Alfredo Martinez -Artist vs Art

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WRITTEN BY

Jayesh Pandey

Chemical 3rd Year

ILLUSTRATED BY

Prasang Maheshwari

Mechanical 2nd Year

Picture this, it’s 2002 and hours ago you have made the perfect art deal. You bought two paintings of the renowned neo-expressionist Jean-Michel Basquiat for a meagre sum of $38,500 from this six-feet tall, “all-brawn-no-brain moron” Alfredo Martinez, he does not realise the value of any Basquiat paintings. But you know its value. You know that in the world of art, the name Basquiat is synonymous with “Legend”. You sprint to your computer table, boot up the system, open the Internet Explorer, and look for places to sell these paintings. But as you’re scavenging the internet you smell something fishy — the paintings you bought and the ones on the internet have an uncanny difference. A sweat glides down your temple and only one thought diffuses on the insides of your cerebrum — “The paintings are fake”.

This is what happened to Lio Malca, a renowned Columbian art collector. And he immediately contacted the FBI’s national art crime division, and the FBI in turn put America’s greatest art detective on the job. Someone who has recovered Civil War guns, Nazi diaries, gone undercover amongst Mexican cartels and Brazillian Gangs — Robert “Bob” Wittman. Bob had only one task — To catch Martinez. And to an untrained

eye, this might seem like the easiest task Bob ever had to do in comparison to his colossal achievements. But Martinez was no novice. He had lived one rollercoaster of life - at different points in his life, he was a punk rocker, a weapons expert, and an artist.

To catch Martinez, Bob goes undercover and sets up a phone call with him. And during their correspondence, Bob gets Martinez to admit that he is selling fakes. Bob asks Martinez if they could work together to scam “art neophytes’’, to which he agrees. Bob spun this thread of lies to catch Martinez red-handed. They decide to meet in a hotel, where Martinez would bring Basquiat paintings, and they could discuss terms. But as soon as Martinez enters the room and makes himself at home, a dozen FBI agents swarm in and hold Martinez to the ground. Bob was successful in his mission but he couldn’t keep one fact out of his mind. During the arrest, Martinez was calm beyond disbelief, which was a rare sight. And even during the trial, where Martinez was found guilty, the brawny man couldn’t help but grin the entire time. This was getting on the nerves of the FBI agent. However, the hearing concluded, and Martinez was given a sentence, which seemed like the end of the story — but what the FBI and law system of the USA didn’t realise at the time was that Martinez was also a con-man. And they had just become part of one of the greatest cons in history.

Martinez was an artist at one point in time. And he had realised one fact, which also made his skin crawl — people don’t buy art because they love art for its face value but because it has an incredible backstory. And Martinez was about to tell an irresistible story. As soon as he entered prison, he started fabricating original artwork with nothing but coffee and juice. This rattles the prison authorities because creating art in prison was not allowed during that time. They confiscate his artwork. To protest against this, Martinez goes on a hunger strike for 55 days. But outside of prison, everyone is astounded and wants a piece of Martinez’s art. Later on, Martinez smuggles his artwork outside, under the pretext of legal documents. And these artworks reach a dealer, who puts up an exhibition titled - “United States of America vs Alfredo Martinez”. Two of the paintings are sold even before the exhibition opens. This is Martinez’s first victory. Two years later, Martinez leaves prison and now he has money, fame, and most importantly he has a place in the world of art, where he can create original work with his own signature. There is no doubt that the Martinez-Art-Chronicle is a 300-IQ move, but there is a hidden trail in all this fiasco - Artist vs Art. To make sense of it, let’s trace back to the origin - Jean-Mischel Basquiat. In the 1980s, he crafted these raw, dazzling, and graffiti-inspired paintings but none of them were appreciated during his time they were labelled “illiterate”. But when he died of a drug overdose at the age of 27, his paintings turned invaluable, instantly. The art was the same, the person was the same, what turned out different? He became a “myth” - A black man alone in the art world, representing the unrepresented and everyone latched on to the “myth”. In a world where all we have is value for the “myth”, the art gets suffocated. So before you move your eyes away from these words, ask yourself, what do you value? Artist or Art?