Drawing and handwriting have a very close relationship in terms of the aesthetic reading of marks and the idea of an artist's touch or 'signature' style. In an earlier post on writing and drawing I mentioned that I would at some point explore the artist's signature, so perhaps now is as good a time as any. When I was a student at Newport College of Art in the early 1970s I made a body of work called 'art and egocentricity'. I was at the time worried about the nature of the glorified signature and amongst other things made big paintings of the name 'Jasper Johns', pointing out that this was what people looked for before they began looking seriously at the paintings themselves. It wasn't a very strong body of work and someone else took the idea up again a few years later and did it much better.
So, what are we looking at when you see an artist's signature? Is it something more than clarifying attribution or verification of authorship? It is 'signature' works that the art world wants to invest in and as investment is an aspect of high finance, perhaps it is there that we need to look if we are to understand what artist's signatures signify. The European Journal of Finance published the following article two years ago:
"Ready to invest seriously in art? Pro tip: pay attention to the size of the artist's signature. In this case, bigger is better".
"Narcissism measured by the signatures of artists is positively associated with the market performance of artworks," the study found. "The artworks of more narcissistic artists have higher market prices, higher estimates from auction houses, and higher outperformance compared to the art market index."
"In other words: for the most bang for your resale buck, consider the size of the creator's ego right alongside his skill".
"According to the study, psychologists have found that large signatures are an indicator of narcissism. And the more narcissistic, the study shows, the higher the market value. To come to this conclusion, Florida State University professor Yi Zhou combed through data from Sotheby's and Christie's modern and contemporary art sales. Using regression formulas, she determined that just one standard deviation increase in narcissism increased the market price of a work by an average of 16%, and increased the auction house estimates by about 19%". (From Business Insider)
So there you have it in black and white, as far as the financial world is concerned it is the size of the artist's signature that counts, as well as 'his' skill. I also suspect the fact the signature is clearly recognisable counts too.
Simon Linke
The paintings of Simon Linke suggest that the art world is in fact the subject matter of a lot of the work validated by that art world. You could also argue that his paintings illustrate
Dickie's institutional theory of art. If you agree that the primary
function of the Artworld is to define, validate, maintain, and reproduce the
category of what we call art, then Linke's paintings of art exhibition posters
reflect this self-obsessed circularity. If you also agree that the other
role of the 'art world' is to establish in our society the legitimacy of the
artworld's authority to determine what is art and also what is good and bad
art, then Linke's use of oil paint, his reproducing of existing images, his
appropriation of a designer's image as fine art, his citing of various galleries' exhibition posters, his choice of artists etc. are
all part of a self-legitimising enterprise. The art world as an
interdependent network is a very beguiling idea, because it validates whatever
role you may have within it. For instance, if you are an art student, simply by
being one you have entered into the profession. If you contrast this with the old
apprentice system whereby you had to demonstrate your skill level by
undertaking several complex tests before you were allowed entry into the guild, you can see how an idea of the value of individuality over 'craft ability' has been 'sold' as the central plank of an investment culture. However, late Capitalism as an economic enterprise is now being heavily questioned because its methods have led to the destruction of the world's resources and as the Art World in many respects mirrors a heightened version of the values of a capitalist market, some of the work that has in the past been highly valued, under a very different critical framework could be seen as worthless or only of worth within the parameters of the investment world.
‘Larry Gagosian,’ Kim Gordon
The painting ‘Larry Gagosian' by Kim Gordon, takes the idea one step further. As the art world is controlled by the top gallerists, the most important signatures are now those of gallerists not artists.
Kim Gordon
Artist signatures first became prevalent during the early Renaissance, which saw art production shift from co-operative guild systems to a master and apprentice system, whereby the master controlled intellectual content as well as the crafting skills needed. A signature was a way to ensure that your name was recognised, or as we would put it now, that your brand was seen to be out there. For instance Albrecht Dürer developed the monogram, ‘AD’, which became a trademark. He went to court in both Nuremberg and Venice in successful bids to protect his authorship, so that any artists using his imagery thereafter had to identify the work as being ‘after Dürer’. Before this artists simply took ideas from each other as if they were common property. For instance icon painters could be seen to be not doing their job properly if they deviated from the set visual patterns for each religious subject.
