Fake Bencab artworks affecting Baguio art retail
By Vincent Cabreza
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:09:00 04/28/2008
MANILA, Philippines - Who’s the bigger fool? The art collector, who still gets conned into buying counterfeit paintings of National Artist Benedicto Cabrera (popularly known as Bencab), or the artist who sells them?
Baguio-based artists have been ducking this question for two years now since the first fake Bencab painting found its way from the mountain city to Manila. They remember at least three attempts to sell “bargain Bencabs” authenticated by documents purportedly signed by the artist, between 2006 and January this year.
None of the sale pushed through.
Reports said the incidents involved Baguio-based dealers and “easily detectable fakes.”
“BenCab never produced a ‘Father and Son’ portrait, only [a series of] ‘Mothers and Sons,’ but here was a counterfeiter selling a ‘Father and Son’ with an authentication note daw [supposedly] by BenCab,” said Cordillera photographer Tommy Hafalla.
One of these attempts to sell the counterfeits was foiled by law enforcers. But neither the police nor the National Bureau of Investigation refused to provide new information to the media, saying they were still investigating.
Real victim
Many artists now know who the scandals’ victim really was—the city’s art trade.
Hafalla said reports of counterfeits have taken their toll on the local art market. Bencab, one of the successful Baguio-based artists, was named National Artist in 2006.
Although many artists shun the limelight, a few of them drew unwanted attention when the stories about the fake BenCab artworks broke out because of rumors that his own group of artists tried to cash in on his name, said Hafalla, who has made a name for documenting Cordillera peoples and their culture.
Since 2006, the auction of Baguio art has slowed down, he says. “This is a small market and all it takes is a rumor. Word goes out that this artist was involved, and was a ward of BenCab, and that slows down interest in his or her art.”
Hafalla is Baguio-born, but Bencab and many of the country’s top artists are not.
Bencab and others like him relocated to the city starting 1988 when they formed the Baguio Arts Guild. Bencab also formed his own group of artists when he established the Tam-awan Village, an art center that promotes Cordillera traditions. Some of the Tam-awan artists have parted ways.
Apart from the economic impact on the artists’ trade, the fake Bencab pieces may have destroyed friendships.
Roland Bay-an, a Tam-awan artist who is also part of the homegrown artists’ group “Tahong Bundok,” said the scandal implicated innocent people like himself. “We were victims of badmouthing, but we have resolved it,” he said.
“I was drawn into the rumor mill because I used to boast that I could forge a perfect Bencab [signature]. Everyone immediately pounced on me,” Bay-an said in Filipino.
Replicas
Hafalla said the counterfeit Bencab paintings bore replicas of the artist’s signature.
Bay-an said he prefers to distance himself from the controversy because he has no story to tell. “Everything [there is to know about the scandal] was texted to me,” he said.
One of Bencab’s relatives has also implicated because the kin’s works also tackle Bencab’s favorite subjects while seemingly reflecting the National Artist’s brush strokes.
Baguio artists approached by the Inquirer had different stories about the scandal and their own suspects.
New art
Others think the marketability of Baguio art has changed because collectors have been drawn to “new art.”
Artist Joel Arthur Tibaldo, curator of the interactive Baguio Media Museum and Animation Studio, said the introduction of computer-based art has drawn away collectors from mainstream markets.
But Hafalla saod the counterfeits should not affect Bencab because the National Artist controls the flow of art he sells to his rather exclusive collectors.
Philippine art still has a market gauging by the success of last year’s Sotheby’s and Christie’s Southeast Asian painting auctions in Singapore and Hong Kong when they sold a 1972 Bencab piece for $54,000 (P2.25 million), according to the art gallery website, Kulay Diwa (www.kulay-diwa. com).
The bidders turned out to be Filipinos “who engaged in a frenzied bidding over the telephone to go after the pieces they wanted,” wrote Giselle Kasilag in an article posted by Kulay Diwa.
Quoting unnamed auction watchers, Kasilag said “most of the bidders saved up their resources for the Bencab work.”
BenCab has not issued any statement about the counterfeit scandal, and has remained elusive despite efforts by the Inquirer to reach him at his Baguio home.
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