk’s Rotes Bild mit Pferden) for up to €2.8mln.
In the end, it was that self-same picture that led to the eventual arrest and indictment of the two hotly-debated career criminals in Freiburg in 2006, when art experts Ralph Jentsch and Andrea Firmenich conclusively proved the paintings created by the two were forgeries, this painting in particular containing titanium white, a pigment not available at the time of the picture’s provenance in 1914. Today, 58 of the Beltracchi’s many forgeries have been identified, as the couple serve out their sentence in a minimum security prison, considered national heroes for spitting in the faces of the high art community by the German public; the publicity has strengthened their careers, and a documentary of their lives is currently in the works.
exeposedev 