forging greatness -- getting even

In the courts now: if a drip-painting was actually dripped by Jackson Pollock it’s worth two million, four million, thirty million, but the exact same painting by anyone else, it’s nothing but paint flung on canvas worth less than the canvas raw. There will be forensic tests, of course, but if a clever on-his-ass artist found a bolt of canvas from the fifties and softened up a few old cans of house paint with vintage turpentine, a previously unknown Jackson Pollock will enter the catalogue, and money will appear.

There isn’t any other way to decide. No one can really say that isn’t the way Jackson made noses. The difference between the two, could be the same painting really, is that on the wall at the Museum of Modern Art and allegedly worth an unbelievable amount of money it’s epic, a transitional blah blah blah, but leaned against the wall behind the bookcase at the goodwill it looks like a drop-cloth on a stretcher. Somewhere here is a great mystery, a question that can’t be politely asked, an article of faith as sacrosanct as virgin birth -- can those who would take advantage be far behind?

Take that on-his-ass artist, not a bad person really. For years he or she attempted to interest galleries in their own work, tried to find patrons, were forced to work at other occupations, usually menial. One day after trying to fix their plumbing again or driving on bald tires they decide to fuck the system back and an unknown abstractionist masterwork from a private collection pops up at an auction. Venerable museums check your stacks, peruse your walls, and admit you wouldn’t know what was authentic even if you wanted to. They’re in on it too, of course, tending their flocks of cherished donors with tax breaks all around, and I just hope the on-his-ass artist got his or her share. I hope they all did.