Maria Aantonova -
An exhibition at a state museum in Belgium featuring previously un-seen Russian paintings has sent ripples through the art community, with some experts claiming the works are “fake”.
Twenty-six works supposedly by famous avant-garde artists, including Kazimir Malevich and Wassily Kandinsky, have been on display since October at the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, on loan from a collector named Igor Toporovski who insists they are genuine.
When photographs of the pieces appeared online they caused a storm, leaving art experts in Russia and abroad questioning whether such a prominent collection of unknown works by highly sought-after artists could have been amassed in secret.
“He showed outright fake works,” Vitaly Patsyukov, who curates Moscow’s State Centre of Modern Art, said of the collector.
“These are clearly fakes, they are compiled from fragments (copied from real paintings).”
Some of the pieces indeed bear resemblances to known works.
For example, a standing painting allegedly by Vladimir Tatlin depicts a strikingly similar pose to an established painting of a seated painting.
An open letter by a group of art historians last week cautioned that the paintings are not in any known catalogues, suggesting the museum removes the works until all questions about their provenance are sufficiently addressed.
On Wednesday, the museum published a statement on its website saying it had “followed the usual procedures for incoming loans and carried a thorough art historical and comparative investigation into the works”.
It had discussed the provenance of the works with their formal owner, Toporovski’s Dielghem Foundation, but said it stopped short of laboratory analysis which is standard practice “only in the case of acquisitions”.
Toporovski has maintained that his collection is genuine, calling the experts’ letter an “unjust attack” guided by art merchants who want to preserve their commercial interests.
Yet the controversy prompted the museum to “establish a committee of experts” with the Flemish culture ministry and Ghent city hall “to restore peace in order for the museum to concentrate on its main duties,” in the words of deputy mayor Annelies Storms. — AFP
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