Legitimate Forgery

What does the con man, counterfeiter, or art forger do after he gets caught? He gets his own television show or works with the FBI helping to catch people like him! Television shows like White Collar and films like Catch Me if You Can emphasize the psychological issues that inveterate con men have when forced to work for the power they've always fought, but I'm more interested in the fact that former criminals can have legitimate, lucrative careers doing essentially the same things they did illegally before. John Myatt, for example (pictured above), is a famous British art forger who went to prison in the 90s but now stars in a television series and "Hollywood Film" about art forgery and his own life. His website (which could use some significant grammar editing), claims that his life story is extraordinary, yet suggests that he started forging artists' works for mainly pragmatic reasons. I wonder then, if the reformed con man misses some kind of glamor that comes with criminality, or if it's a relief to be doing a similar activity lawfully. I suspect that each forger has a very different reason for his forgery, so maybe the answer to my question is different for each individual.

Ruminations on Miscellaneous Forgeries

A few bits of information have been knocking around in my head, but I don't think each of them warrants its own individual post right now.

Wine Forgery:
A recent story in The Economist discusses a recent surge in forgeries of astronomically expensive wines, such as 1982 Chateau Lafite, by buying empty bottles and filling them with similar, but less expensive wine. I also came across this subject on a recent episode of Law and Order: Criminal Intent, so it must be happening quite frequently. The article equates this to art forgery, and I see the similarity, but since wine is produced for consumption, I relate less readily to victims of wine forgery. I am no wine connoisseur, let alone a wine collector, but it seems to me that wine collecting is a special form of avarice, so I'm not so likely to condemn wine forgers who fake the most expensive wines.

Peter Sellars and Crime:
Last night I watched the 1966 Peter Sellers film, After the Fox, in which a thief/con man pretends to be a film director in order to smuggle millions of dollars of gold bars into Italy. The movie (the real one, not the one the character creates) is rife with racial and cultural stereotypes that contribute to it being not especially good in general, but I enjoyed the premise of pretending that something real is fake. In one scene, the chief of police of the small town in which the phony film will be made is convinced to play a policeman in the film because it "won't be acting," which he couldn't possibly do because he is "not an actor." Sellers' character seems to own no real clothes, but only costumes, and when he is re-imprisoned at the end of the film, it is assumed that he has traded places with the doctor (who happens to be his doppelganger) until he tugs at his false beard and finds that it is, in fact, real. "The wrong man has escaped!" finishes the film, suggesting that the Sellers character himself has lost track of who he actually is. The movie was mostly ridiculous, but really right up my alley.

Self-Forgery?

When I sign a document with my own signature, that signature is always an authentic "original" no matter how similar it is to the signature I made before it. Apparently not so with works of art! A recent article in The Independent discusses René Magritte's forgery of his own work, suggesting, indeed, that an artist can actually forge himself. I'm inclined to call this something else, like "deceptive creation of copies," but we nonetheless have two paintings entitled The Flavor of Tears, nearly identical to one another (down to caterpillar-holes) and both painted by Magritte. Magritte apparently also forged the works of other artists like Picasso and was well-acquainted with the problems of both originality and the international art market. The article suggests that a lot of Magritte's reason for making the copy was to make money, but then why not create a similar, but not identical piece? Magritte was apparently having a laugh at art collectors and possibly making an artistic statement in addition to making some money.

 I find this story interesting in that Magritte's "forgery" of his own work actually makes both works copies and eliminates the possibility of an original. Artists often create multiple prints of works, but each new print diminishes the value of the previous ones. I need to re-read Walter Benjamin's "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction," but I feel that there is much to be said here in terms of reproducing art. Magritte created two identical works which are both the original and copy, as if to say, if it's impossible to tell which is the original and which the copy, does it even matter?

Forged Expression(ism)

It's quite possible that I already knew about this forgery ring in Germany and simply forgot to write about it, but it is back in the news today because actor Steve Martin apparently bought one of the forged paintings involved in this scandal. I encourage everyone to read at least part of the story, which has all the makings of a Hollywood film (maybe Steve Martin could star?): heroin-addicted draftsmen, fraudulent art-marketing companies, a forger's dreams of being the next Andy Warhol (and more!), and follows the trend of art forgery stories to be completely bizarre.

Perhaps the FBI or Interpol has a pathological profile of forgers, but it seems to me that it would be quite difficult to create one. I'm no psychologist, so I mostly just wonder whether the most successful forgery rings all have the same goals and major players; I suspect, however, that they don't. It's hard, at any rate, to imagine that Mark Augustus Landis and Elmyr de Hory, for example, made forgeries for the same reasons. Maybe their great differences are what make them so hard for me to understand, or maybe they are not so different as I suspect. Maybe I should stick to fiction.

Art Forgery and the Law

A few months ago I discussed this breaking story, of a man who appeared to be posing as a Jesuit priest and donating forged art to museums across the country. The forger has now been identified as Mark Augustus Landis, and it appears that earlier claims that he took no money for his dozens of forged artworks is true. His story has been discussed at length in the Financial Times and New York Times, and the FT article was even featured on one of my favorite arts news websites, Arts & Letters Daily. The elaborate masquerade involved with the donation of Landis's forged artworks seems a work of art in itself; Landis had to create not only the fake artworks, but also the benefactor priest persona.

Authorities are now attempting to find a way to prosecute Landis for something but are having trouble because the man doesn't seem to have stolen anything or acquired compensation for any of his forged gifts. It appears that the only harm he's caused is injury to the pride of museum curators who probably should have known better than to authenticate these works (and some did). What do you think about this enigmatic figure? Should he be punished in any way possible, or slapped on the wrist and told to stop giving away fakes? I'm still not sure what I think.

