I watched 60 Minutes last evening and remembered going to the Denver Art Museum and seeing some of the art work that had been found to be fake. Makes me wonder if I saw the real thing or the fake paintings? The minute I saw them on television I knew I had seen them because the same thought ran through my mind at the museum.. I don't understand or like that kind of art; black blobs or paint scribbles. It is called Abstract Expressionist work. Robert Motherwell did many paintings (black on white blobs) about the Spanish Civil War. (See my blog of April 5, 2014, titled Modern Masters).The television show explained that the paintings were purchased for thousands of dollars by a museum and then an art collector purchased them for even more money. Once an art detective began looking at the paintings he could see that they were not original Robert Motherwell paintings. The museum is being sued and some settlements have made. Ann Freeman, the museum curator, maintains she purchased them believing they were originals. But the detectives said that she should have known because there was no paperwork with the paintings. It was found that the forged painting were done in a garage by Pei-shen Qian. "He is a talented man, because he was quite a forger. He got away with it for quite a while and fooled many people," said an art critic.
Another artist who paints in the abstract expressionist style is Jackson Pollock and all I can say is that he at le
ast uses color to do his paint splatters! "Different strokes for different folks," comes to mind!
"Most painting in the European
tradition was painting the mask.
Modern art rejected all that.
Our subject matter was
the person behind the mask."
Robert Motherwell
I saw this also and I guess over the years (centuries??) this happens more often than we think--I have seen several books with this type of thing as a topic--next year's list??
ReplyDeleteOut of the group of artists mentioned in this segment,I like Mark Rothko
ReplyDeleteI guess I don't get it....if someone is talented enough to forge a painting that fools professionals, why don't they work on their own special art forms? At the DAM they also had Rothko paintings but I just cannot see why it is called art!
ReplyDeleteI don't usually go for that sort of painting, but some reason, I like his stuff--I think sometimes it is just luck that an artist makes it and becomes famous--two people with equal talent, one makes it and one doesn't--
ReplyDelete