In the book "Beg, Steal and Borrow: Artist's Against Originality" by Robert Shore, you will find a history of appropriation, Robert Shore argues that artists have always stolen or borrowed ideas from each other but over the last 20 years or so, the legal battles as to who did what, have become intensified because we live in a society that values individual authenticity above all else.
The paradox here is that on the one hand communities by their very nature need to be self supporting and for that to happen a certain amount of sharing and common values are needed. But on the other hand the art community values the unique individual above all else. From a Feminist perspective it is also nearly always the 'male' artist that is designated as the individual 'genius', therefore the 'signature' idea also represents an aspect of phallocentrism, something that we will come back to. To re-quote from earlier in this post; "In other words: for the most bang for your resale buck, consider the size of the creator's ego right alongside his skill".
When he was alive, Picasso's signature was so valuable that any cheques he made out would be kept by whoever they were made out to, so that the cheque itself could be re-sold later for far more money than the amount written on the cheque.
The importance of the signature of the chief cashier on the print made from a drawing above, (which is what the image is when you think about it), it could be argued, is similar in intent to the one on the print made from a drawing below.
However we are educated by the artworld authority as to what is good and bad art, to believe that the image of a woman drawn by Picasso has more to say about the human condition than the image of the woman drawn by Roger Withington on the current £10 banknote. It is interesting to compare the Picasso drawing of a woman's head (Françoise Gilot) with Robert Austin's image of the queen's head below from a previous incarnation of the banknote. Both are heavily stylised and both attempt to create an iconic image. These artists are concerned with 'readability', Austin in particular has had to create an image that can be translated by gravure techniques into something readable amongst many other competing graphic shapes, including numbers, scrolls, a crown and text. Picasso has stripped out all other competing bits of information, except for his own signature. Both women have accentuated hair and head adornments, the intricate forms of the queen's crown echoing earlier forms of headdress such as garlands of flowers. Jewels set into crowns eventually replacing flowers as tribal chiefs became kings with vast wealth. The more formal hair style of the queen, reflecting a particularly acceptable style of hair dressing for a woman of her class, and the loose hanging style of Gilot's hair reflecting her status as a creative muse, something reinforced by the garland of flowers she wears. Both women look out at us directly, suggesting they are comfortable in their status.
Robert Austin
Both these images suggest that the women portrayed stand for something beyond the individual and in order for the two different artists to achieve this, they have both in their own ways ironed out individual flaws or features. The big difference is that you have probably never heard of Robert Austin, he has never been deemed worthy of being brought into the pantheon of fine artists. Picasso of course 'earned' his status by creating a huge body of work that included the invention of Cubism and a range of styles and approaches to art making that can astonish. But in this case we simply have two images of women, both of which are presented to us as prints on paper. However as soon as we see Picasso's signature, just like those checks he signed, his print is automatically seen to be of more worth.
So as an artist what do you want to do? Do you want to 'brand' yourself, do you think that you should be kite marking your unique originality? Or are you on a journey to discover what art is for? Are you looking to rediscover a purpose for art making that lies outside of investment portfolios? I'm not arguing that a heightened sensitivity to materials and the skills of making things arn't needed. Picasso was highly sensitive to material qualities and he had excellent skills. But I am suggesting that not all of any artist's oeuvre is of the same standard, and that sometimes we dismiss art work as being of no importance, when it actually is. Beware treating everything done by an artist as being of equal validity. The Picasso case does though highlight these issues and it makes us realise how money easily makes us blind to the subtle communication of material engagement being made by any one artwork. It is the investment issue that irks me. Using art as an investment actually diminishes its value as a conduit for human exchange. Monetary value replaces cultural or societal capital.
I believe we are going through a time of great change and as we realise we have failed to achieve a proper symbiotic relationship with the rest of the planet and as we begin to try and change engrained habits of consumerism and move towards more sustainable ways of living, we may also have to change the way we think about art making and what it is for. At one time specially crafted artefacts helped us humans to mediate between the world of the spirit and the everyday world. In the Catholic Church the doctrine of transubstantiation could be seen as one last gasp of earlier 'animist' traditions, whereby inanimate objects could be regarded as having 'spirit lives', or forms that would allow them to have conversations with humans. Human attributes given to, or placed within non-human forms allow us to have more sympathy or emotional resonance with them. The advent of the signature coinciding with the Renaissance and the rise of the artist as a named individual, and the move from an earlier tradition based on the iconographic traditions of early Christianity. It could be argued that those icons were used or worshiped in a very similar way to the engagement with objects in the earlier animist tradition, perhaps its last gasp, before the cult of the individual replaced it.
