Update: Blacklist

Sarah Douglas of ArtInfo has a good article and update on artist Marlene Dumas’s blacklist I reported on yesterday. Douglas has a lot more information on the situation and reports about New York art dealer Jack Tilton who once represented Dumas and confirmed in court the existence of a collector blacklist. On the stand Tilton not only described how the list worked but also named names of dealers and collectors who were associated with the list. The case revolves around Miami collector Craig Robins and dealer David Zwirner who sold a Dumas painting for Robins and is accused of breaking a confidentiality agreement,which eventually caused Robins to be blacklisted by Dumas.

This is a good inside look of the upper end of the art market. It is not often as open or as exposed as we are seeing in this particular case. It therefore makes for some very interesting reading for the dealer and appraisers.

Douglas reports

For art-world insiders, the particularly juicy revelations in Tilton’s testimony are the additional names that apparently figured on this blacklist. In questioning by lawyers for Robins and Zwirner, Tilton explained that the list (or lists) was regularly updated by Dumas’ dealers — Galerie Paul Andriesse in Amsterdam, Gallery Koyanagi in Tokyo, Zeno X Gallery in Antwerp, and himself in New York — when they learned that collectors had been actively buying and reselling works.

Tilton admitted that he had recommended several names which were added to the list, including that of New York dealer Marc Jancou, American collector Richard Cooper, and, possibly, Aspen, Colorado–based collector Daniel Holtz (Tilton referred to him as “Danny Holtz”), who is currently on the board of trustees of the Aspen Art Museum. Whether these names currently reside on such a blacklist is unclear from today’s hearing. Perhaps most surprisingly, when questioned by Zwirner’s lawyers, Tilton admitted that he had gotten Zwirner’s name added to the blacklist around March 2005, when the dealer mounted a secondary-market exhibition of Dumas’ work at Zwirner & Wirth, the New York gallery that Zwirner ran jointly with Swiss dealer Iwan Wirth.

The Greylist

Tilton’s testimony and exhibits presented by lawyers on both sides appear to confirm the existence not only of a blacklist barring certain collectors who had resold Dumas works on the secondary market from buying primary market works by her, but also of a somewhat murkier “greylist” which may have come with less restrictive terms. According to Tilton, the lists were treated in the same manner, but it now appears that Dumas’ Amsterdam studio manager Jolie van Leeuwen may have maintained more than one list of collectors.

Dueling Definitions of Confidentiality

Tilton, who represented Dumas from the late 1980s until she left him for Zwirner in 2008, testified that Robins came to him in 2004 with an interest in reselling Reinhardt’s Daughter, which Robins had purchased on the secondary market. The two took it to David Zwirner, who had a ready buyer, and completed the sale, according to Tilton, who said that price and the importance of confidentiality were discussed with Zwirner at that time. Zwirner, according to Tilton, agreed to those conditions. Tilton said that at a certain point after that Robins worried about Zwirner telling someone about the sale, so Tilton “had to reconfirm [with Zwirner in a telephone conversation], and he agreed.”

Confidentiality, Tilton explained to the court, is a “key element” in such transactions, because “collectors don’t want their business known” and “don’t want it in the press.” The limits of the confidentiality of those transactions have become central to the case. While Zwirner’s legal papers have contended that any unstated confidentiality in art deals is expected to last only during the duration of the transaction, Tilton maintained that any sale “should never ever be mentioned, forever.”

To read the fulla article, click HERE.