Inside Park West
Information about Park West Gallery and Park West at Sea and their Art Auctions that Should be Known by Potential Customers Before They Buy
by
David Phillips
The following material has come to us from a variety of sources. They all are or were in a position to be able to provide accurate data. Of course we have been unable to verify any of the information directly with Park West because Park West doesn't want to talk to us, but the reports are consistent with the many complaints we have received and continue to receive, despite Park West's attempts to hush them up.
Whilst there is much secrecy about the internal workings of Park West and great pains are taken by the company to make sure that their employees, ex-employees, trainees and even the customers whose deals are rescinded or to whom refunds are given, are bound to secrecy, enough people who were not restrained by these agreements and releases have shared information with us that gives something of a picture of what goes on inside the organization that seems to have become a greedy, profiteering machine with large numbers of victims of fraudulent misrepresentations and deceptive trade practices.
In some cases those who shared their information with us were afraid that Park West would go after them, so their identity has been protected.
From a number of people who have worked for Park West
(The information below is all taken directly from various sources who we consider to be reliable.)
An overview of the company
Owner/President/CEO Albert Scaglione
Event Coordinator and Albert's wife, Amelia "Mitsie" Scaglione
Vice President/ art buyer/art pricing and Albert’s son, Marc Scaglione
HR Director and Albert's stepdaughter, daughter of Mitsie, Nicky Yanke
Manager of Florida location (framing and logistics) Albert's stepson, Mitsie's son, John Karay
Long time business partner of Albert and possible owner of facilities in Florida, Albert Molina
Albert has a daughter in Washington named Lisa but she basically stays out of the business, just collects her dividends as a shareholder.
That is the inner circle. Beneath them Albert has assembled a number of other individuals.
Steve Weiss, Director of Compliance
Morris "Morry" Shapiro, Gallery Director
Bill Smith Sales Director (?)
Plus a host of auctioneers used at the exclusive events.
David Teeman and Jack Sweetman were the land auction and ship auction managers but have been let go. Chris Marchand on the land side of the auctioning may be a replacement.
Then there is the rest of the staff. Customer support (high turnover), inventory (high turnover), shipping, packaging, mail room, IT, accounting, and restoration in Southfield. In Florida there is framing. There may also be framing being done in Wixom, Michigan. All of the framed artwork is shipped from the Florida location. All unframed works are shipped in tubes from Southfield, Michigan.
The most interesting department is Restoration. This department is staffed by individuals with degrees in fine arts. These individuals are basically paid $12.00 / hr and are the 'artists' that embellish the works that come in. I have personally witnessed restoration folks taking their paint brushes and touching up the buttons, flower petals, necklines of serigraphs or lithos or whatever, to turn them into mixed media "embellished by artist." Notice the missing word "the" between "by" and "artist." The mind just puts that in there. The buying public wants it to be embellished by "THE" artist, so that is what they hear. The ones I saw were LeKniffs.
Apparently this embellishment process was common practice for those artists that they had under contract. I have heard that the staff of Park West Gallery also on occasion sign the pieces in the artist's name for some of the artists they have on contract.
The ships
The ships are supposed to have their live auctions video taped and reviewed for compliance back at the gallery. With over 70 auctions per week and maybe 3-6 hours of tapes for each ship, and only one person to review them, a vast majority of the tapes were not reviewed but held onto for a few weeks and then erased and reused.
What goes on in the gallery sales (outside the auctions) is not recorded.
Per the gallery's contract with the cruise lines (varies per line) a certain percentage of sales needs to occur at the live auction and a percentage in the gallery. If the auctions do not meet a minimum per passenger per day, there is a fine due to the cruise line for not making the minimum commission due the cruise line.
Cruise lines get a percentage of the revenue. Ten to twenty percent or higher in some cases. This is a cash cow to the cruise lines.
Now how can the gallery afford to be so generous? Their mark up is just incredible. They have the artists on contract. They own the printer. They have the sales channel. They frame the art themselves. As soon as someone bids against another individual, the base profit margin just keeps going up.
