Arts: false works attributed to the Ivorian Frédéric Bruly Bouabré sow confusion

Ivorian artist Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, in March 1995. Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images - Francis CHAVEROU

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3 min

His colorful drawings and illustrated alphabet of the Bété language were a real revelation in the late 1980s. The work of the Ivorian artist Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, who died in 2014, is now in the largest collections of contemporary art. A rating that attracts more and more counterfeiters. The Venice Biennale even made a mistake last April. Explanations.

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The first counterfeits of Frédéric Bruly Bouabré appeared before his death, but that fakes are found in the holy of holies, the Venice Biennale, the French gallery owner André Magnin, who discovered the Ivorian artist, still does not come back. "There was an Ivorian pavilion, in a very respectable place," he recalls at the microphone of Claire Fages. There were four artists, I think. And I discover a large number of Bouabré that I had never seen. As I have seen for years in auction houses, or collectors who come to me to authenticate them, for me, all these drawings, they are for me fakes".

We could not reach the curator of the last Ivorian pavilion, Henri N'Koumo, but that of the first editions in Venice, Yacouba Konaté. For this other great connoisseur of Bouabré, the mistake was avoidable. "It's a problem of rigour and pole of decision-making, of responsibility," he says. Because even if you don't have the training, there are some who do. If you ask those who know, they will tell you. I did the first two editions of the pavilions of Côte d'Ivoire. But when I saw that some authorities, especially at the Italian embassy, were trying to put me partnerships that did not suit me, I gave up the apron."

Was there deliberate deception by these Italian partners? One of them, a gallery owner in Pietrasanta, hides behind international law: the descendants are the only ones authorized to authenticate the works and it is they who sold him these pieces. But this is the problem, one of the Bouabré sons was one of his first forgers.

Can this flourishing counterfeiting of Bouabré's works also reach the Ivorian artist's rating? According to Yacouba Konaté, who runs the Rotonde des arts in Abidjan, it is rather collectors in possession of fakes who should worry.

"I think there's going to be a little one-upmanship for the real ones"

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The paradox is that the false certifies a contrario the true, he assures. If you are falsified, it's like comedians, if you are a character on the "Bébête Show" [a satirical French television show of puppets, imitation and parody of political news during the 1980s and 1990s, Editor's note], it means that you start counting. So, I think there's going to be a little one-upmanship for the real ones, especially since Bruly is still a fabulous artist, so I don't think it's going to reach the value of the real ones, but I think it's going to be a descent into hell for a lot of fakes."

Yacouba Konaté concludes: "There will certainly be a continuation of this story, on this register or on others, because where I am, I can tell you that in the field of photography, there are many works that also circulate, great African photographers, which are not all works duly signed by artists who, often, moreover, have been dead for a long time.

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• Ivory Coast
• Arts