Bowie art hoax

[Dara O'Kearney]

The front page of UK newspaper "The Independent" carried the following story
in today's edition on a hoax perpetrated by Bowie and William Boyd on the New
York art world:

>>>>>>>>><
How a British novelist fooled the US art world
By David Lister, Arts News Editor

SOME of the biggest names in the art world have been the victims of a
literary hoax perpetrated by the author William Boyd and the rock star
turned publisher David Bowie.

Last week the glitterati of New York gathered for a launch party for
Boyd's biography of the obscure and tragic American artist, Nat Tate.

Tomorrow, the cream of the British art world will gather at a smart
London restaurant for the UK launch of the memoir. Last weekend the
Sunday Telegraph ran a full-page extract from the book.

The story of Nat Tate is indeed a poignant one, and in New York eyes
misted over as Bowie read from William Boyd's memoir, recounting how the
depressive but gifted artist burnt most of his paintings then jumped to
his death from the Staten Island ferry at the tender age of 31.

The only problem is that Nat Tate never existed. William Boyd's memoir
is a work of fiction. Some of the paintings pictured in it are by Boyd
himself. The photograph of Tate on the cover, like other photographs in
the book, are taken from William Boyd's private collection of
photographs of unknown people he has collected over the years.

I was present at the New York launch of the book and watched artists,
collectors and critics receiving their copies of the book on Nat Tate
and listening in respectful silence to details of his suicide.

Among the cognoscenti at the party in the artist Jeff Koons' studio on
Broadway were Koons himself, fellow artists Frank Stella and Julian
Schnabel as well as Bill Buford, deputy editor of the New Yorker, the
novelists Jay McInerney, Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt, and
representatives of the New York Times, New York Post and the Daily News.
If any smelled a rat, none was prepared to admit to it.

American art critics whom I asked about Nat Tate described him as
"interesting but not terribly well known". 21 Publishing, which has
published the book, is run by David Bowie, Sir Timothy Sainsbury, the
London gallery owner Bernard Jacobson and Karen Wright, the editor of
Modern Painters magazine.

Challenged by The Independent, Ms Wright said: "Will Boyd and I were
both aware it was a scam, but we never meant it maliciously. Part of it
was we were very amused that people kept saying 'yes, I've heard of
him.' There is a willingness not to appear foolish. No one wants to
admit they've never heard of him. But critics are too proud to admit
that."

William Boyd would not comment last night. But in an interview with The
Independent to be published on Saturday, he admits: "It's a little fable
for now and for any time. I think it's particularly relevant now, when,
almost overnight people are becoming art celebrities."
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

A fuller feature was given inside the paper itself, as follows:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
A life in art - and fiction
David Lister went to the New York launch of a book about a little-known
painter. But all was not as it seemed...

It was a mini heatwave in New York. But on the corner of Broadway and
East Houston Street, the cream of the city's art world was looking
decidedly cool and chic as they darted smiles at the photographers and
made their way into one of the most exclusive and glitziest launches of
the year.

Rock star turned publisher David Bowie was presiding. His wife, the
supermodel Iman, was at his side. The venue was the cavernous studio of
pop artist Jeff Koons, complete with his large, kitsch sculptures of
kittens. Among the guests were fellow artists Frank Stella and Julian
Schnabel, Bill Bruford, deputy editor of the New Yorker, hip New York
novelist Jay McInerney, fellow writers Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt,
collectors, dealers, art groupies, press and TV.

The buzz in Koons's studio last Tuesday evening was almost deafening, as
New York society swapped gossip and enjoyed the whisky provided by the
evening's sponsors.

But everyone went respectfully quiet as Bowie read an extract from his
publishing company's latest venture, a biography by the best-selling
British author William Boyd of the doomed New York artist Nat Tate. It
was a sad story and, as Bowie read from the page where Boyd poignantly
detailed Tate's tragic suicide, the fixed smiles at the party turned
fittingly into reflective frowns. Tate drowned himself at the age of 31.
His body was never found and almost none of his work survives.