Just to give an idea of the mark-ups. Each year the Christmas bonus for the staff is a "several hundred dollar" piece of artwork. The longer you've been there the better choices you have. An example was one which had a Park West price of around $400. The cost listed in the records was $1.25. The framing in most cases is worth many multiples more than their cost is to produce the works themselves. So what is the profit margin on that? Maybe that is why they can offer something like 10 - 20 percent to the ships and not blink. One wonders what they report to the IRS.
Land auctions are the same. Same big mark-up except they don't pay commissions to anyone except the auctioneers.
A good auctioneer on a brand new popular ship can bring in excess of $400K per year in commissions.
Businesses associated with Park West Gallery or which conduct work on behalf of and possibly exclusively for PWG.
Park West Gallery (parent company).
Park West at Sea (the shipboard auctioneering company).
Plymouth Auctioneering (whom many of the auctioneers are employed by), registered in Turks and Caicos Islands, British West Indies.
Fine Art Sales, Inc., Miami, Florida framing and distribution.
T&C (Turks and Caicos) Personnel Services Inc. (staffing company wholly owned by Park West Gallery. Kind of like an employee leasing company that provides staff to Park West at Sea and Evoke International).
Evoke International (on board gift shops on some cruise lines)
ROMI Serigraph (Israeli printing house where contracted artists' works are "authored". Company owned by Albert Scaglione)
Basically Park West is a money printing machine. They were estimating to hit $400 Million in 2007 and Albert has a goal of $1 billion by 2010 or sooner.
You are really buying a lithograph, serigraph, giclée – this is not an original, it is a copy made by any number of reproduction methods, might be embellished or not. But you, the buying consumer, are getting a copy. As for the printer proofs, artist proofs, European edition, archive – these are coming off a machine one right after another. Once the machine is set and the printer is happy with the color, they just roll. They get stacked in the basement and someone pencils in the edition and sequence number.
People have seen the artists sign the reproductions in pencil so the signature may be original but the artwork is a copy.
Most of the artwork available to the cruising public comes in big wooden crates from Israel and other places.
The nicer looking pieces are giclées – inkjet printed on just about any material.
The building has a great solid look from the street, but go up to the walls – it is just a façade, thin stucco over some framing. It is hollow.
Employees who are not in management are really overworked and underpaid. Plus they are beaten down and scared of the owner and his tirades. They have a huge turnover. In '06 it was approaching 80%.
They have or had a software licensing issue with Microsoft and had to pay them large sums, probably still don't have legal software on a lot of the computers, like on the cruise ships.
The worst points
1) Somehow Park West and its auctioneers have convinced inexperienced art buyers at the auctions (land and sea) that they were somehow buying into the great world of art on a budget. In most cases they are buying works that have never been touched by the hands of the artists, with the exception of where the artists may have actually signed the piece. The signatures might be in the master, part of the serigraph itself, or done by someone other than the artist. I don't blame novice buyers for wanting a good deal but they should educate themselves first. Most of the stuff they are bidding on are prints made on industrial machines with very little craftsmanship. Before Park West Gallery contracted LeKniff, or Krasnyansky and started pumping them up as the next great artists, how many people in the art world had even heard of them?
The pieces they are selling are mostly home decorations, not museum quality art. If you don't like what you are buying, but buy it as an investment, the only thing you are investing in is the sellers' (the ship, the auctioneer, the gallery, the artists) bank account. You will be very lucky indeed if the item ever appreciates in your lifetime to what you actually paid for it, if ever.
2) The booze is to relax you and get you to drop your guard. These auctions are "all sales final." You are entering into a contract that is going to be pretty tough to get out of (unless you raise holy heck far and wide). And easy credit terms – everyone gets a 15K limit in most cases. Can you afford to pay off 15K in a year before the insane interest rate kicks in? Once you've made the purchase with the Collectors Card, it really isn't a Park West issue any more. They got paid by GE Financial. You get to deal with someone else regarding the payments.
Artist signatures
Some of the signatures of the artists that Park West has on contract are actually signatures done by staff and not that of the artist.
