Art auction postponed after public outrage

Art auction postponed after public outrage

JAKARTA (JP): A scheme to rake in millions of U.S. dollars
from the sale of 50 paintings touted as the long-lost works of
domestic and international masters lay in ruins as the organizers
finally halted the controversial auction yesterday after sparking
public uproar.

Chief organizer Adelia Rangkuti emotionally announced that the
auction was being postponed for three months.

"We received a lot of valuable input from experts and art
lovers and we decided to close the exhibition and postpone the
auction in the interests of the public," explained Adelia in the
luxuriously decorated but almost empty ballroom of the Regent
Hotel.

The event drew dozens of local and foreign reporters and a few
curious collectors and art dealers.

Yesterday morning, Ramzy Nasroen, a director of Batavia, one
of the company's organizing the auction, informed the Post that a
meeting had been held on Thursday night to decide whether the
auction should go ahead.

"We admitted that we had made a mistake by not conducting a
thorough study and we will draw a good lesson from this
experience," said Nasroen.

The planned auction, organized jointly by Batavia Auctioneers,
A.GA Fine Arts and Amana Inc. 2000, was scheduled to take place
yesterday afternoon at the Regent Hotel after the closing of a
three-day exhibition which ran from Nov. 22 through Nov. 24.

First Lady Sinta Nuriyah was initially slated to open the
exhibition but she failed to appear last Wednesday night after
several local media organs questioned the credibility and the
authenticity of the paintings on display.

The failed auction initially offered 50 paintings which were
attributed to international masters, such as Pablo Picasso's El
Toro Rosa (estimated sale price US$200,000), Pierre Auguste
Renoir's Girl with a Flower (estimated at between $1.5 million
and $2 million), Marc Chagall's A Bride's Dream (estimated at
$600,000) and van Gogh's Two Corn Farmers (valued at between $2
million and $4 million).

A number of local works attributed to Indonesian masters S.
Soedjojono, Affandi and Hendra Gunawan as well as foreign-born
artists Rudolf Bonnet, Le Mayeur and Arie Smit were also part of
the event.

When a reporter asked why the organizers only delayed the
auction instead of totally canceling it because of the
alleged doubtful authenticity of the paintings, Adelia looked
resentful.

"Don't say that the paintings are forgeries. I could sue you,"
threatened Adelia who was surrounded by several angry-looking
bodyguards.

Art curator Merwan Jusuf commented after viewing the works
that he was firmly convinced that almost all of the works on
display were either poor copies or forgeries.

"I can assure you that I am prepared to risk my reputation and
my expertise to say that the paintings on display are,
technically speaking, historically false and that the forgers did
very mischievous jobs," Merwan told journalists and artists at
the National Gallery yesterday.

"The painting Two Corn Farmers, allegedly painted by van Gogh,
was probably turned out by a low-grade street painter," he
claimed.

A few hours before the planned auction took place, a team of
experts from the National Gallery, including Watie Moerani, Amir
Sidharta, Merwan Jusuf, Wagiono Sunarto, Mamannoor, Ipong Purnomo
Sidhi, Suwarno Wisetrotomo and Asmudjo Jono Irianto, launched a
strong protest against the organizers of the auction.

"We demanded that the organizers cancel the auction because it
is an affront to the fine art world and the artistic achievements
of the artists concerned," said Watie Moerani.

The experts stated that the controversy had ruined the
reputation of the already chaotic local art world.

With wide coverage in both the local and foreign media,
international art circles are watching us closely and laughing at
our folly, commented Hardy, a painter whose work was allegedly
forged and displayed as the work of Arie Smit.

"I feel relieved now that the auction has been stopped as
otherwise we would be making a great mistake and we (the artists,
curators and art critics) would all be responsible for that,"
Hardy said. (raw)