New Bob Dylan authored book- "The Philosophy of Modern Song" November 2022

It's good to see the deceit being publicised outside the specialised fan sites, but I'm curious why you didn't name (and shame) Dolly Parton, rather than just calling her "One of the world's most famous country singers..."

Also, for the record, I think Van Morrison's camp used a stamp - or several stamps, in fact - on those CDs, not an autopen. His management denied the deceit, even publishing a photo of Morrison apparently signing some LP sleeves, but at least one retailer did refund customers without a requirement to return the sullied goods.

I'm curious about the seemingly rushed statement by Castle Galleries. How can they confirm so quickly that "all other editions were individually hand signed..." less than, say, 12 hours after being "informed" about the deceit, I wonder, given that they were "entirely unaware" of the use of autopen? I don't know enough about the art gallery world, but would they not need to hire experts to verify that their statement is accurate, and would that verification not take more than a few hours in the dead of night to arrange?

Some might say that Castle Galleries should have taken more notice when they first took delivery of the fake signatures. I would hope they will in future but I wouldn't bet my fake Van Morrison signature on it.

What wasn't raised here is that Dylan had been outed on the specialist fan site(s) for using autopen on this book on October 21st, when it was being offered by Indigo in Canada for $799 CAD. The first image of a signature from the Indigo stock was so clearly autopen that - under pressure from people on the Autograph Live website - Indigo gave refunds, withdrew the offer and issued this statement to people who had pre-ordered the signed book:-

Thank you for your recent Indigo order for THE PHILOSOPHY OF MODERN SONG: SIGNED EDITION

We are sorry to inform you that we are unable to fulfill your order and you will be receiving a cancellation notice shortly. The publisher and artist have decided to shift directions with this limited signed edition. It has been cancelled for sale at Indigo and will not be available through any North American retailer at this moment.


It was at this point that Dylan (and Simon & Schuster) could've owned up. But they didn't. Instead they "shifted direction" and offered on the S&S website and Dylan's F******k page what was probably the same stock that Indigo had rejected, and also conspired to sully the good name of Coles bookstore in the U.K.

As for the vertigo, it is something I have suffered from, on and off but mostly on, for well over 60 years. It's an utterly foul condition - on bad days, frankly, death seems like a better alternative than enduring the misery of it. But no matter how bad it is at any given time the condition cannot be used as an excuse to deceive people. Neither can the pandemic. Contracts will, or should, always have a clause or two which covers the potential of not being able to fulfil the duties agreed. Force Majeure would probably cover it in the case of the pandemic. Dylan's apology is hollow and spineless.

Although I don't actually have a dog in this particular fight - I was a few minutes too late to get my order in at Coles - I'd be interested to know from any experts here whether auto pencil is a thing and, if it is, is it more difficult to spot than auto pen?

 

Update from Castle Fine Art this morning:

Castle Galleries

Not sure how going the refund route, rather than replacement, fully rectifies the matter, as promised yesterday. As with the books, it is the bare minimum legal requirement to make good the loss, but it still leaves customers disappointed, their time wasted, whilst no doubt their money has been earning interest in Castle’s bank account. Poor show, IMO.

 

Hollow and spineless is a little dramatic. I'm surprised there was an apology at all.

 

You can use any standard writing implement with an autopen machine. If the machine can hold it, it will write with it. Ballpoint pen, Sharpie, pencil, crayon, it doesn’t matter.

Pencil will not leave quite so obvious dots at the beginning and end points as a Sharpie will, but the lack of subtle pressure difference and feathering throughout the signature will still be evident to the trained eye. Plus, the repeated templates, of course.

 

Yes, damage limitation often operates incrementally. Let's draw a line here. No wait, here, Hold on no, here... etc

What I wonder now, and have wondered for some time, is whether Dylan actually paints his 'paintings'. Particularly with the recent, movie still ones: set aside the quality, or whether they're of genuine artistic value as opposed to celebrity daubings, and ask, are there not rather a *lot* of them? He really seems to be churning them out. Is it possible that, in fact, Dylan selects the movie stills and somebody else paints them? I'm not claiming that's the case, but I do suggest that (a) it's possible, and (b) it would explain a lot.

Yeah meanwhile the online Dylan Gatekeepers were insisting that was a fraud on Indigo's part, and that neither Dylan nor Simon & Schuster could have anything to do with it. Then we had the second scandal, and the online Dylan Gatekeepers were insisting that there was nothing to see here and that it was just a case of sadly deluded people assuming these 'legit' S&S signed copies were fakes *becasue of* the earlier scandal which was all Indigo's fault. Now the fraud has been admitted the position is all's well that ends well and isn't Bob to be applauded for his honesty? And isn't vertigo horrible? (Yes, I know it is: I have suffered it myself. Luckily, I don't have a Neverending Tour to deal with. Phew.)