The contracts are held secret so other than the inner circle and where the information is needed for someone to do their job, little is known about what is per contract and what is not.
Most of the Park West employees that
have left just leave and never look back and never call anyone there again. They just move on with their lives, preferably far away. I pray that everyone can get out of there without losing their moral dignity. If you spend too much time there, you might begin to think that the behavior is normal.
Possible Illegal Activities
It does seem odd that at their VIP events ($1 million plus in sales) the purchasers do not pay sales tax. Most of the purchasers on the ships do not pay sales tax if they don't live in Michigan or Florida. Typical ship auction cruise produces $40-80K in sales. The auctioneer gets a cut, the ship gets a cut and the rest goes back to HQ.
I had heard rumors (from a very reliable source) that there was an issue with the company not declaring correctly the value of the artwork being brought in from Israel and paying a pittance of what was actually owed. Items from Christie's were declared/documented correctly because Christie's handled the paperwork. Whereas with ROMI, PWG handled the Customs paperwork. Someone pointed out that there was an error with customs and that Park West owed large sums of unpaid duties on shipments. That employee was rapidly terminated.
From a trainee sales associate who was let go because she knew too much about art
I found the job on the internet because I wanted to work in an international gallery. I'm an artist and have spent $50,000 on an art education which included art and art history.
I applied for the job and got an email from Jack Sweetman (then ship auction manager). I had two interviews with Jack and he offered me the job. I got emails from Park West and then from an offshore company, Plymouth Auctioneering. They asked me to make sure I set up off-shore bank accounts in various places. I had to do various security checks.
I gave notice, sold my stuff, my furniture and bed and they flew me out to Michigan where I met a group of auctioneers who were there as well as the new people like me who were going there for the first time. Everything was paid for. It seemed too good to be true (as it turned out it was too good to be true).
Our training (initiation) started at the gallery. We were asked to introduce ourselves. I said I had a degree and they started snickering and laughing at me. The auctioneers told us they had no formal training in art. They said, "It's just a sales job. No formal training required."
Then very early on Albert Scaglione came to meet with us. My first impressions were of the Unabomber with an additional 30 years on him. He didn't look like someone with a lot of money. His attitude was, "Here I am, this is my life and my passion and it's all thanks to God that this has happened." He told us he had bought us each a bible and had our names inscribed in them. He also said, "Before you come into this gallery in the morning I want you to pray to God and thank him for giving you this opportunity, and at the end of every day I want you to pray to God and thank him for all the sales that you've made at the auction or the connections you have made with other people."
That set off a few red flags for me because I don't practice religion and I don't think a company should preach it to you.
The training period was three or four weeks before they finally told me that I wasn't suitable.
You start off as an associate. As you progress in the sales, depending on how well you do, they'll move you into the auctioneer position. How the auctioneer position works is that it's actually your own business. You pay for the champagne and whatever else you want to pay for except for the artwork itself (unless something happens to it). You pay the associates that are there helping you. You pay for all the expenditures like your cell phone, your computer, and you're held accountable for the pieces that are on that ship. It's a bit of a pyramid in a way.
A guy called Chris was doing the training. He told us that very often people who have bought pieces get buyer's remorse and call up asking for their money back and threatening to sue. He said, "But they can't sue us because our lawyers have much more money than they do."
One of the auctioneers told me that for the majority of their artists they produce the prints in the basement of the gallery in Michigan. They do all the printing themselves, which is why a lot of those pieces look like garbage. When we were there we saw people in coveralls with paint splashes on them sneaking around the gallery. Presumably these were the MFAs who do the embellishment on the prints and giclées so they can be sold as original art. Chris was demonstrating how to sell the giclées for $10,000 making them look like original art.
During the training, they give you a computer to play around with to see the auctioneer system and so on. Being an art major, I knew that none of those pieces are real. The way they sell them is to make it very believable that you're buying originals without actually saying so. If you're not trained in the art industry and someone says to you, "This is a unique Picasso," you automatically think, "Sweet – it's the only one in the world – I'm buying a piece of history." When in actual fact it's a copy and a bad one at that. Most of the training was how to be as loud and obnoxious as possible.
