The finish stages of anyone’s life will tend to be somewhat chaotic. Ailments consume one’s thoughts, strength wanes, memory fades, and also the ability to look after ordinary activities, albeit work or simply shopping for food, decline. Those with effort is likely to retire - the company will go on - and devote most of their lives to a less stressful existence. In 1996, multimedia sculptor Nam June Paik (1932-2006) a break down stroke that largely curtailed his ability to create new installations, but his career was far from over. Exhibitions of his work were being planned, new pieces were still being fabricated and existing works stayed set up for sale at galleries. What’s more, a series of sculptures purportedly by Paik, but which the artist denied were his, were placed available, leading to two lawsuits against Paik, which his lawyers chose to settle, because Paik wasn't deemed mentally competent to testify at trial. “You are able to see this as people using a senile artist,” said Paik’s nephew and estate executor, Ken Hakuta. “He was sick.”The lawsuits were eventually resolved out of court. Had Paik maintained a documentary record for all his work - “So-and-So Gallery or studio assistant is authorized to make this-many pieces, to become titled this, every part and sold for these prices,” signed and initialed by everyone concerned - the confusion might have been resolved more quickly and with less expense. Good recordkeeping, unfortunately, isn't one of the characteristics of highly successful artists. Diminished thinking processes, however, may prove catastrophic for an artist whose business is run completely out of his or her head. “Just getting old is hard,” said Dr. John Zeisel, director of the Woburn, Massachusetts-based organization Artists for Alzheimer’s. “Bills don’t receive money; things don’t get set aside. Most creative types have things available anyway and, after they develop dementia, it might be much harder to organize.”
On the list of issues that may occur are:
• Artworks with various art painting techniques which have been loaned to some gallery, collector or museum and are forgotten. The grateful recipients may construe the loans as gifts, sometimes selling the whole shebang.
• Artworks consigned to some gallery and forgotten. Galleries, too, sometimes forget to pay for artists.
• Images which can be licensed for commercial use, also forgotten. “Postmortem royalties, with few exceptions, often taper off,” said Elliot Hoffman, an attorney having an arts practice in New york, “but sometimes royalty payers forget to pay for the artist or perhaps the artist’s estate or heirs. Sometimes, they only stop paying and wait to see if anyone complains.”
• Elements mixed up in process of making a multiples edition, for example mock-ups, proofs, maquets, molds or drawings, are overlooked by the artist but are subsequently used or sold from the publisher, fabricator or foundry.
• Artworks with impressive painting colors that are not documented with photographs or written information (title, size, year, medium), which can pose later problems of attribution. Artists are generally regarded as the very best judges that belongs to them work (however, there are instances where some happen to be under truthful, denying early pieces they now dislike or, regarding Giorgio di Chirico, intentionally misdating works) but, if the artist suffers loss of memory (as in the truth of Nam June Paik) or dies, the situation of attribution is magnified. Determining whenever a work was made by whom gets a more drawn-out and expensive process.
“Artists, by definition, aren't business-minded,” Hoffman said, which is neither true nor a definition, but there have been numerous instances of artists neglecting to maintain good records on the artwork, loans, licenses and consignments, resulting in headaches and lawsuits during an artist’s lifetime and beyond.
If artists kept better records on their own work and careers, there can be less requirement for lawsuits, authentication committees - art fakes hardly will be profitable - and catalogue raisonnés. Toward that goal, the Joan Mitchell Foundation (155 Avenue with the Americas, New York, NY 10013, 212-524-0100, www.joanmitchellfoundation.org) has built a grant program enabling artists to document their work. The foundation will underwrite this method by hiring an archivist and investing in a computer (if need be) and the creation of a graphic and text database rather than providing money for an artist directly. “If you merely give artists money, they could not spend it on archives,” said Carolyn Somers, executive director of the foundation. “While they're alive, artists can do their particular catalogue raisonné.”
• Artworks consigned to some gallery and forgotten. Galleries, too, sometimes forget to pay for artists.
• Images which can be licensed for commercial use, also forgotten. “Postmortem royalties, with few exceptions, often taper off,” said Elliot Hoffman, an attorney having an arts practice in New york, “but sometimes royalty payers forget to pay for the artist or perhaps the artist’s estate or heirs. Sometimes, they only stop paying and wait to see if anyone complains.”
• Elements mixed up in process of making a multiples edition, for example mock-ups, proofs, maquets, molds or drawings, are overlooked by the artist but are subsequently used or sold from the publisher, fabricator or foundry.
• Artworks with impressive painting colors that are not documented with photographs or written information (title, size, year, medium), which can pose later problems of attribution. Artists are generally regarded as the very best judges that belongs to them work (however, there are instances where some happen to be under truthful, denying early pieces they now dislike or, regarding Giorgio di Chirico, intentionally misdating works) but, if the artist suffers loss of memory (as in the truth of Nam June Paik) or dies, the situation of attribution is magnified. Determining whenever a work was made by whom gets a more drawn-out and expensive process.
“Artists, by definition, aren't business-minded,” Hoffman said, which is neither true nor a definition, but there have been numerous instances of artists neglecting to maintain good records on the artwork, loans, licenses and consignments, resulting in headaches and lawsuits during an artist’s lifetime and beyond.
If artists kept better records on their own work and careers, there can be less requirement for lawsuits, authentication committees - art fakes hardly will be profitable - and catalogue raisonnés. Toward that goal, the Joan Mitchell Foundation (155 Avenue with the Americas, New York, NY 10013, 212-524-0100, www.joanmitchellfoundation.org) has built a grant program enabling artists to document their work. The foundation will underwrite this method by hiring an archivist and investing in a computer (if need be) and the creation of a graphic and text database rather than providing money for an artist directly. “If you merely give artists money, they could not spend it on archives,” said Carolyn Somers, executive director of the foundation. “While they're alive, artists can do their particular catalogue raisonné.”
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