The physicist Nick Herbert has argued that; "The quantum consciousness assumption, which amounts to a kind of "quantum animism" likewise asserts that consciousness is an integral part of the physical world, not an emergent property of special biological or computational systems. Since everything in the world is on some level a quantum system, this assumption requires that everything be conscious on that level. If the world is truly quantum animated, then there is an immense amount of invisible inner experience going on all around us that is presently inaccessible to humans, because our own inner lives are imprisoned inside a small quantum system, isolated deep in the meat of an animal brain".
This type of argument testifies to a growing awareness that an animist tradition could be returned to. Not perhaps in its original form, but in a format that helps create a bridge between our human centric lives and the lives of other things.
Quantum animism is yet another response to the growing worry over the way humans have lost touch with the wider world. If all things are in essence simply different vibratory patterns, why would one particular manifestation be more important than another. This is a similar situation to that suggested by the concept of a flat ontology.
Quantum animism is yet another response to the growing worry over the way humans have lost touch with the wider world. If all things are in essence simply different vibratory patterns, why would one particular manifestation be more important than another. This is a similar situation to that suggested by the concept of a flat ontology.
Eric Hebborn, the master forger was always interested in signatures.
Classical head by Eric Hebborn
In the drawing above, you can see Hebborn trying out a variety of signatures much in the same way he would imitate a style. Hebborn's ability to copy styles causing several owners of collections of art to question the authenticity of some of their acquisitions. The question, "is it a good drawing or is it a poor drawing?" is replaced by "is it by the famous artist or by someone else?" If it is by the famous artist it is by definition 'good', if not it is an inferior product.
Leonardo
In comparison with Leonardo's original Hebborn's is structurally weak and marks are rather vague as to their spatial location. Even so we can recognise the drawing as a fair copy. Hebborn did though fool a lot of people who were supposed to be expert art historians at the time. Several art works being valued and re-valued as their authenticity was questioned.
Leonardo didn't sign his drawings, but we are so obsessed with artist's signatures that as you can see in this video, his signature is now being 'invented' by picking out letters from other writings and converting them into a PhotoShopped signature.
A much worse artist's signature drawing is this one below that is supposed to be by Van Gogh. The marks might look like the ones he uses, but there is no attempt to model the head with them and they simply fill the space rather than make space for the head to exist in. It is a really poor drawing. Like the Eric Hebborn drawing it fails to recognise basic structural form, but it also fails to even get anywhere near a likeness. The 'signature' mark of Van Gogh in this case fooling several 'experts', an image of this drawing is on the front cover of a recent book on Van Gogh.
Van Gogh: man in a straw hat
If you look at the hat above, you can clearly see that Van Gogh works his way around the contours of the hat, using classic cross contour drawing techniques. The other hat is flat and flaccid. I've wandered off from signature to signature style but they are very closely associated in an art world where authenticity is valued often far more than insight or usefulness. 
Van Gogh: T shirt
There is though as always another story. Derrida proposed that the signature is a wound, and "that there is no other origin of the work of art." He goes on to state that a style is inimitable, (Nicholas Royle, The Uncanny, p.194) and that the desire to leave one's mark is inseparable from the desire to be remembered and inimitable. Because of this, death and otherness are inscribed in the signature. In 'Signsponge' Derrida goes on to state that by needing to be repeated a signature in effect becomes a duel with death. There is, "a phallocentric longing to produce a signature that would be a 'stony double of the dead phallus'. (Nicholas Royle, The Uncanny, p.195) As Derrida puts it, "The double of the dead man in erection". So is the signature our way of attempting to overcome the fact that we will die? This does seem to lie behind so many of our attempts to leave a mark on the world. If we could therefore embrace death as a normal part of life instead of fighting against it, perhaps we wouldn't need to metaphorically carve our name on every tree and rock we encounter. Eventually all will turn to dust, all will become everything else anyway and our lives will be seen to be a part of something much greater, an ever unfolding series of events that at any one moment were in a certain configuration, a configuration that was entangled into all the other configurations.
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