Suspicions of fraud at exhibition of Russian avant garde art

Secretive collector and unknown professor raise questions in Turku

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Suspicions have been raised that works on display an exhibition of Russian avant garde art, which opened recently at the Wäinö Aaltonen Museum in Turku might be forgeries.
      In a review appearing in Wednesday’s edition of the business newspaper Kauppalehti, critic Otso Kantokorpi raises questions of the authenticity of the works, and asks if the exhibition might be “the greatest art forgery of the 21st century”.
      The Circle - the Line - the Point. Russian Avant-Garde Art from private collections is an exhibition with about 100 works of artists including Kazimir Malevich,
Vladimir Tatlin and Aleksandr Rodtsenko.
      A large number of the works are from a private collection in Turku. The museum has not disclosed the name of the collector.
     
Kantakorpi says that the exhibition should be an international sensation, as the known works of Rodtsenko, for instance, are very small in number, and the Turku exhibition has a number of Rodtsenkos that had been previously unknown.
      “Russian avant-garde has been my special field for 30 years. The works are ridiculously bad. Miracles sometimes happen, but 25 previously unknown Rodtsenkos do not suddenly appear from the collection of a Turku real estate developer”, Kantokorpi says.
      Kantakorpi says that the collector is a second-generation real estate developer, who has previously shown his works in public at a gallery that he owns. Kantakorpi therefore feels that it is strange that the name of the collector is not made public.
     
“With every work that we borrow we agree whether or not to disclose the name of the collector. It is normal museum practice”, says Päivä Kiiski, the director of art for the City of Turku.
      “Our collector is only now getting to be ready to display the collection. He has kept the works hidden until now, because he has not known enough about them. The collector is a respected lender of works. I will not display the works of just any unknown person.”
      Kiiski adds that the works ended up in the hands of the collector in auctions and as legacies.
     
The exhibition was compiled by Moscow art history professor Paola Volkova.
      “Paola Volkova andn her Russian colleagues are responsible for what can be said at all about this exhibition. We cannot be responsible for the authenticity of any of the works in the exhibition. I emphasise that we are bringing out the alphabet of Russian avant-garde out of private collections as a background of the exhibition of Estonian Leonhard Lapin, Kiiski said.
     
In his critique, Kantakorpi questions Volkova’s competence as an art expert. Kantakorpi says that Vokova’s name cannot be found in a single article or central source on Russian avant-garde. He also feels that the text written by Volkova in the exhibition’s catalogue is clumsy and amateurish.
      Kiiski admits that there are many works in the exhibition that raise questions.
      “We are ready to change the attributions if an expert using his own name says that the attribution is incorrect.”


Links:
  Wäinö Aaltonen Museum: The Circle – the Line – the Point.Russian Avant-Garde Art from private collections

Helsingin Sanomat