Art world full of forgery 'shenanigans', artist says

Wanganui artist Peter Ireland who exposed a fake Gottfried Lindauer painting at the Waikato Museum of Art and History says there are plenty more forgeries out there to be uncovered.

Ireland said it took 10 months from the time he spotted the forgery hanging in the Hamilton museum till its owners, charity Trust Waikato, took action and had the work investigated.

The matter is now with the police and the trust has brought in the lawyers.

The painting is of Tainui chief Kewene Te Haho. The painting was brought by the trust at auction in 2001 for $121,000.

Ireland suspects the painting may be the work of forger Karl Sim, who took the name of the artist he most often replicated, CF Goldie. Ireland said he came across the painting while at an exhibition for a fellow Wanganui artist, potter Paul Maseyk.

"I was nosing round the museum and saw the Lindauer on a wall. It too just two minutes looking at it to release it wasn't a Lindauer.

"I've seen a dozen or more in the Whanganui Regional Museum so I know what a real Lindauer looks like."
Ireland said he has been in the art world for more than 45 years and has done registration work for many galleries, which involves condition reports on paintings.

"Everything about this one was wrong. The lighting in it, the anatomical treatment of the ear and head ... there was no ageing on the painting.

"It was immediately absolutely obvious."

Ireland wrote to the curator of the exhibition and though he got a reply, there was no follow up on the information. He then went to the collections manager at the museum but it wasn't until trust chief executive Bev Gatenby was contacted last July and colonial art expert Roger Blakley was brought in that any action was taken.

Auckland Art Gallery conducted forensic testing and the University of Auckland tested the painting with sounds waves.

"The soundwaves testing is fascinating. They tested it against several other Lindauer works and the painting had different results to all the others."

In the Waikato Times newspaper earlier this month, Mr Blakley called the painting a "good fake".
Ireland said the provenance of the fake painting is "murky".

"It was found in Scotland by a New Zealander in the early 1990s. It was on sold to a private collector by Webbs and then bought by the Trust Waikato charity from International Art Centre.

He said the art world is full of "shenanigans like this".

"There's a conspiracy of silence in the art world over these things. But if something is hanging in a public art gallery and the label says it's by someone then we need to make sure people know it is by that person. It's a trust issue."

"There's a real lack of accountability and transparency here - something that's essential for both the public interest and the business of selling art. Those two words ... the more we seem to use them the rarer they are actually true."

Ireland said he expected more forgeries to be found out like this.

Fla. chalk festival yields mind-bending art works

Artist Kurt Wenner, seated left, instructs fellow artist working on his 3D circus pavement art project during the Sarasota Chalk Festival Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012, in Sarasota, Fla. The festival runs through Nov.

SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) — Chalk: it's not just for blackboards.

On a stretch of asphalt in Sarasota's downtown, dozens of artists from around the world are sketching, rubbing and painting chalk on the pavement. For hours they work, creating mind-bending images of whimsical cats, Renaissance beauties and surreal 3D images of spooky teddy bears. They're here for the fifth annual Sarasota Chalk Festival, which is free and runs through Nov. 6.

Kurt Wenner, a former NASA space illustrator who studied classical art in Italy, is something of a rock star in pavement art circles because he invented 3D chalk art in the mid-1980s.

On Wednesday, he sat on the ground with a dozen other artists, talking about chalk technique, shading and hue. Wenner has a masterpiece at the festival; he and other artists worked on it feverishly Wednesday morning.

"This particular piece has a bit of a different geometry, in the sense that we've set the viewpoint up pretty high here at fifteen and a half feet," he said. "And there's going to be a second layer of art, suspended over the first layer of art, horizontally, and gives the appearance of a much, much larger drawing."

Nearing completion, the sprawling mural looked to be a sepia-toned renaissance piece, with delicate women's faces and fantastical animals, yet with a circus feel.

The theme of this year's festival is Circus City USA — a nod to the city's heritage as the headquarters for the Ringling Bros. Circus.

The world's top street artists from Italy, Brazil and Japan were drawn to the festival to create these temporary works of art on the pavement. While the artists do use traditional-looking cylindrical pieces of chalk, many also mix the chalk with water and use paintbrushes to apply it to the asphalt.

Some pieces are classical, like Wenner's. Others are whimsical, like the one by artist Bryan Moon of eight cats dressed as Wild West characters.

"It's really quite hard work," said Moon, who spent nearly 40 hours on his 30-foot-long kitty masterpiece.

Other works are mind-bending, surreal 3D images of futuristic robots and mechanical parts.

Denise Kowal, the founder of the Sarasota Chalk Festival, said that many of the artists also work on traditional canvas and it's a treat for people to see them actually in action, "painting" on the ground.

"Artists always spend their time inside the gallery and this is so awesome because the public really gets to be there and see the whole creative process and what goes in it from beginning to end," she said.

There are a number of pavement artists visiting the Florida festival from Italy, a country where street art is popular. In the 16th century, Italians who painted the Madonna and other images from inside cathedrals in chalk on the streets were known as Madonnari.

Can art contribute to making Salem a more distinct and vibrant city?

You could argue that the state of a city’s public art is a barometer that indicates its economic health, its self-confidence, its cultural maturity and its civic pride.  In some cities, public artwork plays such a central role that individual works are even used to brand the city.  Grand Rapids, Michigan, for example, uses the silhouette of Alexander Calder’s outdoor sculpture “La Grande Vitesse” as its logo.

Art, especially public art, can change the way we perceive a place.  It can even change our relationship with the place where we’ve lived for years.

Art can help a city to establish and express its identity.  This is particularly pertinent for Salem as it wrestles with the stereotypical image of itself as a dozy, bureaucratic backwater, perpetually in the shadow of Portland’s cultural bounty.