As I said, one day we may find out who does the painting, never mind the signing. And who wrote or helped to write that ridiculous book.

 

If I am reading this correctly you get a full refund but get to keep the art sans certificate. Seems like a good solution to me and I will take it on my Retrospectrum beach train tracks. Disappointing but appreciate the solution.

 

I will say though that I don’t buy the excuse. The guy was touring and everybody must have known they were auto signed. I bought one and I can’t imagine this wasn’t well known by all. Lucky the signed book fiasco brought this to life. How do these people even sleep at night?

 

It’s the bare minimum to avoid legal action, and it still leaves autopen artwork out there in the marketplace. These will inevitably be offered for sale on the secondary market as the real deal at some point in the future.

The correct solution would be to reprint the sullied editions, have them signed properly by Dylan, then offer them to the original buyers in free exchange for their autopen versions. The autopen prints should then be destroyed. But, of course, that’s too much effort and expense for them.

I appreciate that Castle’s hands are tied to a large degree in this matter. The responsibility for putting this right properly lies squarely with Dylan and his management team.

 

Ah I had not thought about future auto pens out there. You make a great point and I agree with your thought process and yes this is on Dylan. I highly doubt he even authored the statement but he must of known about it or does now.

 

I'm also surprised there was an apology of any sort. The fraud - and it is fraud - was exposed, twice, and he, a month after it was exposed for the first time, blames other people, his bout of vertigo and the pandemic circumstances. Hollow and spineless; some kind of damage limitation exercise which is being lapped up as "honest", or some such nonsense, by people who haven't been defrauded. If he thought it was okay to offer up autopen signatures and flog them as hand-signed why are there seventeen different variations instead of just one? Answer: so that it isn't immediately obvious that the signatures are autopen. It is an integral part of the deceit which Dylan was party to.

That doesn't stop "Caribbean Wind" being a great song, of course.

 

But users, cheaters
Six-time losers
Hang around the theaters
Girl by the whirlpool
Lookin’ for a new fool
Don’t follow leaders

dylan warned people not to obsess over him...

seriously, all of this vitriol seems as authentic as his signature

 

I can't read that statement. I take it they are offering refunds on all the prints/artworks that they have been told are autopen, but not asking for the fakes to be returned so they can be destroyed.

 

you said you were looking forward to being disappointed!

 

Never been defrauded?

 

agreed. if it was a series of trh people would be purring

 

I've read only the first chapter so far and enjoyed it well enough. My vertigo has prevented me from reading more chapters.

 

It’s not just my thought process. It’s standard practice in the art world. When fake works, or works carrying fake signatures, are exposed, they are routinely destroyed in order to take them out of circulation. That is what should happen here. Any gallery worth their salt should know that.

 

Both that Vanity Fair article and this NYT article missed the salient fact that, as you note, Simon & Schuster tried to scam buyers twice. First through Indigo then their own website. Maybe they were unaware of the autopen first time round but after that Indigo cancellation, someone, somewhere said, "f**k it, we need to shift these, just tell 'em it's a new batch and knock up a certificate."

 

Hasn't their now been apologies and refunds? It's unfortunate, but what more does he owe?

 

In art, the topic of authenticity is really interesting. I’m an artist (I don’t look back) and I purposely avoid making prints because I value the unique aspect of each drawing or painting I make. Because of the monochrome quality of my graphite drawings, high quality prints would be relatively straightforward to make, but I still prefer to make each of my works a one-off. However, earlier this year I had a drawing selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in London that had already been chosen as the lead image for my solo exhibition at a gallery not too far from the RA. I couldn't change the solo show image but I also couldn't say no to the RA, so for the first time I made 'another one' so the image could feature in both shows. They have slightly different titles and are not totally identical, but the process raised some interesting thoughts about what is real and what er, isn't.

 

Yes, that certainly seems to be the case and is quite shameful.

 

Great work! I must have seen your drawing at the RA.

 

I don't think the book is ridiculous, I think it's a fascinating and entertaining read. But I would say that, of course, because my home is a sentry box here:


Honestly, I think the ratio of your anti-gatekeeper gatekeeping posts to what you describe as Dylan gatekeeper posts is something like 200:1.

 

Thanks! It was near Tracey Emin - very pleased with the placing.