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MAY 18 WEEKENDER: Second Opinion – Contemporary art intellectuals like emperor without clothes

I love news stories about contemporary art; they so often reveal the fine arts intelligentsia to be, like the emperor, without clothes.
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Grand Forks Gazette Weekender columnist Jim Holtz.

I love news media stories about contemporary art; they so often reveal the fine arts intelligentsia to be, like the emperor, without clothes.

There were two fascinating examples recently. Both raise fundamental issues about art and those who create it, own it and sell it.

The first was a story by Russell Smith in the Globe and Mail (Feb. 28). It revealed that Charles Krafft, long known as an artist who ridiculed the Nazi movement in a series of ceramic works, is in fact a white supremacist and Holocaust denier.

His ironic works, in particular, a teapot fashioned to look like a bust of Adolf Hitler,  have thereby, in the minds of the art cognoscenti, instantly been transformed into works celebrating, not mocking, the Nazi movement. Suddenly, art critics and investors who had admired his bitterly humorous Hitler teapot were horrified and scandalized by it as a glorification of the dictator, and of course, the teapot’s value plummeted.

The second story is even better.

It appeared on the March 3 CBS news program Sunday Morning and was an interview with Ken Perenyi, a long-time art forger, who has made hundreds of thousands of dollars over a number of years creating and then selling “unknown” and “recently discovered” works of art by famous 18th century painters.

Once he was found out and interviewed by the FBI 10 years ago, Perenyi expected charges would be laid.

Surprise! The FBI never followed up on its suspicions. Perenyi had created, and sold so many paintings and fooled so many experts, wealthy collectors and museums that it appears all decided it would be better to just forget prosecution.

After all, any exposé would instantly devalue the works that they all had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on. Besides, it would be embarrassing and experts and the very wealthy don’t like to be embarrassed.

All of this raises some basic questions that art students always ask, but wealthy investors and those who cater to them ignore or dismiss.

Does a work of art not have intrinsic significance regardless of who created it or why?  Is it the artist’s intention that validates or invalidates a work of art? His name?

Those in the art business will ask back: Does name, intention or anything else about the work increase the amount someone is willing to pay for it? Because that is the only real determiner of value.

Art investors are followers; they have to be told what is valuable. Few could identify, explain or discuss the significance of an unknown artwork in any meaningful way any more than they could tell the difference between a $500 and $25 bottle of wine without looking at the label.

So by all means, wealthy art cognoscenti, enjoy your investments. Just don’t be surprised if you hear a few snickers now and then.  It’s just that, like the storied emperor’s simple subjects, some find the way you present yourselves amusing and revealing. But don’t worry; we will rarely bring it up. We know how you hate to be embarrassed.

– Jim Holtz is Weekender columnist and former reporter for the Grand Forks Gazette