I was playing around with the auctioneer system and there was a Picasso that was listed. It said their cost was under $10,000 to make it and frame it and do whatever they had to do with it. The auctioneer had to start the bidding at $35,000. They couldn't sell it for under $35,000 so the auctioneers would start the bidding at around $65-75,000. And what a lot of the buyers don't know on the ship is that they're going to add a 15% premium to that. Chris gave us examples of how to sell these embellished giclées as though they were the real thing.
At times the training got dirty, like we were asked to tell our favorite dirty joke. And there would be personal questions about spouses and so on.
Here is an example that really illustrates their philosophy. According to Chris who was the head auctioneer or whatever, he and Albert Scaglione went to Italy and they picked an unknown artist (Tarkay) just to bring back and prove that marketing can sell artwork. Chris said, "This goes to show if you market a product properly you can make money off it." That's true, but why do it to an artist whose artwork is not that good? They were comparing this guy to Rembrandt and Picasso and Dalí. They made up their own era of artists. They think they are so great at what they do that they make things up. One of the other trainees and I had to correct them on about three or four occasions with regard to art history because they had dates wrong, eras wrong and so on.
It’s not the auctioneers leading the way here. It's the way that Park West approaches you when you go into training. They wine and dine you – we had a five-course meal for dinner and for lunch they would bring a catered lunch. You're believing everything they say. So if you don't know anything about artwork, they're molding you, that's what they’re doing. They want you to believe in everything that they're doing.
The auctioneers who know nothing about art really believe that the stuff they're selling is worth what they're being told it's worth. There was nothing stated in training to give you any idea that it wasn't worth what they were selling it for.
I know that there is no way you're going to have an actual, original Picasso on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean. A real one would be locked behind airtight glass in the Louvre or somewhere like that. It's not going to be here or lying around in a ship. None of the art at the Michigan gallery is real.
The auctioneers don't understand that the appraisals are all done in house. What they say in training is that all these works are appraised, but they don't say it's in house. They said, "We do have appraisers on site and they are licensed to do so," but they're not.
There was a Better Business report about how they went on line and printed off a signature from a Salvador Dalí appraiser and added it to their appraisal of Dalí pieces.
As far as authentication is concerned, the reason they can get away with what they are saying on the authentication is because of the fine print. If you read it carefully, they're not saying it was painted by this particular painter but it's very easy to take it that it was.
They taught us about the Park West credit card which is an important part of their selling gimmicks. If someone says they can't afford a piece of art, they have a ready answer which is the Park West credit card.
They got rid of the people who knew something about art.
I lasted three or four weeks. Just training. They told me I was too high maintenance to make it on a ship. People who sell artwork have a bit of class and have to know what they’re talking about.
At the end of the training they took us all and said, "We're going to decide who we're going to keep and who we’re going to let go." To me they said, "We know you've had a lot of training in the art industry and you've been working in galleries since you were 17. We don't want you to educate our clients on what they're purchasing because that will ruin your sales."
I said, "Are you for real? I really appreciate this opportunity but I can't personally sell what you're selling. I don’t believe in it."
The truth is they're ruining the whole art industry for the sake of making money. And that is not what art is about to me. Art to me is about the history behind it, where the work comes from, the story of the artist, all of that.
Note: We will be happy to receive further comments from anyone working at Park West or who has worked there, positive or negative, and to publish them along with this article.
— by David Phillips
|
January 22, 2008
|
Print Version - 
PDF (2.4 Mb)
Share your experiences with Park West at Sea on the FAR® forum.
Read More About the FAR investigation into the
Park West at Sea Art Auctions and submit a complaint here.
Discuss article | 
Print this page | 
The views and opinions of individual authors/contributors expressed on the FAR® web site do not necessarily state or reflect those views and/or opinions of Fine Art Registry® or its agents or subsidiaries.
Fine Art News Feed
