The last weekend compelled me to write about an issue I've been avoiding all this while: fakes. On Saturday, I received my copy of India Today and immediately turned to 'The Fine Art of Deceit', perhaps, the most comprehensive article on this subject that, sadly enough, has been getting far too much attention.
The Sunday papers had an editorial by noted artist Manjit Bawa on how his assistant and several others have tried to fake his works over the years.
Both pieces highlighted some recent fraudulent transactions which read more like hair-pulling scenes out of 'The Bold and the Beautiful'.
Like most people in the art world, the two writers also believed that fakes are a now major menace to the development of Indian art and offered some interesting insights and suggestions on how to deal with the issues at hand.
However, I am of the firm belief that even though much is being made of the faking factories, the serious collector who knows his marbles continues to find it a complete non-issue.
Anjolie Ela Menon's now legendary 'Female Head' that was sold through a string of dealers, some good, some bad, has become a bit of a joke in the art community.
The episode, no doubt, highlights the murkier side of the art world that seems to be thriving. Greedy dealers, foolish buyers, faking framers, and even sting operations (!) make this worthy of Bollywood's answer to 'The Thomas Crown Affair'.
As usual, the press is so distant from the art world that it reported this episode after six months, when the rumours in the art community got too loud to ignore. And when it did, it did not know the difference between Chemould and Chelmsford.
The art world is certainly not what it was just a few years ago. Artists want to break free from the 'cutting off a ear and dying a pauper' image and move to the sexy, Warholesque lifestyle. Some dealers, who have become increasingly powerful, have lost their ethics completely and repeatedly renege on deals made to collectors.
Worse, they cheat their artists by buying works cheap from them only to flog them at much higher prices to NRIs. And lastly, novice collectors who know that unlike a Hermes bag, a Husain is a status symbol that will appreciate. All of them have one common 'lakshya' "� money.
Some lessons that need to be learned from this episode? Firstly, as a dealer, don't handle something you're not familiar with.
Collectors, on the other hand, should see this as a reality check and understand that over-confidence is a thing of the past. And, more important, there is no such thing as a free lunch. No deal is too good to be true unless, of course, you're Madhuri Dixit.
But how do we put a stop to this problem?
Both the articles conclude by providing some suggestions. Bawa recommends lawyers who specialise in copyright and punishment to those who sell fakes.
Artist Jahangir Sabvala offers statesmanly suggestions of 'integrity' and curator Ranjit Hoskote proposes 'ethical self-restraint'. To discourage faking, one of the publications even gives us practical tips like carbon dating, ultraviolet radiation, X-rays and, hold your breath, infra red reflectography.
But who are we trying to fool? In a country of Ketan Parekhs, fodders scams and Telgis, what's a fake Tyeb or two? Let's be realistic, none of the above will help solve the problem.
What is really required is for each collector to develop a basic level of connoisseurship that makes certain that these fake- flogging peddlers never dare approach them with questionable merchandise.
Novices could make a start by following the message, 'only the paranoid survive'.
