The Wall Street Journal                          Saturday/Sunday, Jan.1, 2006    p.3

 

The Invisible Artist

Some new stars are rising in the museum and gallery world. One catch: They don’t exist

 

By Jacob Hale Russell

 

This Spring, visitors to the prestigious Whitney Biennial show in New York may pause to enjoy the works on display by artist Reena Spaulings, but don’t look for Ms. Spaulings at the opening-night gala – she doesn’t exist.

“Reena Spaulings” is actually a fictitious artist who was created last year by a group of artists. She’s also the “owner” of a gallery that the artists have opened on New York’s Lower East Side.

For some artists, the best way to get recognized these days may be by going incognito. Some are obscuring their identities with coy pseudonyms although their identities are open secrets, as with Assume Vivid Astro Focus, A Brazil-born artist featured in the last Whitney Biennial. Others are reviving the 1960s model of the art collective, teaming with other artists with similar political or aesthetic views, and signing with the collective’s name. And in some cases, a pseudonym is used by a shifting and often unknown number of artists, as with et al., the name adopted by several New Zealand artists who appeared in this year’s Venice Biennale.

Some artists say they’re choosing pseudonyms or working in collectives as an “anti-market” stance against an overly commercialized art world where price wars are waged over the stars of the moment. But adopting another identity can also be a savvy attention-getting move, as the Whitney’s 2006 theme “uncertain identities” demonstrates. John Kelsey, one of the artists behind the Reena Spaulings name, says that at a recent show, works sold quickly. He speculates that this may have been in part because of “this mystique around the collective,” although he says the group didn’t intend to promote the show that way.

The pseudonym is the art world’s turn at something that’s paid off in other creative fields in recent years. It was considered a public-relations masterstroke when author Joe Klein published his 1996 book, “Primary Colors,” under the name “anonymous,” setting off frenzied debates about the identity of the real author. Hip-hop artist Eminem, already an alias for Marshall Mathers, has recorded some of his best-selling songs as his second alter ego, Slim Shady.

In the art world, the use of pseudonyms has been mostly limited to a fairly avant-garde contingent of lesser-known artists. A pseudonymous work by Jeff Koons or Jasper Johns is unlikely to appear on the market. Still, Andrea Zittel, an established installation artist whose work is now showing in a large solo retrospective at the Contemporary Art in Houston, works under a variety of corporate-sounding names such as “A-Z Administrative Services.”

The trend of obscured identities could have a long-term impact on the art-collecting world. Some experts say that years from now, works created under pseudonyms could take on additional value as symbols of a seminal moment in art history – or they could be dismissed as relics of a silly fad. Art collectives, which often have a regularly shifting membership, may also lack a signature style.

In an art market focused on stars, pseudonyms don’t always sell. One piece by an artist calling himself “Mr.,” who has worked with a Japanese art group founded by the popular artist Takashi Murakami, came to auction at Sotheby’s this fall with an estimate of $20,000 to $40,000, but failed to sell. Another sold for $27,000, at the low end of its $25,000 to $35,000 estimate.

But several artists working under assumed names or in collectives have recently enjoyed commercial success. Los Carpinteros, a Cuban collective, had a set of eight drawings sold at Sotheby’s last month for $42,000, well above their estimate of $18,000 to $22,000, after their work was acquired by both the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art.

“The present market [is] a good opportunity for collectives-a market that’s so enthusiastic about any type of artistic expression and any medium,” says Babriela Palmieri, a specialist in contemporary art at Sotheby’s. Last year, MoMA also bought 100 inkjet prints by New York-based Lebanese artist Walid Raad, who goes by the pseudonym “The Atlas Group.”

Some artists have come under fire for using pseudonyms. Columnists across New Zealand complained when et al. wouldn’t consent to interviews after being chosen for the Venice Biennale, at which they would be representing their country. According to the New Zealand Press Association, even the Prime Minister, Helen Clark, said she had “some concerns” because the artists did not want to disclose their identities.

When Norwegian photographer Stig Eklund was revealed to be Jef Bourgeau, director of the Museum of New Art (MONA) in Detroit this year, dealers complained in the local paper about his misleading multiple identities. Mr. Bourgeau, also works as a Japanese abstractionist, Taki Murakishi, as well as under several other pseudonyms.

Interest in creating art under assumed or collective identities stems in part from the currently strong influence of the 1960s, says Ann Temkin, a curator of painting and sculpture at MoMA. But assumed identities have an even older history: Marcel Duchamp signed his famous 1917 urinal with the name “R. Mutt,” and French artists in the 19^th Century commonly worked under pseudonyms.

Much of the work made by collectives today reflects a recent resurgence in politically motivated work. The group Otabenga Jones and Associates, which showed last year at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston and will be in the upcoming Whitney Biennial, consists of four African-American artists (each has an independent artistic career in addition to their collective work).

Otabenga’s work deals with the treatment of race in art: In Houston, they showed a car flipped upside down, painted to resemble a 1960s Los Angeles police cruiser, accompanied by audio footage of the 1965 Watts riots.