Elder Abuse for Art and Profit

Elder abuse is usually either physical (neglect and mistreatment) or financial (emptied bank accounts, purloined securities).

In the case of creative artists, there's a third possibility. Reports regarding two celebrated names in the art world, both of whom gained celebrity in the age of Make Love Not War, suggest that abuse may consist of seeking to profit from an artist's name and reputation – his brand.

Robert Indiana's "Love" first appeared on a 1962 Museum of Modern Art holiday card. Recreated  in paintings and sculpture, it became an immensely popular icon of the 1960's. Indiana, however, found celebrity uncomfortable. Eventually the artist fled from the pressures to commercialize his work by retreating to Vinelhaven, an island off the coast of Maine. There he died in May of last year, frail and isolated at the age of 89.  

In his final years Indiana appeared to lose his distaste for commercialism. A new work

resembling his Love sculpture appeared on the cover of a wine magazine. A giant sculpture of the letters BRAT showed up in front of sausage factory.

Last winter the NY Times reported that a company owning rights to sell designs based on "Love" has gone to court, accusing the artist's caregiver and an associate of "taking advantage of Mr. Indiana’s advanced age and isolation on a remote island off the coast of Maine to produce a bunch of inauthentic works that they sold under Mr. Indiana’s name."

In August, the executor of Indiana's estate, his former lawyer, charged the caretaker had stolen many artworks and more than $l million from Indiana while allowing the wealthy artist to live in squalor and filth.

Peter Max created trendy psychedelic posters for the Make Love Not War generation.
His works seemed to be everywhere, partly because his style was widely imitated. Although Max is now an octogenarian suffering from Alzheimer's, his artistic output appears undiminished. His studio, run by his estranged son and associates, produces Peter Max works that sell briskly on cruise ships – so briskly that one cruise ship is itself adorned with a Peter Max design.

But cruise passengers may be buying works that are Peter Max in name only, according to the Times:

The scene played out for years. Twice a week, in the late afternoon, above the Shun Lee Chinese restaurant on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, a creaky elevator would open, and out would step an elderly man. Thin as a rail, with a sparse mustache, he would sometimes have little idea about where or who he was. A pair of security doors would buzz unlocked once surveillance cameras identified him as the artist Peter Max.

Inside, he would see painters — some of them recruited off the street and paid minimum wage — churning out art in the Max aesthetic: cheery, polychrome, wide-brushstroke kaleidoscopes on canvas. Mr. Max would be instructed to hold out his hand, and for hours, he would sign the art as if it were his own, grasping a brush and scrawling Max.

Nevertheless, sales of works signed Max continue, aboard ship and on land.

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Putting an ailing artist's name on works made by others and sold for profit certainly seems abusive. Yet in today's art world, who knows? 

Artist Damian Hirst (remember his shark in a tank?) happily admits that only a couple of dozen versions of his "Dot" paintings were created by him. To meet perceived demand, he had his assistants turn out more than a thousand more.