fake

Apparently any image can be “copyrighted” if an artist gets there with it first. From Roy Lichtenstein’s Ben-day dots and Andy Warhol’s silkscreens, it’s a short leap to Jeff Koons’ or Damien Hirst’s or Takashi Murakami’s factories turning the stuff out.

Shock value is enough for a copyright, whether it’s a putrefying shark or a platinum, diamond-studded neo-Augsburg memento mori or a three-dimensional cartoon or a huge, shiny toy dog. With money proliferating and more and more of it pouring into the “art” market, rarity generates lower, not higher prices. Beckmanns and Tanguys cost less than Warhols or Basquiats or Richard Princes.

So what constitutes a fake? With old masters, connoisseurs devote themselves to distinguishing the master’s hand from the assistants’, and this can be done, even with objects from the pre-humanist period, when the patronage was religious and strictly formulaic.

Sigue leyendo The art factory and the death of the connoisseur, una reflexión sobre la naturaleza del original.