My shirt was as wringing wet as everyone else's. It was too hot for
whisky and I shared the thirsty annoyance of David Bowie, who only
drinks water and had dispatched an assistant to buy some. Perhaps it was
the mixture of the heat and the sight of Koons's incomprehensibly
expensive sculptures that made me irritated enough to be a true
Englishman in New York and show my ignorance.

I had never heard (I was admitting at least to myself) of Nat Tate. "Is
he very well-known?", I asked a folly of art critics next to me (bearing
in mind what was to become apparent, folly seems a reasonable collective
noun). They nodded their heads sagely and murmured: "Not terribly well
known ... not hugely ... didn't have much of a reputation outside New
York ... the abstract expressionists, you know, there were a lot of
hangers on..."

It was all very odd. Bowie had that afternoon been on an hour-long TV
special to publicise his latest publishing ventures. A separate launch
was planed for the UK at a London restaurant on 8 April. The Sunday
Telegraph was running a full-page extract at the weekend. The Observer
was writing a report of the New York launch party. Yet no one seemed to
have more than a passing acquaintance with the brief, tragic history of
Nat Tate, the abstract expressionist, lover of museum founder Peggy
Guggenheim, friend of Braque and Picasso and a depressive genius who at
the age of 31 leapt to his untimely death from the Staten Island Ferry.

Perhaps because I had stuck to water I was beginning to have my doubts
about the life and death of Nat Tate. Nobody else appeared to smell a
rat, perhaps because of William Boyd's evocative account of the story. I
went the next day to ask about Tate at Alice Singer's 57th St gallery,
where Boyd first saw a drawing by Tate. 57th Street was there all right.
But Alice Singer's gallery was not. Nor were the other galleries
mentioned in the book.

Boyd had pulled off one of the great literary ruses. His account of Nat
Tate was a work of fiction, a fiction that had fooled the New York art
world, struggling in a city which clearly contains not just more artists
than they can keep up with, but clearly more art galleries too.

Jeff Koons, who hosted the launch, was unaware of the truth. His fellow
New York artists present also failed to blink at the sad story of Nat
Tate.

Those associated with publishing the book panicked at first when I said
the Independent would be revealing the secret. It was not meant to leak
out until well after the London launch tomorrow, and then only very
gradually.

At least one of the paintings in the book ascribed to Tate was by
William Boyd himself and the photographs of Tate are simply photos
picked up by Boyd at various locations over the years.

Karen Wright, a director of 21 publishing, along with Bowie, Sir Timothy
Sainsbury and London gallery-owner Bernard Jacobson, explained to me:
"Will and I were both aware it was a scam, but we never meant it
maliciously. Part of it was we were very amused that people kept saying
'yes, I've heard of him'. There is a willingness not to appear foolish.
No one wants to admit they've never heard of him. No one can have heard
of every artist. But critics are too proud to admit that."

And to be fair the book has convincing endorsements. Picasso's
biographer, John Richardson, is quoted in it. He was one of the few in
on the secret, as was Gore Vidal, who describes the book on its jacket
as "a moving account of an artist too well understood by his time".

David Bowie almost, but not quite, goes too far in expounding on the
jacket that "William Boyd's description of Tate's working procedure is
so vivid that it convinces me that the small oil I picked up on Prince
Street, New York, in the late 60s must indeed be one of the lost Third
Panel Triptychs. The great sadness of this quiet and moving monograph is
that the artist's most profound dread - that God will make you an artist
but only a mediocre artist - did not in retrospect apply to Nat Tate."

William Boyd could not be in New York (though he will be at the London
launch tomorrow). Last week he was in Europe promoting his new novel,
Armadillo. And his publicist assured guests at the launch party that
"William became interested in this extremely talented and almost wholly
forgotten young artist while he was on assignment in New York for the
art quarterly Modern Painters, on whose editorial board he sits. Boyd
discovered a drawing by Tate and that single work intrigued him."

