Auctioneer admits to helping create fake works posing as Basquiat in Orlando

A Los Angeles auctioneer has agreed to plead guilty to making false statements to federal investigators and has admitted helping to create fake artworks that were shown last year at the Orlando Museum of Art as previously unknown works by famed artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Office of the United States Attorney for the Central District of California The court filed court papers on Tuesday announcing Michael Barzman’s petition, nine months after the FBI stormed the museum and seized 25 paintings that had been hanging in Basquiat’s gallery, “Heroes & Monsters.”

In court documents, prosecutors said Barzman, 45, of North Hollywood, admitted to helping create between 20 and 30 fake artworks and then marketing them for sale as if they were original Basquiat works.

Prosecutors said Mr. Barzman worked closely with another man, identified only by his initials, JF, who took the lead in setting up the business. The associate spent no less than five minutes and no more than 30 minutes creating each piece, as per the plea agreement.

The couple then put the business outside to beat it up so it looked like it was set up decades ago, according to court records. Prosecutors said Mr. Barzman sold the business and gave half of his profits to his partner.

Court documents also indicate that Mr. Barzman created a bogus provenance for the forged paintings, including a bogus story that they were found in a storage unit, and then also created bogus documents to support that account.

He told investigators he had sold the business to multiple buyers. They ended up in the Orlando Museum, where, in an exhibition purportedly of 25 Basquiat paintings, plaintiffs wrote in court papers, “most of the distinguished works, in fact, were created by Defendant and JF.”

According to court records, Mr. Barzman’s initial accounts to investigators told an entirely different story. He said during several interviews with investigators that he had no part in making the paintings, even when he encountered a cardboard painting seized from the museum. On the back of the artwork was a shipping label with Mr. Barzman’s name and former address, according to court records, but Mr. Barzman claimed he had never seen the work.

Finally, in October 2022, Mr. Barzman admitted to clients that he had “lied about the whole thing.” He faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Mr. Barzman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

An FBI spokeswoman said the investigation was ongoing.

For the Orlando Museum, which did not comment on Tuesday’s announcement, the exhibit has gone from being a rarely-seen presentation of Basquiat to an embarrassment.

Aaron D. Groft, former director and CEO of the Orlando Museum, created the “Heroes & Monsters” exhibit and defended the works even after their authenticity was questioned. But he was removed from office shortly after the raid on 24 June. The FBI showed up just days before the exhibition was due to close on June 30, after which the works were to be shown in Italy.

Mr. de Groft, who was not implicated in any wrongdoing, did not respond to a request for comment. Previously, he told the New York Times that he had “no doubt whatsoever” that the works he showed were Basquiat’s. He said, “Your hearing is at stake.”

Basquiats have become very valuable in the decades since the artist’s death. A 1982 painting sold for $110.5 million at Sotheby’s in 2017. Valuations found that the works on display in Orlando would be worth tens of millions of dollars if they were authentic. (The Basquiat estate Validation Committee They disbanded in 2012, at a time when many artist estates had stopped trying to authenticate works due to the costly lawsuits that could ensue challenging their decisions.)

Shortly after the “Heroes & Monsters” exhibition opened in February 2022 at the Orlando Museum, a report in The New York Times raised doubts about whether the works were in fact by Basquiat. The article noted that one of the artworks on display was painted on the back of a cardboard shipping box bearing printed instructions for “align on top of the FedEx shipping label here”. The font on the cardboard wasn’t used until 1994, said one of the designers who worked for Federal Express, six years after Basquiat’s death.

Last May, when it became clear that the FBI Art Crime Team She was investigating the authenticity of the paintings, and the owners insisted they were original Basquiat paintings, created in 1982 and sold for $5,000 to a now-deceased TV screenwriter, Tad Mumford, who they said put them in a storage unit and forgot about them.

Mr. Barzman, who for years ran an auction house buying and reselling the contents of unpaid storage units, said he discovered the paintings among the contents of Mr. Mumford’s storage unit, according to the plea agreement. He later admitted to investigators that he “used the acquisition of items stored at Mumford to find a false source for the forged drawings,” court documents said.

For his part, Mr. Mumford denied ever buying any Basquiat in a 2014 interview he gave with Elizabeth Rivas, an FBI special agent who for years led the Los Angeles art crimes unit. The interview was referenced in an affidavit she filed last year as part of an effort to secure a search warrant for the museum.

The owners who brought the artworks to the Orlando Museum for exhibition have said in previous interviews that they purchased the paintings either from Mr. Barzman or from individuals who bought them on eBay from Mr. Barzman. Leo Mangan, one of the owners, said he and several others spent about $15,000 for a total of 25 paintings, and then sold an interest in six of them to Los Angeles trial attorney Pierce O’Donnell, who worked closely with them to establish them. and marketed as real Basquiats.

Mr. Barzman told the agents that buyers had contacted him repeatedly over the years, asking him to sign papers saying the business did in fact come from Mumford’s storage unit, according to court documents. He admitted he eventually signed a notarized document saying the business came from the unit after being offered between $10,000 or $15,000 to do so, according to court documents, but said he was not paid.

Later, according to court documents, he said he admitted to one of the owners in 2017 or 2018 that he could not prove the plates came from Mumford’s storage unit. He said the owner “reacted to him angrily.”

On Tuesday, both Mr. Mangan and Mr. O’Donnell insisted they still believed the paintings to be original Basquiat.

“I know Mr. Barzman,” said Mr. O’Donnell, “and he’s proven to be an unreliable person.” He declined to go into details, but promised that more evidence would emerge.

“This is not the final chapter in Mumford Basquiat’s story,” he said.

Kirsten Noyes contributed research.