Murals, street art, and public sculpture allow a city to examine itself, to ponder its history and identity, and to project a positive vision of itself and its future.  It is not hard to visualize a city whose many murals and public sculptures embody its civic pride and proudly project its optimistic sense of self.  Unfortunately Salem is not currently such a city, but if our mayor and city council make the right decisions, it could become such a place.
How would we initiate such a transformation here in Salem?  The short answer is that it would require vision and leadership on behalf of the city and the active participation of a coalition of public and private sector entities and educational institutions.

It could, for instance, take the form of a series of collaborations between the city, the business community, the Marion County Historical Society and local artists, where they convince downtown business owners to provide outdoor wall space for the painting of murals that address Salem’s history and identity based on research and information provided by the State library or the Marion County Historical Society.  The Oregon Arts Commission could help to fund the project, and the Salem Art Association might want to contribute its expertise and the benefit of its connections with the region’s artists.  Similarly, local businesses under the leadership of the chamber of commerce could exhibit their civic spirit by paying for the cost of paint, while artists donate their time and their skill.  Local colleges, universities and schools could become involved through student participation either in terms of historical research or mural painting under the guidance of experienced artists.  All of these elements could combine to realize a vision of art as an endeavor that is collaborative, educational, socially involved, and that energizes and brings together a variety of community constituencies in the pursuit of a common goal.

The beauty of this kind of project is that it need not cost much, could be initiated relatively quickly, and would make an immediately visible difference.  We already possess the expertise and the resources.  We need only cultivate the will to employ them.

The city might begin by appointing a committee of volunteer stakeholders to focus on ways to make public art a central part of its urban revitalization process, and to spearhead the solicitation of proposals and the selection and approval of projects.  Such a committee could easily be organized and supported by the City of Salem’s Community Development Department’s Neighborhood Enhancement Division.

If we adopt this vision and strategy, our city can be transformed in short order to a place where public art enhances the quality of residents’ lives and projects the distinct identity and cultural vibrancy fit for a state capitol.

Pacific Asia Museum lauds Sherry Rehman for aiding Pakistani art addition

WASHINGTON: Pacific Asia Museum, an acclaimed center of art in California, has added a Pakistani artist Hamra Abbas's work to its permanent collection with efforts and generous support of Ambassador Sherry Rehman.

"We are extremely grateful for Ambassador Rehman's support," said Executive Director Charles Mason of Pasadena-based museum said, according to a report in online magazine Pasadena Now.

"In today's increasingly globalized world, it is important to us to foster intercultural understanding across a broad range of Asian cultures, and acquiring this contemporary Pakistani work speaks directly to that mission".

Ambassador Rehman has a long-standing interest in the arts, and studied art history as an undergraduate, the report noted.

"The ambassador's gift recognizes the increasingly important role of Pakistani artists in the contemporary art scene around the world," said Shaila Andrabi, president of Pacific Asia Museum's Pakistan Arts Council.

The piece of work represents the first contemporary work in Pacific Asia Museum's permanent collection by a female Pakistani artist.

Previously, several works by the artist were included in Pacific Asia Museum's 2010 exhibition Beyond the Page: The Miniature as Attitude in Contemporary Art from Pakistan, the report said.

This work is part of Hamra Abbas's 2008 series Paper Plates. She received a BFA and MA in Visual Arts from the National College of Arts, Lahore and now she lives and works in both Boston and Islamabad.

She was awarded the Abraaj Capital Art Prize in 2011 and a Jury prize at the Sharjah Biennial 9 in 2009. Her work also has been shown in exhibitions all over the world and in several Biennials including the 2007 Istanbul Biennial and the 2006 Biennale of Sydney. Abbas work is also held in the permanent collection of The British Museum.

Pakistan art exhibition opens in London

LONDON: A landmark exhibition of Pakistani art opened at London’s Asia House on Tuesday night showcasing the country’s rich culture, social aspects, vibrant and blossoming art scene.

The “Different Faces of Pakistan” the group exhibition is organised by Sasheen Abbasi, in collaboration with CARE, Pakistan’s educational NGO. The exhibition sought to highlight the unexplored artistic side of Pakistan by bringing together works by 35 artists, juxtaposing established modern masters such as Sadequain and Gulgee alongside contemporary talents that included Khusro Subzwari, Farrukh Shahab, Inam Raja, Dr Wasif Ali and Tassadux Sohail.

Abbasi told The News she selected the works to demonstrate the “creativity, courage and conviction of artists living through some of the most trying times the nation has witnessed over the past few decades”. For Abbasi, they “depict the real face of Pakistan, so often neglected in sensationalist international news, and instead showcase the beauty, sensitivity and remarkable grit of the Pakistani people”.

Some 150 arts professionals, collectors and critics attended the opening night, with notable guests including David Abrahams of RUSI, Dr Azra Pechucho, Chairman of Defence Committee, Pakistan, Nick Viner, Director of Conservative Friends of Pakistan and several key media figures.

Speaking on the occasion, Mehvish Khan, Chief Executive of CARE Pakistan, commented, “Asia House was the perfect setting for a fabulous evening of Pakistani art and culture.

It was wonderful to see so many people supporting Pakistani art.” Talking to The News at the opening ceremony, Farzana Baduel, who handled organisation of the exhibition, said that the country brand of Pakistan is in “negative decline”. She added, “This exhibition is a much needed promotional platform for Pakistan and its immense artistic and cultural heritage.

Creating a cultural dialogue between Pakistan and the international community will enable a greater understanding of Pakistan and its people; hopefully one that differs from the usual negative narrative that is sadly so often prevalent in the international press”, Farzan Baduel said.