The Warhol authentication board has decided that the Pontus Hultén Brillo boxes don’t pass muster as Warhols, according to The Art Newspaper:
The board now says there are two sets of Hultén-produced boxes: a small number (about 10 to 15) made in 1968, straight after the show. The board refers to these as “Stockholm type boxes”. The rest, 105, were produced at Hultén’s request by carpenters for a 1990 exhibition in Russia. The board refers to these as “Malmö type boxes”.
According to the board, one differentiating factor between Warhol’s undisputed 1964 Stable Gallery boxes and Hultén’s, is a large “semi-circular blue field with the notation 1A400; 24/18; Pad Giant” on the upper corners (pictured). The board also states: “Neither the Stockholm type boxes nor the Malmö type boxes were made by Andy Warhol, to his specifications or under his supervision; and there is no known documentation that Warhol authorised their production.” The board now classes the Stockholm boxes as “exhibition-related copies” and the Malmö boxes as “exhibition copies”.
The board accepts that it can “neither verify or invalidate any verbal agreement” that may have existed between Warhol and Hultén, but it is damning on the latter’s version of events. Hultén’s boxes first came to the attention of the estate, it says, in December 1994. Hultén told them that the boxes were all made in 1968, “according to Andy Warhol’s instructions”, and that they had all been in the 1968 Moderna Museet exhibition. In doing so, the board says he “misrepresented these works and falsified their history”.
Warhol Brillo Boxes Downgraded to “Copies” (The Art Newspaper)
