Posted by Bill Wilson on October 25, 19102 at 17:36:09:
In Reply to: Re: Duchamp Painting posted by Bill Wilson on October 16, 19102 at 19:57:30:
A signature on a work of art does not authenticate the work of art. The signature must be authenticated. Picasso wrote postcards to his dealer when he was in the country, authorizing a worker in the gallery to sign any piece of work that was sold. I was once shown a painting by “Picasso” that was signed “Piccasso.” The owner also had a “Pollock” I advised him to destroy it. Photographs of Jackson Pollock’s painting taken after his death exhibit no signatures. When the paintings came up for sale, they had been signed. Because the position of a valid signature is a significant part of a work of art, Pollock’s heir vandalized his paintings, polluting the history of art by inserting invalid implications into paintings so that they could be sold. But those signatures needed to be forged only because people have a false belief that a signature is valid and believable evidence. With some artists, the presence of a signature is grounds for suspicion at least about the signature, perhaps about the work of art. Anyone who buys a painting in the belief that the signature authenticates the painting would do well to study first, and study second and third, taking each artist and each work-of-art case-by-case.
Duchamp used his signature often as a weapon against the monetary overvaluation of some art, but his strategy didn’t succeed in deflating a market that continues to inflate. In my presence, January, 1968 (I was doubtful about the date earlier), Duchamp chose a paper printed with a sample of red, deciding among perhaps ten reds. Then he offered to sign it as a mark of his decision. Was he twinkling? That specific red would be printed in a new edition of “Fluttering Hearts.” Duchamp picks a red! For me, the moment arose like a haiku, and then the moment evaporated, but lingers in memory. But when he signed that sample, surely he was aware of the success his signature had in transforming a sub-aesthetic object into a marketable commodity. Perhaps he did not intend mischief in the categories of study, of collecting and marketing art, but even that insignificant event, because of his signature, enlivens the question whether anything he signed became a work of art because he signed it. In the brief period during which people wrote to me for my autograph, I thought that they could simply send a check that I would endorse, and we’d all save postage. In 1993 I needed copies of a first edition of a book I wrote. The price was more than twice the published price. When I asked why my book was so expensive, I was told that the copies were signed. Sure they were, I signed them! So I bargained, and ended up paying only three dollars for each of my signatures. Meanwhile a doctor who published a book went from bookstore to bookstore signing copies, figuring that those copies could not be returned to the publisher. I wondered how much he billed his patients for an hour such as time he spent forcing his books on book-stores. Is that the signature a collector wants to touch lovingly? Incidentally, artists have signed objects like the Empire State Building, and I think one signed Manhattan, but I don’t think that they put their works up for sale. In a work of absolute genius, Claes Oldenburg, invited to site a sculpture in Central Park, a dubious act given the glory of the Park, with the Park difficult to add to without subtracting something. Oldenburg hired gravediggers to dig a grave and then to fill it in. I didn’t hear about a signature, or whether that powerfully brilliant work by a supreme artist sold to a collector. But here on this screen, decades later, you are reading about that sculpture.
A signature on a work of art does not authenticate the work of art. The signature must be authenticated. Picasso wrote postcards to his dealer when he was in the country, authorizing a worker in the gallery to sign any piece of work that was sold. I was once shown a painting by “Picasso” that was signed “Piccasso.” The owner also had a “Pollock” I advised him to destroy it. Photographs of Jackson Pollock’s painting taken after his death exhibit no signatures. When the paintings came up for sale, they had been signed. Because the position of a valid signature is a significant part of a work of art, Pollock’s heir vandalized his paintings, polluting the history of art by inserting invalid implications into paintings so that they could be sold. But those signatures needed to be forged only because people have a false belief that a signature is valid and believable evidence. With some artists, the presence of a signature is grounds for suspicion at least about the signature, perhaps about the work of art. Anyone who buys a painting in the belief that the signature authenticates the painting would do well to study first, and study second and third, taking each artist and each work-of-art case-by-case.
Duchamp used his signature often as a weapon against the monetary overvaluation of some art, but his strategy didn’t succeed in deflating a market that continues to inflate. In my presence, January, 1968 (I was doubtful about the date earlier), Duchamp chose a paper printed with a sample of red, deciding among perhaps ten reds. Then he offered to sign it as a mark of his decision. Was he twinkling? That specific red would be printed in a new edition of “Fluttering Hearts.” Duchamp picks a red! For me, the moment arose like a haiku, and then the moment evaporated, but lingers in memory. But when he signed that sample, surely he was aware of the success his signature had in transforming a sub-aesthetic object into a marketable commodity. Perhaps he did not intend mischief in the categories of study, of collecting and marketing art, but even that insignificant event, because of his signature, enlivens the question whether anything he signed became a work of art because he signed it. In the brief period during which people wrote to me for my autograph, I thought that they could simply send a check that I would endorse, and we’d all save postage. In 1993 I needed copies of a first edition of a book I wrote. The price was more than twice the published price. When I asked why my book was so expensive, I was told that the copies were signed. Sure they were, I signed them! So I bargained, and ended up paying only three dollars for each of my signatures. Meanwhile a doctor who published a book went from bookstore to bookstore signing copies, figuring that those copies could not be returned to the publisher. I wondered how much he billed his patients for an hour such as time he spent forcing his books on book-stores. Is that the signature a collector wants to touch lovingly? Incidentally, artists have signed objects like the Empire State Building, and I think one signed Manhattan, but I don’t think that they put their works up for sale. In a work of absolute genius, Claes Oldenburg, invited to site a sculpture in Central Park, a dubious act given the glory of the Park, with the Park difficult to add to without subtracting something. Oldenburg hired gravediggers to dig a grave and then to fill it in. I didn’t hear about a signature, or whether that authentic work by a supreme artist sold to a collector. But here on this screen, decades later, you are reading about that sculpture.