C

em>Collecting highly valued works of art is regarded as an investment apart from a personal interest. The question of authenticity is an age-old problem, with allegations of widespread forgery of the work of masters currently spreading through the social media. The Jakarta Post’s Nani Afrida reports on the issue.

Opening: Visitors at the Oei Hong Djien (OHD) Museum during the opening of its third wing in Magelang, Central Java, in April.  The museum houses several thousand fine-art pieces, spanning a century of works from Indonesia’s emerging artists to established masters.  JP/Slamet Susanto Dr. Oei Hong Djien, a prominent collector and renowned expert on modern Indonesian art, says he has no intention of selling any part of his growing collection. “Instead of selling, I will continue to hunt more and more paintings,” he said at the opening of the third wing of his private OHD Museum in his hometown of Magelang, Central Java, last April.

“At my age, I intend to show the highest appreciation of Indonesian artists and their fine art creations, because they are greatly talented, and I want to provide them with space in all of my museums,” said Oei, a 73-year-old tobacco grader and trader.

However he expressed shock at the allegations by Indonesian art critics who have accused him of knowingly buying and selling forged paintings, including those which are part of his present collection.

“I love art, how could I buy forged paintings and sell them?” he said to The Jakarta Post last week, adding that he had no desire to ruin his international reputation in arts circles. Quite apart from anything else, he was already rich enough, he said.

He was the main speaker at the one-day “Fine Arts Round Table Discussion: Modern Indo-nesian Paintings” at the Indonesian National Gallery in Central Jakarta, hosted by the Sarasvati Institute.

The Institute was set up in 2010 by financial market analyst Lin Che Wei. It focuses on research, consulting, education, promotion, art market analysis and collection management of Indonesian fine arts.

Oei’s collection encompasses some 2,200 paintings, many by five masters — S. Sudjojono, Affandi, Hendra Gunawan, Widayat and Soedibio. Oei’s reputation in the fine arts, dating back to the early 1960s, is such that he is among the advisers to the Singapore National Gallery.

But the allegations of forged masterpieces, including those in the OHD Museum’s collection, are making the rounds among the art community, and other collectors are getting nervous.

“I’m getting worried that half my collection might be fakes,” said collector Budi Setyadarma in the discussion. Sometimes prominent painters had learned to paint in the exact style of their masters, he said, and even family members of famed artists would not be able to tell the difference.

Another collection being questioned is that of Bank Indonesia (BI), the authenticity of which representatives have insisted upon. Former deputy senior governor Miranda Goeltom, who was in charge of purchasing art works for BI, told the discussion that the purchases from reputed galleries always involved various experts, and their items carried certificates of authenticity.

In the early 2000s an audit of the bank’s assets by the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) noted irregularities regarding spending on hundreds of items in the bank’s collection, as they were not regulated under the bank’s logistics management but rather listed as facilities for the governors’ board.

The agency’s involvement regarding the art works, and related allegations of forgery, were “a hassle”, Miranda told the discussion.

In February this year a curator and painter, Hidayat LPD, told the Jurnal Nasional daily that almost 30 paintings in BI’s collections might be forgeries, including those bearing the signatures of Sudjojono, Affandi and Basuki Abdullah.

Art forgery, an ancient practice, occurs everywhere. In the art business, Germany-based curator Werner Kraus said, “where there is money, there’s a fake.” The market, he added, was very different from a century ago, when the global art market was not as vibrant as today.

What Indonesia now needed, he said, were independent art specialists. So few local experts are drawn on to consult mushrooming galleries and buyers that observers say they cannot always be labeled entirely “independent”.

European countries, Kraus said, had independent specialists working in museums, outside of the art market.

In Indonesia, he said it was difficult to differentiate the collector, critic, and neutral art specialist. He suggested Indonesia could open schools or faculties in universities to train young people to be independent art specialists.

Art critic Suwarno Wisetromo said in the discussion that “everyone thinks he is an expert and knows all about the masters’ styles, working habits and history.”

With many in the art community seemingly suspicious about each other’s credibility, doubts on the authenticity of masterpieces would remain a subject of speculation.