On Auctions and Fakes

Let’s start with Christie´s New York, where a new auction season will kick off on September 22nd. There will be 249 lots dedicated to contemporary art, with Plaid, by Jean-Michel Basquiat, valued between 300,000 and 500,000 dollars, playing the leading role. Works made by David Hockney, John Wesley, Gilbert and George, Donald Judd, Frank Stella, Yayoi Kusama or Thomas Strucht, among many other, will be also auctioned, reaching some five million euro. This bidding is expected to help investors and art dealers test the art market before the really intense auction season kicks off in November.

Also in New York, beginning September 29th, Pury & Company’s Phillips will auction a wide collection of Latin American art to attract private collectors. The organizers are looking forward to being as successful as they were a year ago, with a collection which now includes photography and design, as well as works made by well-known artists such as Fernando Botero and Wifredo Lam. Bloco Troncoso, by Neil Williams in 1982, deserves special attention, as it deals with the gripping topic of Latin culture in non-native creators. It’s expected to be priced between 120,000 and 140,000 dollars.

On the other hand, the collecting world was shocked on September 6th by one piece of news. The Portuguese police confiscated a considerable amount of works allegedly made by painting masters Picasso, Miro and Renoir, totaling 27 in all, from a citizen of that country. What stands out is that most of them were sold as original works and they had authenticity certifications, also fake. Authorities, regarding one of the largest cases of confiscation in recent years, have pointed the finger to the action of international fakery and art dealing networks. Some of the paintings had been already smuggled into art buying-selling circuits or auctioned off at high prices.

Sources: masdearte.com, http://www.artespain.com y Yahoo Noticias