Who Bought the Pollock?

My answer to this burning question: I don't know and I don't much care.

What's more interesting to me is that NY Times art-market reporter Carol Vogel felt compelled to defend her reputation for accuracy by repeatedly asserting that Mexican financier David Martinez, whom she called "obsessively private," is now the proud owner of ''No. 5, 1948.'' Vogel says that painting was recently sold by David Geffen "for about $140 million."

Through his lawyers (as reported Nov. 9 in Bloomberg and two days later in the Times), Martinez has explicitly denied making the purchase.

Yet, in last Saturday's NY Times Vogel again (previously here), asserted that Martinez bought the Pollock.

I have to assume that Vogel is certain that the unnamed sources she has cited are reliable and are in a position to know the truth about the transaction. How else could she stand by her story, in the face of denials by spokespersons for the very man in the best position to know whether he owns "No. 5, 1948"?

What I question is whether the public has such a compelling need to know the buyer's identity that Vogel is justified in privileging anonymous sources over Martinez's own spokespersons. This is not a matter of national security: If Martinez IS the buyer, but prefers anonymity, there's no compelling public interest served by outting him. To call him or his spokespersons liars (which is, essentially, what Vogel is doing), one needs, at the very least, to do better than rely on mere "artworld sources" or even (in her first article) "art experts with knowledge of the transaction." Is that "knowledge of the transaction" direct or indirect, unimpeachable truth or hearsay? Only "sources with a direct role in the transaction" would be strong enough to convincingly override Martinez's denial.

Here's what the Times' own guidelines on Confidential News Sources say on this subject:

Whenever anonymity is granted, it should be the subject of energetic negotiation to arrive at phrasing that will tell the reader as much as possible about the placement and motivation of the source -- in particular, whether the source has firsthand knowledge of the facts.

"Firsthand knowledge," in this instance, would mean a direct role in the transaction.

And here is what the Times' executive editor, Bill Keller, says about the appropriate circumstances for using confidential sources:

Our policy on anonymous sources is a good one, and bears repeating. It begins: "We resist granting anonymity except as a last resort to obtain information that we believe to be newsworthy and reliable." The information should be of compelling interest, and unobtainable by other means.

The question of who owns the Pollock is interesting in the same way that any gossip about the rich and famous holds a certain fascination. But "compelling interest"? The only people who arguably have a compelling interest in the whereabouts of the Pollock are the scholars who might want to study it or the curators who might want to exhibit it---and they probably have access to "artworld sources" that is equal, if not superior, to Vogel's.

The fate of the world, or even the artworld, does not depend on answering, "Who owns the Pollock?" But there's another question, raised by another NY Times article, that we DO urgently need someone to answer. (Coming Next)