Christian Rosa studio @emmanuelxuereb
Two years ago, Raymond Pettibon appeared to express his gratitude to two friends who paid him a visit on his Twitter account by posting a message. The message concluded, "Thank you for coming by, Christian Rosa and Henry Taylor." "Outstanding musicians and generous, generous people. Thanks for brightening up my week.
Prosecutors say Mr. Rosa, at the time, was actually planning to sell forgeries of Mr. Pettibon's work, which was the exact opposite of genuine. Mr. Rosa was charged with wire fraud in connection with the sale of four paintings that were allegedly the work of Mr. Pettibon and that were accompanied by certificates of authenticity on which Mr. Rosa is accused of forging the signature of Mr. Pettibon, according to an indictment announced on Wednesday.
Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement that Mr. Rosa, also known as Christian Rosa Weinberger in the indictment, "swindled buyers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and risked a New York artist's legacy through his forgery scheme." According to prosecutors, Mr. Rosa, 43, had been living in California before fleeing the country in February. He has since been missing. Depending on the charges against him, he could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison. When Robert Gottlieb, his lawyer, was contacted on Thursday, he declined to comment.
However, Mr. Pettibon's head of operations said via email on Thursday that the artist did not send out a thank-you tweet in 2019 to Mr. Rosa for his visit, and suggested that it could have been the work of someone else, perhaps Mr. Rosa. He "would never use 'common adjectives' like genuine or kind," according to Sozita Goudouna, the head of operations. Mr. Pettibon "has a very particular style of writing and especially of writing his tweets with a very distinguished sense of humor," she wrote.
According to the indictment, the following transpired before the charges were brought: Mr. Rosa began selling the four pieces in 2017 and continued to do so through last year under the false pretense that they were part of Mr. Pettibon's "Wave Series." Mr. Rosa enlisted the assistance of an unknown buyer in 2018 to arrange the sale of two forgeries to a different unknown buyer. A second painting from Mr. Rosa's "Wave Series" was given to the first buyer as an appreciation gift. About "certain unnamed paintings" in 2019, Mr. Rosa had some email exchanges with a friend about trying to find buyers. To put it another way: They're asking about certificates and how we're getting them, according to one email from Mr. Rosa.
Mr. Rosa's friend once enquired as to why the sales were taking as long as they were. According to Mr. Rosa, he wanted to find a buyer who wouldn't put the artworks up for auction again after they'd purchased them. The reason it's taking longer is that he's not trying to get arrested.
Prosecutors allege that Mr. Rosa used the sale proceeds from two of the paintings to pay for a down payment and mortgage payments on a California home. After attempting to assist Mr. Rosa in the sale of other alleged works by Mr. Pettibon, the unidentified first buyer purchased the two other forgeries at issue in the indictment in 2020. One of the paintings sold to the first buyer, who later put it up for auction in New York, was found to be faked. Dealers who saw images of one of Mr. Pettibon's paintings for sale "became suspicious when they noticed that there was a seemingly strange yellow-green blended into" his "normal cobalt blues," as well.
According to the indictment, Mr. Rosa emailed a friend the next day to let him know "the secret is out." Mr. Rosa left the United States less than a month later. After a few months, he decided to sell his California home and try to get some of the money elsewhere. Mr. Pettibon's comic-style album covers for punk rock bands like Black Flag, the Minutemen, and Sonic Youth made him famous in the 1980s and 1990s.
When creating his early works, he frequently incorporated images of baseball greats, Hollywood stars, and superheroes with images of bikers, gangsters, and notorious American figures like Charles Manson and J. Edgar Hoover. He became more interested in large works as his career progressed, and many of these featured enormous waves looming over surfers who were reduced to the size of pebbles. A few of his more recent works have fetched upwards of $1 million in sales. At the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City, his work was the focus of a major retrospective in 2017.
Mr. Rosa used to be a rising star in the art world. The market for his paintings peaked in the fall of 2014 when one of them sold for $209,000 at Christie's in New York. A similar work by Mr. Rosa sold for $30,000 at Sotheby's.
Christian Rosa studio @christianrosastudio
Jean Dubreil