Authentication Euphoria?

Today Yahoo! featured this article about a document purported to be one of Lincoln's last actions before his death in 1865. As is fairly evident to us (especially once we know it's a fake), the "5" on the document does not quite match the other numbers and there appears to be an ugly smudge underneath it. The document was "discovered" by Thomas Lowry in 1998, so one wonders why it took so long to prove that it had been altered.

It seems to me that everyone wants to believe that others are truthful and well-meaning. We especially like the idea of "Honest Abe," and probably hate the suggestion that anything connected with him would be fraudulent (even if it's not his fault). Tests to gauge authenticity are also expensive and time-consuming, and question the expertise of the experts. It makes everyone feel better (I imagine) to authenticate a work than to expose a forgery. Lowry counted on this, and though the National Archives now "has banned Lowry from its facilities," he likely rode the wave of that discovery for a decade with publications and lectures, and is now nearing retirement age anyway. His rivals are gloating at their discovery of the alteration, but they get little else from it. No one's really proud of the guy who annoyingly points out an inconsistency in a document or work of art.

When Forgery becomes Murder

I am twenty-five years behind on this story, but I can probably be forgiven since I was not even reading yet when it happened. In 1985 Mark Hoffman, on the verge of having his hundreds of forgeries discovered, sent bombs that killed two people before maiming himself with a third explosive. The story is reminiscent of several others I have discussed here, most notably those of Jean-Claude Romand and Brian Blackwell, in that it deals with a man who killed in order to protect his lies. Both Hoffman and Romand ended their deceptions with suicide attempts, but it is notable that neither attempt succeeded. Hoffman was obviously adept at making bombs, but only two of three he made killed their targets. I don't think that Hoffman ever intended to die.

I wonder whether these types of deception are forms of survival for some people, to such an extent that they somehow feel that they must ultimately kill or be killed (or discovered to be frauds, which is apparently just as bad). While I am extremely interested in forgery, I don't necessarily think that it is the worst possible crime, and find it almost unbelievable that a person would kill for the preservation of his forgeries. People like Mark Hoffman seem almost like another species, one that follows its own set of social/moral rules. I will probably continue to be baffled.

On The Forged Gift

Recently a member posted this link on the Gaddis listserv, asking the group whether the story might be the "most Gaddis-like" yet. The story involves an impostor Jesuit priest who has been donating forged artworks to American museums and institutions for the past 20 years. Like The Recognitions, we have here an impostor, forged art, and apparent disinterest of the forger in monetary gain; furthermore, like those in the novel, the people who have discovered the forgeries cannot imagine an act of this type of deception without monetary gain as its end. The article makes a point to say that the impostor "pays for his own hotels and airfare while traveling, but gets wined and dined by the institutions because he has told everyone that he has many more works in his collection." The curators are the Recktall Brown of real life, judging all value in terms of money. I'm sure Derrida would have much to say about this false gift-giving (but I'm still reading Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money, so you'll have to conjecture on your own).

But the problem here is that we know nothing about this impostor. Readers of The Recognitions can (at least sometimes) understand Wyatt Gwyon's motives because he tells us what they are. We can conjecture that this false Jesuit will reveal himself eventually, but he has spent twenty years not revealing himself. It is difficult to even guess at his motives. If he is caught, what will his charge be? The article mentions that museums have been "a little bit embarrassed" that they were taken in by the forgeries, but have they lost anything other than pride? A few dinner dates? I hope the federal authorities do catch this forger, if only so I may better understand him.

Authenticity and the Collector

This morning I came across this item for auction on ebay and, though I have little interest in buying it, spent several minutes wondering about its authenticity. How can a book published in 1995 have "1994" written in it by the author? Then I realized that I didn't really care whether it was authentic or not. I am not a collector, and I see my books' values pragmatically: will the binding hold up? is the text accurate? can I mark in it with impunity? I enjoy a beautiful copy of a novel as much as the next person, and would also like to have a signed copy of my favorite book, but in our age of mechanical reproduction, every book is a "copy," and even the signed ones are hardly one-of-a-kind.

So then, what value does the signature add to the book? Why does the seller referred to above want $200 for a signed copy, and why might it be so important to a buyer to have that copy? Perhaps the first edition, especially the signed first edition, is as close to an "original" as is possible in publishing. The first edition novel is like the band a hipster liked before everyone else heard about it, and its price is indicative, not of its worth, but of the passion the buyer has for the work. But this passion often seems to diminish once the passionate begins to collect. The collector wants that which is closest to unique, if he cannot find something unique, and his use for the item is restricted to re-selling it at a profit or showing it to friends at parties. I don't think Gaddis would want his books to sit unread on shelves, nor to be shown off because they were expensive or exclusive.

The Forger Family

One of the most recent major art forgery operations was carried out by the Greenhalgh family: artist son Shaun and his elderly parents, George and Olive. It seems that there is a psychological difference between a single person who copies artworks (whether for monetary gain or not) and a group of people all committing a fraud together. This article claims that the group did not carry out these frauds for money, but rather due to "resentment of the art market." Shaun's obvious skill suggests that this statement could be true--certainly he could make some sort of living selling copies of great works of art--but these three wanted to undermine the whole art market. Still, a single piece successfully sold and then revealed to be a fake would signal their resentment at least as effectively as several pieces successfully sold and never discovered to be forgeries. I'm not convinced that they were trying to make a point. The art market has always been ridiculous and has never been fair, just like every other market. I'm mostly just certain that they were trying to make money.