[MSN] Fake art selling on the rise–again

[MSN]

Fake art selling on the rise–again
By Ramon N. Villegas
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Posted date: March 10, 2008

MANILA, Philippines - Today the newly affluent and young buyers are laying out serious money to buy art. Galleries and informal dealers are all over the place. International auction houses have hyped up the dizzying prices fetched by Asian—including Filipino—paintings in capitals of the world.

Parallel to growing demand and rising prices, however, has been a phenomenal and alarming increase in the number of art forgeries. The situation is serious. The fakes are not being peddled surreptitiously but blatantly, not only in Manila but also in other cities.

The Philippine art market has steadily grown in the last 20 years. The Filipino upper and middle classes have expanded numerically and proportionately. The many single detached townhouse and condominium units as well as business premises now being built all require some form of art. Typical buyers are in their 30s and 40s, out not only to decorate their walls but also to invest.

In the 1930s-40s, their great-grandparents commissioned Amorsolo-type paintings and aspired to collect Lunas. In the 1950s-60s, their grandparents and parents bought paintings by Manansala, Luz, Joya, Magsaysay-Ho, Zobel, Saguil and their modernist contemporaries.

As the economy recovered from World War II, buying art became the intelligentsia’s new hobby. Exhibition venues like Lyd Arguilla’s Philippine Art Gallery, the Luz Gallery and F. Sionil José’s Solidaridad catered to cognescenti.

Journalists like IP Soliongco, José Guevara and JV Cruz were connoisseurs of fine art. Alice Coseteng, Roberto and Corazon Grau Villanueva, Fernando and Enrique Zobel, Eugenio Lopez, Leandro Locsin, and Cecile Yulo were passionate art collectors.

Frenetic ’60s
Starting in the late 1960s, the art market became frenetic. Imelda Marcos lent her significant presence to art exhibit openings. She presided over an endless round of dinners and parties in the houses of Manila’s elite where paintings and antiques were more important than the lechon and lumpia, which were soon forgotten, while the art was not.

So tycoons and matrons fawned over Manansala, Legaspi and other masters just to be able to buy their works. Articles and books on Philippine art were written by Emmanuel Torres, Santiago Albano Pilar, Leo Benesa, Angel de Jesus and others.
In the late ’70s and early ’80s, the government spent significantly on art for the Cultural Center, Metropolitan Museum of Manila, the Museum of Modern Art, the Philippine International Convention Center, the Intramuros Administration and the Central Bank.

Artworks inherited or acquired for hundreds—at the most several thousands—started fetching millions and, in the recent decade, tens of millions of pesos. Those in their 30s and 40s today witnessed how artworks could be converted to real-estate assets or comfortable retirement nest eggs. It is with this in mind that they go to galleries and dealers to buy artworks.

As lambs led to slaughter
Unfortunately, many are as lambs being led to slaughter. At best, unscrupulous dealers palm off derivative art—Ang Kiukok, Magsaysay-Ho, Bencab, Borlongan and even Marcel Antonio look-alikes—by third-rate artists.

At worst, they are talked into buying paintings made to look old, with forged signatures. Aside from crooked galleries, these are being peddled by plausible individuals. Three are estranged wives of prominent figures in business and politics, working from their homes and by phone. There are even priest vendors. A particularly active one, it was learned, has already left the confines of his religious order, but is still perceived to be under the mantle of his vows.

In the late ’70s and through the ’80s, fake artworks were exhibited in museums or published in books to lend them credibility. Today dishonest dealers have taken shortcuts.

Fakes but certified true
Forgeries are now accompanied by “Certificates of Authenticity” signed by art experts with long credentials. Expertise is subject to human error, but in the case of one leading issuer of certificates, to greed. Like a jukebox, he will sing whatever you like, as long as you keep dropping those coins. Regarded as a pillar of Philippine art history, his certificates are long-winded perorations on art. Another expert whose signature certifies spurious paintings was a veritable god among us, one of the towers of modernist art in the country. Sadly, he has been purveying and authenticating questionable artworks even more actively since retirement from the educational institution that had employed him most of his life.

There are also attestations of authenticity signed by deceased artists’ relatives; some even allow themselves to be photographed holding counterfeit paintings. Some families did keep meticulous records and are principled and honest: Sylvia Amorsolo’s opinion for Fernando Amorsolo’s paintings is still respected. José Joya, Cesar Legaspi and Ang Kiukok’s families have extensive files that help in proving authenticity. But other artists’ widows, children, nephews and nieces are notoriously cavalier, authenticating practically anything for a fee.