Tate's body has indeed never been found. The critics, artists, gallery
owners and collectors who have been taken in by one of the best literary
scams in years must be wishing that they could disappear as effectively
as Nat Tate - and, like him, resurface with their reputations
dramatically enhanced.

WILLIAM BOYD ON NAT TATE

"I still don't know what made me climb the stairs to Alice Singer's 57th
Street gallery. It was June 1997, New York City ... It was late
afternoon, I was hot and I was tired and I wandered past dozens of
unremarkable drawings and sketches - a Feininger, a Warhol shoe, a
Twombly doodle caught my eye - before I was held and shocked by
something I had never expected to see. It was a drawing, 12x8 in ink,
mixed media and collage: Bridge no. 122. I did not need to read the
printed label beside it to know it was by Nat Tate."

"He recalled to Mountstuart that he learnt of his mother's death when a
boy leaned out of a window overlooking the schoolyard where he was
playing and bawled, 'Hey, Tate, your mom's been run over by a truck.' He
thought it was a cruel joke, shrugged and carried on with his softball
game. It was only when he saw the headmaster grimly crossing the
playground towards him that he realised he was an orphan."

"None of the rampant cross-fertilisation currently taking place in the
New York art scene of the early Fifties could be applied to him. Indeed,
while Tate was notionally a member of the 'New York School' and at the
end of his life what might be termed an abstract expressionist, his
pictures are always sidelined, or differentiated, by their
idiosyncracies. However, what caused most astonishment was that all of
Tate's drawings were sold before the show officially opened."

"Gore Vidal met him at this time and remembered him as an 'essentially
dignified drunk with nothing to say'. Unlike most American painters, he
was unverbal. 'He was a great lover,' Peggy Guggenheim told me years
later.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Slan libh,

Dara (np: PULP - This Is Hardcore)

PS: Both stories are copied from the Independent website at
http://www.independent.co.uk/

[Phillip Lozano]

That's profoundly hysterical. I was wondering why the boys never got
around to discussing Nat Tate on Charlie Rose's program ...

Now I MUST have that book!

Phillip
phi...@express-news.net

[bP]

>In article <6ge0gc$9j$3...@news2.news.iol.ie>, dar...@iol.ie (Dara O'Kearney)
>wrote:

> The front page of UK newspaper "The Independent" carried the following story
> in today's edition on a hoax perpetrated by Bowie and William Boyd on the New
> York art world:
> >>>>>>>>><
> How a British novelist fooled the US art world
> By David Lister, Arts News Editor

[brilliant hoax snipped]

If I may be so unkind as to indulge in a little colloquialism
I picked up in my AOL days:

BWAAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAAAAHAAAAAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAAHAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAA!

Really. The art 'world' in New York is surely nothing more than
an amalgamation of mentally impoverished wannabes who are better
at nothing than sucking farts out of subway seats...

Thanks for sharing, Dara.

I'm Afraid Of American Art Critics,

bP

[Kate]

Dara O'Kearney wrote:
>
> The front page of UK newspaper "The Independent" carried the following story
> in today's edition on a hoax perpetrated by Bowie and William Boyd on the New
> York art world:

Alright! ART CRIME!!

Highly cool.

Kate

[SherryeLyn]

dar...@iol.ie (Dara O'Kearney) wrote:

>The front page of UK newspaper "The Independent" carried the following story
>in today's edition on a hoax perpetrated by Bowie and William Boyd on the New
>York art world:
>
>>>>>>>>>><
>How a British novelist fooled the US art world
>By David Lister, Arts News Editor
>
>
>SOME of the biggest names in the art world have been the victims of a
>literary hoax perpetrated by the author William Boyd and the rock star
>turned publisher David Bowie.
>
>Last week the glitterati of New York gathered for a launch party for
>Boyd's biography of the obscure and tragic American artist, Nat Tate.

Sounds like Bowie and Boyd had planned this for April 1st, no?

