Review: Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art

This "Rothko" was declared real, then not

When you have over 14 hours to kill on the plane you watch movies. In my case it's documentaries.

One that was fascinating to watch is called Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art that was released in 2020. 

It's a fascinating tale about how fake paintings were sold in a red hot contemporary art market, making both the dealer and the supplier very rich, thanks to the talent of a Chinese immigrant who had a way of making canvases look like the works of Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollack, and William de Kooning.

Freedman gives her side of the story in the film

Director Barry Avrich gets practically everyone to tell the story, from Ann Freedman, the art dealer who was working at Knoedler & Company in New York, to various art experts, clients like Domenico De Dole and his wife Eleanore, art forensic experts, and numerous journalists. 

The story all came out in a court case in 2016 so there isn't much new except Freedman gives her side of the story in several interviews, though the reporters pour skepticism on her claims. 

She said in 1995 an unknown Long Island art dealer named Glafir Rosales approached her with a Rothko painting that Freedman thought was so beautiful -- except there was no paperwork to certify that Rothko had painted it. Rosales gave a long concocted story that seemed plausible -- if you wanted to believe the painting was real.

Freedman also took the painting to a Rothko expert, who declared it was authentic. So she bought it from Rosales for US$750,000 and sold it at auction for a whopping US$5.5 million.

Rosales doesn't have her say in the documentary

Over the next 10 years, Rosales sold Freeman some 60 paintings that were eventually sold for US$80 million to not only private collectors, but also museums and galleries. 

Things began to fall apart when a wealthy collector was divorcing his wife and he needed to sell the painting he had bought from Knoedler.

But when he tried to get it authenticated by art experts, they refused to say it was real.

And that's when he demanded a refund from Knoedler, and caused the gallery, which had been around for over 165 years to suddenly close in 2011, and its clients wondering if they had bought fakes too.

Even though the court case was in 2016, the documentary is still fascinating to watch. However, there are two people the viewers really want to hear from and don't -- that's Rosales and the forger, Pei Shan Qian.

A Pollack painting that was later declared fake

In the end Rosales was sentenced to nine months of house arrest and three years of probation as well as being ordered to pay US$81 million to the victims of fraud. 

However in reality, it was her boyfriend, Jose Carlos Bergantinos Diaz who was the mastermind, as he had been involved in selling fake art before. He fled to Spain, and efforts were made to extradite him, but Diaz claimed his health was poor and could not travel to the United States.

As for Qian, he hightailed it to Shanghai and the film crew are seen knocking on several doors looking for him. At last Qian's wife opens the door, but she says he's not available to speak on camera. They apparently stalk him walking around freely, and living relatively well for the decade of "art work" that he'd done.

But Made You Look also reveals the murky trade of art, and how provenance is so important, though greed can get in the way of rigorously testing a painting to ensure it is real -- or not. It also shows the desire of private collectors to own a famous work of art as a status symbol, something most of us would never even begin to entertain.

Qian made money from his fakes over 10 years

The film also "discovers" Dafen Village in Shenzhen, where an army of artists produce fake art for customers around the world. It's not new, people! It's been around for years and yet filmmakers and journalists claim to have found it, just like Avrich.

Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art

Directed by Barry Avrich

94 minutes