Simchowitz-Mahama Settlement More Hype Than Substance

We’ve received a few frantic emails asking us about the recent Simchowitz-Mahama settlement. As the reader may recall, this concerns yet another threat by an aggrieved artist to “deauthenticate” an artwork created by that same artist.

What will happen? Is this the artist’s way to screw with the out-of-whack art market and “the system,” they ask? If only.

Put simply, we don’t think this is more than another attempt by certain artists to bite the hand that feeds them, and that feeds them well. In other words, it’s marketing ploy with little teeth, because unless your head is still stuck in the sand you’ve come to understand that it’s the collector and the art market that dictate what is a work of “art.” There may be few exceptions to this rule. And by few I mean very few, and those exceptions are the Richters and Twomblys that still dictate what is and isn’t a work of art authored by them. Otherwise, it’s not so much an art world as it is a playground for financial speculation. Pure and simple.