Angelico Schwartzkopf
and Jean-Paul Pudzianowski
Fine Art Authenticators
I. Introduction
As requested, herein is our authentication report on the artwork with catalogue number 45/47.
II. Alleged Artist’s Statement
Nearly all authentication disputes involve works allegedly created by long-dead artistic masters. In this case, however, the alleged artist is still alive and denounces the work in question as a forgery. However, many mature artists (and the alleged artist is very old, regardless of maturity level) renounce or even destroy artworks from their younger days to protect their reputations from association with earlier, less polished work. Thus, it is possible that the alleged artist is trying to disassociate himself from this work out of concern for his reputation.
What can be safely said is that whether the work is the creation of the alleged artist or a forgery, the creator wishes to remain anonymous. Thus, this report will scrupulously guard against revealing the identity of the alleged artist.
III. Occasion for the Artwork
Although the alleged artist disputes this, the artwork appears to have been created in 2003 to commemorate the fiftieth birthday of a close (and extremely wealthy) friend of the alleged artist. Works commissioned by (or for) the extremely wealthy have, of course, a long and (generally) honorable tradition in art history.
III. Description of the Artwork
The artwork in question portrays a female nude, with dialogue superimposed onto her body. Only the upper torso is portrayed, with no head, arms, legs, hands, or feet. The canvas is an 8½ by 11-inch piece of paper. The medium for the written dialogue is typewriter; the medium for the torso appears to be Sharpie.
IV. Analysis of the Artwork
To the plebian, the artwork might seem like a rudimentary, even crude, drawing. But more discerning critics will appreciate the efficacious application of minimalism. And of course, the portrayal of the subject as mere torso, sans arms, legs, and even face, allows the artwork to make a powerful statement about the objectification of women. Some have argued that the aforementioned statement is, “The objectification of women is fantastic, and when you’re a star they let you do it.” Thematic interpretation, however, is not within the purview of this document.
The words on the torso also testify to the artwork’s sophistication. They are a modern-day Platonic dialogue: a conversation between two specific characters about the meaning of life. The two characters appear to find that meaning in activities that might not be entirely Platonic, but again, such interpretations are beyond this document’s scope. The dialogue also hints of Gnosticism in its celebration of an in-group (“we have certain things in common”) that hoards insider knowledge (“I won’t tell you what it is… may every day be another wonderful secret”).
V. Analysis of the Signature
Among those claiming that the artwork is a forgery, a central argument has been that the signature does not resemble the alleged artist’s actual signature. To buttress this argument, its proponents have produced recent signatures by the alleged artist, signatures that indeed do not resemble the one on the painting. However, the signature on the artwork does, in fact, closely resemble multiple signatures by the alleged artist on documents from around the time of the artwork’s creation. Thus, the signature is not indicative of forgery, any more than Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is a forgery because it does not resemble paintings from Picasso’s Blue Period.
One might argue that matters involving a signature should be the province of experts in handwriting, not those in fine art authentication. We beg to differ. While the signature is always at least a tangential part of an artwork’s mise-en-scène, in this case, it is crucial. The signature’s placement and shaping are such that the signature functions as the nude female’s pubic hair. Thus, this signature is the method by which the artist (rather like Velázquez in Las Meninas) has slyly inserted himself into the artwork—in this case, slyly inserting himself into a nude female.
This playful insertion is further evidence that while the artwork may lack detail, it does not lack artistic sophistication. What seems to be pubic hair is, on closer inspection, a signature, and vice versa. The duality evokes that great artistic tradition of visual puns, trompe l’oeil.
VI. Purpose of the Artwork
Just as Jan van Eyck’s great painting The Arnolfini Portrait is widely believed to have served as a marriage contract, so the artwork examined here may well have served to seal a union. The dialogue typed onto the female torso, discussed already, emphasizes the mutually beneficial bond between the creator and the recipient of the artwork. The artwork’s creator and recipient seem to share some sort of agreement, some sort of deal. Viewed in that light, the artwork becomes the art of the deal.
VI. Conclusion
We unequivocally conclude that this work is not a forgery. The focus on an objectified female torso, the tone of the conversation inscribed on that torso, and the style of the signature are all emblematic of the alleged artist and the nature of his friendship with the artwork’s recipient. Especially characteristic of the alleged artist, as he himself has stated while being unwittingly recorded, is his use of his identity, in this case via his signature, to penetrate the female form without asking permission. So while we have respected the alleged artist’s concerns by being careful not to reveal his identity, we conclude that he is the actual artist, regardless of whatever denials he might trump up.