SherryeLyn

[CMSpurple]

This was fantastic !! And I'm sure it will not be appreciated by the art
community anymore than the rock community appreciated Bowie displaying the
"artifice" of rock stardom......(or at least not until 20+ yrs later)

Catherine
welcome to the velvet cage

[David Koenig]

There's only one word I can think of to decribe this hoax: Negativlandish.
It sounds very much like something Negativland would do.

--
dek17 AT columbia DOT edu

Overheard on alt.movies.kevin-smith
-----------------------------------
Dominic: Did anyone else notice that Monica Lewinsky is alleged to have
visited Clinton in the White House 37 times?

glamson: in a row?

[mor...@hotmail.com]

, (Dara O'Kearney)
> >wrote:

> > The front page of UK newspaper "The Independent" carried the following story
> > in today's edition on a hoax perpetrated by Bowie and William Boyd on the New
> > York art world:
> > >>>>>>>>><
> > How a British novelist fooled the US art world
> > By David Lister, Arts News Editor
>

> If I may be so unkind as to indulge in a little colloquialism

> I picked up in my AOL days:
>
> BWAAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAAAAHAAAAAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAAHAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAA!
>

And may I add,,, Hehehehe!!!! you said fart!!

This just puts my Hero on yet another higher pedastal.... ( here we sit,
on the edge of the cliff, watching in amazement as the lemmings continue to
jump off)

How totally cool!!!!

-----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==-----
http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading

[Dara O'Kearney]

In article <6gfd0j$863$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, mor...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>
> , (Dara O'Kearney)
>> >wrote:

>> > The front page of UK newspaper "The Independent" carried the following
story
>> > in today's edition on a hoax perpetrated by Bowie and William Boyd on the
New
>> > York art world:
>> > >>>>>>>>><
>> > How a British novelist fooled the US art world
>> > By David Lister, Arts News Editor
>>
>

>> If I may be so unkind as to indulge in a little colloquialism
>> I picked up in my AOL days:
>>
>> BWAAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAAAAHAAAAAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAAHAHAAHAAHAAHAAHAA!
>>
>
> And may I add,,, Hehehehe!!!! you said fart!!
>
> This just puts my Hero on yet another higher pedastal.... ( here we sit,
>on the edge of the cliff, watching in amazement as the lemmings continue to
>jump off)
>
> How totally cool!!!!

My sentiments exactly.

This story is really catching the public imagination, at least on this side of
the Atlantic. They were talking about it on the radio on all the stations when
I was coming home from work, it's in the evening papers (the story starts
"They're calling it one of the greatest literary hoaxes of all time, and it
was all down to veteran rock star David Bowie"). He's getting more publicity
for this here than he got for his 51st birthday, his new film, the Grammies or
the VH1 list.

Slan libh,

Dara (np: David Bowie - E ART HL I NG)

.

[Andrew Stewart]

From the BBC Website:

Some of the biggest names in the art world have
reportedly been fooled by a biography of a fake artist
created by the author William Boyd and the rock star
David Bowie.

Last week the glitterati of New York gathered for a

launch party of Boyd's biography of the apparently
rediscovered American painter Nat Tate.

Bowie, a director of 21 Publishing, the company which
produced the book, read extracts to the gathering.

Critics on the other side of the Atlantic were due to
attend the British launch of the memoir on Tuesday.
Several British papers, including the Sunday Telegraph,
have already run extracts from the book.

Excerpts were also published on Bowie's own website.

Fake history

However, the Independent newspaper says Tate and the
story of how he befriended painters Picasso and Braque,
suffered from depression, burned most of his paintings
and then killed himself aged 31, is all fiction.

Some of the paintings pictured in the book were
reportedly by Boyd himself. Photos of Tate were from
Boyd's own collection of pictures of unidentified people.

The ruse was made more convincing by an endorsement
on the book's dust cover from the veteran writer and
political commentator Gore Vidal.

In the book he is also quoted as remembering Tate as
"essentially dignified, drunk with nothing to say".

John Richardson, the acclaimed biographer of the artist
Pablo Picasso, was also in on the scam and is also
quoted.

