The Stockholm Brillo Box Syndrome

Andy Warhol's first retrospective was organized in 1968 by Pontus Hulton, esteemed director of the Moderna Museet, in Stockholm—and I'm not being snarky here. Hulten, who died in 2006, was indeed esteemed, for that exhibition and many others. In 1990, he organized another Warhol retrospective, for the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. As you might expect, it featured a batch of Brillo Boxes. The show would have been incomplete without them. The trouble was that the Boxes on view at the St. Petersburg museum were not products of the Warhol Factory. Hulten had them manufactured by Swedish carpenters.
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If they were authentic, the Stockholm Boxes would be worth more than $75 million. But they're fakes. Not only that, they are flagrant fakes—a cinch to distinguish from Andy's Boxes, just as Andy's Boxes are a cinch to distinguish from the supermarket kind.
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What to do, what to do? I mean, if we believe in a free and unencumbered art market, what sense does it make to deprive that market of $75 million worth of merchandise?
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Here's my suggestion. Add Arthur Danto to the Andy Warhol Art Authentication Board. Why? Because Danto claims that there is no visible difference between a Warhol Brillo Box and the Brillo boxes manufactured by Purex Industries. From this silly claim follows Danto's “end-of-art” theory—more on that in a later post. The point for now is this: having said that he can't tell a Warhol Brillo Box from a real Brillo box, Danto should be willing to say that he can't tell a Stockholm fake from a real Warhol. And this is just what the Authentication Board would love to hear, given its cozy relations with the dealers who have become the approved outlets for authenticated Warhols.
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This would not be win-win. It would be win-win-win. Danto's willful blindness to the obvious differences between a Warhol Brillo Box and a real one would receive institutional recognition. By settling once and for all the problem of the Stockholm Boxes, the Authentication Board would solidify its relations with certain dealers by doing them a substantial favor. As the recipients of this favor, these dealers would see impressive improvements in their bottom lines. Yay, market! Yay, authentication games! And, above all, yay to the fog that conveniently descends upon all those who need to be blind if they are to formulate their theories about visual art!