Rothko at the Inauguration: A story of America in three scams

December 7, 2021 12:42 PM

"The story I ended up with is at once the story of the largest art fraud of the late 20th century, the greatest betrayal in the history of the New York art world, and the inauguration of Donald Trump." An astonishing long form essay by Richard Warnica about Rothko, fatherhood, the depravity of the very rich, the Trump inauguration, and more than I can list here….but mostly about the mystery at the heart of great works of visual art. Richard Warnica previously on Mefi.
posted by jokeefe (25 comments total)

Its truly incredible what follows titanic waves of money sloshing around in the hands of the biggest idiots you've ever met in your life.
posted by Slackermagee at 1:35 PM on December 7, 2021 [10 favorites]

The art world seems to be full of counterfeits. I remember reading an article a few years ago that described some forgers who actually managed to insert fake paintings into the printed catalogues of shows. These catalogues are one of the ways paintings are authenticated, and it wasn't known how many of these doctored catalogs there might be.

I always wonder: if you can't tell the difference between the real thing and a fake, then is there a difference? If it looks like a Royko, and everybody thinks it's a Royko, does it matter if it's not actually a Royko?

But then, I've always been glad I'm a writer, not a visual artist. I can let as many copies of my word go to other people as I want (and as many as are interested), but I still have it. I always thought it would be hard for me to let go of a word I'd created that was one-of-a-kind. My work can be easily reproduced, and every reproduction is functionally identical—it doesn't matter which specific one you have. Nobody will ever pay $78.1 to hang my work in their office; they can have it for a song. I won't die penniless only to have my work make other people stinking rich over the next hundred years.

I watched a documentary the other day about counterfeit fine wines. People want to believe, I guess, in the newly-discovered Rothko paintings or the six bottles of wine that Thomas Jefferson supposedly owned. They want to have the experience of that painting or that bottle. And con artists are able to take advantage of that. I find it fascinating.
posted by Orlop at 1:57 PM on December 7, 2021 [4 favorites]

I can't make sense of the math here. Somebody help me out?

The draw worked something like an abstract expressionist fantasy draft. Kate went first, then the foundation, then back and forth another 1,556 times. (The Foundation took five out of every nine paintings under the terms of the settlement, so there were only seven picks per lot.)

posted by Orlop at 2:38 PM on December 7, 2021

I think this is how it went:

Nine paintings in a lot.
K picks, leaving 8
F 7
K 6
F 5
K 4
F 3
K 2
Foundation receives remaining 2 paintings, giving them 5 and Kate 4.

So only 7 picks to determine each 9 painting lot.
posted by tavella at 3:07 PM on December 7, 2021 [2 favorites]

Wow. That sure covered a lot of ground. I saw the Mathew Wong show a couple times and noticed that most of the paintings were owned my the Mathew Wong foundation. Makes ya think.
posted by brachiopod at 4:41 PM on December 7, 2021

Related: Made You Look, a documentary about the art forgeries that the first described fake Rothko was part of
posted by ymgve at 5:09 PM on December 7, 2021

I always wonder: if you can't tell the difference between the real thing and a fake, then is there a difference? If it looks like a Royko, and everybody thinks it's a Royko, does it matter if it's not actually a Royko?

I don't know.. who's Royko?
posted by Liquidwolf at 5:20 PM on December 7, 2021 [2 favorites]

If you have to ask, you can't afford him.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 5:22 PM on December 7, 2021 [5 favorites]

I won't die penniless only to have my work make other people stinking rich over the next hundred years.

Well, unless your work gets rediscovered decades after your death and one lucky publishing company gets all the profits...
posted by Saxon Kane at 6:05 PM on December 7, 2021 [3 favorites]

What a lush story. How well written. I have seen Rothkos in New York, and they are so mysterious, how they glow, how simple they seem, my skepticism wanting to break free of it's leash; but sitting in the glow Rothko created, the experience is essentially holy, etherial.
posted by Oyéah at 6:26 PM on December 7, 2021 [6 favorites]

but sitting in the glow Rothko created, the experience is essentially holy, etherial.

This is so true, and Rothko is a favorite artist for that reason. I had the good fortune to grow up in Houston, where the Menil Collection has good access to Rothkos for exhibitions as well as at least one in the collection, and the breathtaking Rothko Chapel.
posted by jeoc at 7:05 PM on December 7, 2021 [2 favorites]

Beautiful reflection on Rothko, but I really thought the twist was going to be that the Trump inauguration committee used all their extra funds to buy fake Rothkos.
posted by airmail at 7:36 PM on December 7, 2021 [4 favorites]

who's Royko?

