Forgery, crime plaguing art world

By Reita I. Malaon

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian art market has enjoyed a boom since 1998, despite the economic crisis. You can visit any major art gallery or attend various art auctions and witness the increasing appreciation for works of art.

The previous record price of Rp 1 billion paid for Joko Pekik's Berburu Celeng (Hunting a Pig) was surpassed by the Rp 2.6 billion paid for W.G. Hofker's Portrait of the Seated Ni Noneh, which was sold during an auction held by Larasati last October.

These figures attest to the public's interest in paintings not just for their artistic value, but as investments. And those purchasing art are not only established collectors, with a growing number of younger people eager to acquire works of art.

However, as demand for works of art has grown, art crimes, especially forgery, have also risen.

The Indonesian art market is saturated with forged paintings. There are even dealers who specialize in selling forged works of art. And the big auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's, which have been auctioning major Indonesian paintings since about 1994 in Singapore, are not immune to this plague.

Some questions have been raised upon the authenticity of several paintings in their collections. There was even one incident where the family of the late S. Sudjojono submitted a claim on a stolen painting from their private collection which turned up for auction at Sotheby's Singapore.

When we saw the catalog for Sotheby's October 2000 auction, we immediately saw that one of the six Sudjojono paintings that were being offered in the listing was the one that was missing from our private collection, said Pandanwangi, the daughter of Sudjojono.

The painting was originally titled Djuang Main Yukulele (Djuang Plays the Ukulele), but in the catalog it was titled Girl with Violin.

It was so obvious that was not the title of the painting since she is not playing a violin but a ukulele. And of the other five paintings, we suspected four of them were forged. We directly contacted Sotheby's to clear these matters, unfortunately they seemed to be reluctant to be of any help about the stolen and forged paintings, she said.

They still went ahead and auctioned them and one painting that we suspected was forged was sold. Afterward, we invited the buyer to verify the authenticity of the painting but so far we have not received any word from the party, added Pandanwangi.

"Since the time of my husband's death in 1986, we have been receiving requests to authenticate his paintings, and sadly only about 20 to 25 percent of them were originals," she said.

It is impossible, of course, not to think of the controversial halted auction of world-class paintings by Van Gogh and Rembrandt a couple months back at The Regent Hotel in Jakarta. The obvious reason for this debacle was the huge profits awaiting the forgers and sellers.

One dealer who specialized in forged paintings justified his actions as fulfilling the needs of the customers. "They came to me only for the fake ones," he said, adding that if he didn't do it there were lots of others who would.

Art crime is not exclusive to Indonesia. It is a big business in European countries and the United States. But what makes the crimes here in Indonesia seem so ridiculously easy to pull off?

First of all is the lack of clear laws dealing with such criminal acts, said noted art critic and curator, Amir Sidharta.

Our law enforcers do not have the capability or the infrastructure to deal with these crimes. But the weak laws are not the only culprit. Another major factor is that the academic world in Indonesia is unprepared to tackle the problem, he said.

"We do not have an adequate record of the paintings of our major painters, let alone the younger generation. The only one that has such a list is Affandi," said Amir.

As a result there are no references to ascertain the authenticity of many works. Moreover, there is a blank spot in Indonesia's painting history.

In the aftermath of the Communist upheaval in the mid-1960s, many major works of art were burned by the authorities, especially those painted by artists from LEKRA, a cultural organization related to the now-defunct PKI Communist Party.

So there is sparse knowledge about the works of those artists from the 1950s through the 1960s.

"Another problem is that we do not have a stolen art registry that we can use to check on works of dubious origin," said Amir, who is currently in the process of creating a database for the works of artist Erica Hestu Wahyuni.

"(The database) is sorted by period so I can use it as a reference to determine the authenticity of any of Erica's work that comes my way. And the next project will be for S. Sudjojono's works," he said.

Also, there simply are not enough art experts here to guard against forgery.

Art institutions like The Yogyakarta Art Institute or The Jakarta Art Institute have long produced master painters, but only a handful of their graduates have chosen to remain on the observing side.

The inadequate number of art experts and a lack of written records compound the problem.

Putting an end to art crimes is clearly a major task that must be handled by the academic world and the art authorities, with assistance from the government.

So in the future art lovers can acquire a Hendra or a Sudjojono with greater certainty. And no art auctioneer -- like the one from the halted auction at the Regent Hotel -- will have to state that one should buy a painting for its aesthetic value, regardless of its authenticity.