Karen Wright, one of Bowie's co-directors at 21
Publishing said the hoax was not meant to be malicious.

"Part of it was, we were very amused that people kept
saying 'Yes, I've heard of him'. There is a willingness not
to appear foolish. Critics are too proud for that."

[SherryeLyn]

dar...@iol.ie (Dara O'Kearney) wrote:

I think it's great. When I was reading your initial post, I was
laughing at the description of this "Nat Tate" character. It all
sounded like something that David and Reeves could have come up with
in a second. Some of the phrases were so funny, I'm surprised so
many people bought it! ("Hey, Tate -- your Mom's been run over by a
truck!" And the part where he shrugs and continues his softball
game...And the headmaster informing him that he truly was
an "orphan"... GAWWWWWWD! I would have been rolling in the aisles!)

SherryeLyn

[GUILOTINE]

It would've been nice to see them milk the "hoax" a little longer...sell a few
mocked-up paintings, add to Bowies little piggy bank.

I mean - 75 percent of Van Gogh is faux material, and we still love it. All we
want is the tragedy, the pop and glitz...and if that pop and glitz comes from
Bowie- all the better.

;p
-LB
Leon Blank
Leon...@hotmail.com

"...you can't go comb out your rabbit in the state you're in- you'll break it's
fucking neck""

[Francis Muir]

Andrew Stewart writes:

From the BBC Website:

Some of the biggest names in the art world have
reportedly been fooled by a biography of a fake artist
created by the author William Boyd and the rock star
David Bowie.

Last week the glitterati of New York gathered for a
launch party of Boyd's biography of the apparently
rediscovered American painter Nat Tate.

[much more]

The name alone, a combination of Nat Gall and Tate, should
have been a giveaway.

FM

[Ted Samsel]

In rec.arts.books Francis Muir <fra...@stanford.edu> wrote:
: Andrew Stewart writes:

: [much more]

I wonder if Rose Selavy's children were in attendance...

--
Ted Samsel....tejas@infi.net (or tbsa...@richmond.infi.net)
"do the boogie woogie in the South American way"
Rhumba Boogie- Hank Snow (1955)

[Gwinny]

>I wonder if Rose Selavy's children were in attendance...

Good one, Ted...to make the joke complete though, it's actually Rrose (the
approximate pronunciation in French would thus be "Eros," hence "Eros, c'est la
vie").

Gwin

[H.R.Net]

moi j'suis pas d'accord

Gwinny <gwi...@aol.com> a écrit dans l'article
<199804091503...@ladder01.news.aol.com>...

[Gwinny]

Maybe you don't agree. However, that is the correct spelling and definition.
I did a huge project on Marcel Duchamp - - the source of this pun, "Rrose
Selavy" - - when I was in grad school.

Gwin

[Dara O'Kearney]

In article <199804090040...@ladder03.news.aol.com>,

guil...@aol.com (GUILOTINE) wrote:
>It would've been nice to see them milk the "hoax" a little longer...sell a
few
>mocked-up paintings, add to Bowies little piggy bank.
>

I think they intended to keep the hoax going a little longer - at least until
the London launch of the book. The problem was the London Independent
journalist who wasn't taken in by it and became suspicious of all the
non-committal remarks he got from critics ("Yes, he was very good, but not
very well known") and did a little digging. They had faked paintings and
photos, some of which were shown in the LOndon Independent story.

Slan leat,

[TDeacon]

funny... but why mock American pretentiousness when the brits have been
pretentious for much longer? I think it would be funnier if the international
media bought it.

[ESolberg1]

>I'm surprised so
>many people bought it!

well, I have a feeling, many will be "returning" it...

(I guess Bowie won't have the last laugh)

I wonder how much this little stunt cost?

[Dara O'Kearney]

In article <199804130737...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
esol...@aol.com (ESolberg1) wrote:

>I wonder how much this little stunt cost?

$50,000 according to one media report I read. Small potatoes for the amount of
media coverage it bought.

Slan leat,

Dara (np: David Bowie - I'M AFRAID OF AMERICANS)