In the course of building his 150-piece collection of Mexican art, entrepreneur Lance Aaron estimates that he has seen more than 1,000 forgeries. He has even purchased a few of them—an experience he now ruefully describes as an expensive master’s degree in art collecting.
The most savvy of collectors have been fooled at one time or another by fakes. More often than not, they hide these scams away like a dark family secret, and are so mortified that they either quietly seek redress or simply write off the loss. But Aaron hopes to remove this stigma. He is one of a small breed of collectors who, in their fight for recompense, has emerged as a crusader for antifraud reforms.
Aaron, 42, who recently sold his Latin American retail-merchandising firm, MZM, to Leggett & Platt, began collecting Mexican art shortly after moving to Mexico City in 1991. He is no dilettante: The Museo Nacional de Arte there will exhibit about 50 works from his collection in early 2006. He also has one of the most extensive private libraries on modern Mexican art. The fact that even a collector as sophisticated as Aaron can be swindled speaks to the cleverness of scam artists today. Negative Energy
In the late 1990s, Aaron paid $60,000 for what the seller said was an important work by David Alfaro Siqueiros, one of Mexico’s 20th-century masters. The seller provided documents of authenticity signed by members of the artist’s family. Upon closer inspection, Aaron has alleged in ongoing litigation in Mexico, this masterwork turned out to be a clever forgery. “I sensed it within several weeks of having it,” he says. “It’s an energy.”
After his experience with the Siqueiros, Aaron decided to take on the culture of complacency he often encounters in art and government circles. “I have gone into several expositions this year in museums, and I have sat down with the curators and said, ‘You have a serious problem,’” he explains. “This is an artist who is part of the patrimony of Mexico, and I have seen innumerable pieces that are false.” The exhibitions, he adds, “are legitimizing these forgeries and allowing organized criminals to recreate the history of the art of Mexico.” These problems are pervasive worldwide. Collectors are particularly vulnerable to frauds in overheated art markets like the one that exists today, according to Mary-Anne Martin, a New York gallery owner who founded the Latin American department at Sotheby’s.
To help stem the flood of fake Frida Kahlos, Martin recently formed an authentication committee with other Latin American art experts. The shelves in her New York gallery are stuffed with binders documenting forgeries she has been offered over the years. In one instance, she turned down a fake Kahlo in Mexico only to see it resurface for sale in Paris and then in Spain over the following months.
“Forgeries are a fact of the game in all fields of art, and have been since the Romans, if not before,” says James Oles, an assistant professor of art history at Wellesley College and an independent curator and art critic. No expert, he says, “can avoid being taken by the best forgeries, some of which hang undetected in museums today.” He knows the obvious signs of pieces to eschew: works with poor provenance, works that travel through a murky secondary market, works with too many “certificates of authenticity.” Oles has refused to exhibit many works with such baggage attached, “though owners insist they have the real thing.” He knows that a thorough examination takes time, and grows uneasy if he is rushed to make a decision to include or recommend something.
|