---u-(*U*)-u---
Royko was here
posted by jabah at 10:14 PM on December 7, 2021 [1 favorite]

"This rectangular block of paint on canvas in multiple shades of green and black expresses how all the aldermen in Chicago are on the take." - Mark Rothko / Mike Royko
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 1:30 AM on December 8, 2021 [17 favorites]

I have some fondness for the people who bought fake paintings (I think Vlaminks) and found they liked them enough to want to keep them. But yes, the art fraud thing is partly about people who want to buy experiences they aren't having.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 3:46 AM on December 8, 2021

the story of the Mark Rothko Foundation struck me as highly unusual: a case where a wrong had been done—in secret, for the benefit of the rich—that was in turn righted. That doesn’t happen very often when money, or power, is at stake. “It’s a good observation and I think you’re absolutely right,” he replied. “I’m very proud of what we did.”

The art world is pretty messy. I've probably mentioned it here before but an acquaintance once told me a story about working for a guy who, without really covering it up at all, was making fakes of just-less-than-famous mid-century artists' works, that would then be sold at auction in countries where the artist was less well known. The works were too 'insignificant' to draw the attention and scrutiny necessary to send them to a big lab for confirmation: they looked alright and that was enough. This is far from a special case.
posted by From Bklyn at 5:00 AM on December 8, 2021 [2 favorites]

You really are not rich until you can afford to be spectacularly stupid with your money.
posted by srboisvert at 6:50 AM on December 8, 2021 [2 favorites]

The Rothko story was great; the Trump inauguration story seemed unnecessary.
posted by stinkfoot at 7:07 AM on December 8, 2021 [1 favorite]

A Rothko calendar utterly fails to convey what it's like to stand in front of a Rothko painting. For me, no other artist's work can induce a mood the way a Rothko can.
posted by neuron at 8:16 AM on December 8, 2021 [1 favorite]

Mad Men - Rothko Moments

"Two possibilities. Either Cooper loves it and you have to love it, like in an Emperor's New Clothes situation. Or he thinks it's a joke and you look like a fool if you pretend to dig it."
posted by philip-random at 8:44 AM on December 8, 2021 [2 favorites]

The Rothko story was great; the Trump inauguration story seemed unnecessary.

I have to agree - the similar names on the list of people who spent up large on the inauguration (however fishy what happened to that money was) in the hope of nebulous benefits and the list of people who invest in art was hardly surprisingly. It didn't exactly seem related to what had come before, and made me wonder if I had missed some salient connecting point somewhere.

That said - up until the trump part, I was fascinated.
posted by Sparx at 12:31 PM on December 8, 2021 [2 favorites]

I can't recall hearing about this before. Really interesting story (but was I the only one getting dizzy from all the back and forths, and yeah the trump part is kind of overreach.) I may have mentioned it before but Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art is a fascinating account of another major art fraud case.
posted by blue shadows at 12:39 PM on December 8, 2021 [1 favorite]

Much like everything else in today's society, the dichotomy between what people see/hear/read in media's version of the art world versus the actuality of the money laundering, the general seediness, and the ever-present potential of forgery is pretty stark.

I've been exposed second-hand to the art world/scene/collective, and the percentage of self-important puffed up windbags to actual honest artists doing actual honest art is staggering. Sure, most other industries have their share of the aforementioned self-important do-nothing windbags but they're usually in the minority.

All that aside, neuron nails it above. Pictures or representations of the Rothko piece I got to see in person weren't anywhere close to the experience.
posted by Sphinx at 12:41 PM on December 8, 2021

Nancy Lebovits: I have some fondness for the people who bought fake paintings (I think Vlaminks) and found they liked them enough to want to keep them

My grandparents bought a painting once at a reputable auction house supposedly by this particular Icelandic artist that they had long liked. Later it came out that the owner of the auction house used to spend long weekends at his summer cottage painting in the style of various deceased Icelandic artists.

So anyway, my grandmother now owns the only watercolor painting this one Icelandic artist ever made.
posted by Kattullus at 5:08 AM on December 9, 2021 [5 favorites]

Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art is a fascinating account of another major art fraud case.

And now that (Dr.!) Peter Weller is a respected art historian, we have all the pieces of an authentic and reality-based movie of the story! Da Vinci Code, my ass!
posted by rhizome at 6:11 PM on December 9, 2021