Post-Grad Dissertation by Parthiv Parikh

THIS BOOK IS A

FAKE or is it?

PRODUCTION OF FORGERY 1st March 2022

Mentor Prof. Simon Withers E mail - s.withers@greenwich.ac.uk

Student Parthiv Parikh (001126337) E mail - pp9204q@gre.ac.uk

forgery noun

1. The act of forging something, especially the unlawful act of counterfeiting a document or object for the purposes of fraud or deception. 2. Something that has been forged, especially a document that has been copied or remade to look like the original. “he was found guilty of forgery” Similar.

a forged document, signature, banknote, or work of art. Plural noun: forgeries “the notes must be forgeries”

Definations from Oxford dictionary.

DECLARATION I hereby declare that this thesis is my original work and it has been written by me in its entirety under the guidance of Prof. Simon Withers. I have duly acknowledged all the sources of information which have been used in the thesis. Although if any reference is missing, it is not intentional. I also acknowledge that this thesis has not been previously submitted in this university or any other university for the award of any degree, diploma, fellowship or other similar titles of recognition.

Parthiv Parikh In my capacity as guide of the candidate’s thesis, I certify that the above statements are true to the best of my knowledge.

Prof. Simon Withers

ACKNOWLEDGMENT First and foremost I offer my sincerest gratitude to my mentor and guide for the thesis, Prof. Simon Withers. I would like to thank him for believing in me and his patience and open-mindedness. This allowed me a great deal of freedom, as at certain times what may have seen like unsavory arguments were taken in good humor. I would like to express my appreciation to him for his constant and valuable inputs throughout the dissertation. Thank you to my friends and family for their support and love. Last but not the least I would like to acknowledge not a person, but the journey itself. From the genesis of the idea for my research to the last leg, and to my architectural term as a student, it has been a journey of memories and great experiences.

“Only the experts are worth fooling. The greater the expert, the greater the satisfaction in deceiving him” 1, -Eric Hebborn

1. Ricci, B. The Art of Forgery – Art Forgers Who Duped The World. ARTLAND.

ABSTRACT

In the world of mass reproduction and replication of art, one tries to understand its authenticity. Art, as we know, has embarked from the period of renaissance to modernism and abstraction, constantly changing and morphing into different variables. There has been a point where one has questioned the very existence of art and its meaning. In a context filled with great minds carrying vivid imaginations and portraying them not just on a piece of canvas but through any medium present, lies the question of who had it first? The fact that every artwork has an unparalleled expression of individual creative talent, a result of precise personal, historical and cultural context, the art world heavily revolves around the concept of inauthenticity to a larger extent. But what is an art fake? In simple terms, when an artwork is presented by one artist, despite being created by another, it justifies being a forge although this is not a crime, as legally speaking, only written documents can be forged. For example, one could have a fake painting with a forged statement of authenticity, (“The Art of Forgery - Art Forgers Who Duped The World ...”). Would this imply that an idea could be forged as well? Looking at modern-day art, such as pop art or abstract art that focuses on ideas or a concept of consumerism, mass production, objective representations, etc., generates multiple permutations based on a specific agenda. Would that imply replication of sorts? Psychological studies reveal that authenticity also affects the way one looks at artworks at a neurological level. (“The Dark World of Art Forgery, Fakes, Fraud: Art is Third ...”) The viewer’s reaction not only changes when they look at an authentic piece of art but when they observe one that has been informed is not. Our perception is different when a figure of authority tells us what we are looking at is a “real” or a “fake”. 10

The notion of forgery slips on either side of the law within a degree of acceptance. In a fundamental definition the act of forgery in itself cannot be illegal but counterfeiting one or falsely making or altering the legal rights of the person is a crime. In an equivalent way imitation of an object of value used with the intent to deceive another is a criminal offense. The capacity of this word to change states is quite intriguing. The investigation is on defining the gap between authenticity and inauthenticity and procreating this notion in architecture to define its way of use. The other question lies why do forgers forge? Particularly in terms of art. With such an element of skill involved in forged items, there are collectors of the fake itself. Here the degree of acceptance of things being forged and bought, disregarding it as a criminal offense, pays a higher value of recognition than the original. Which involves an even stronger element being the audience. With a chain of entities forming this process we see collectors, being the audience here, are willing to spend on things that possess a different value of integrity than the original. This encourages forgers to perform even better in what they do. The bubble also exists in architecture which can be seen as replicating design ideas and interior objects into mass production. One can easily buy a Barcelona chair now at a small boutique store that might not even know its true value. Forgery undermines everything in society. One cannot trust what we see, what we perceive. What happens in architecture if we cannot trust things? It is hence about predictability in architecture. By extension, what we are looking at in forgery applies to architecture directly.

01 INTRODUCTION Background Aims and Objective Research Questions Methodology Relevance A Tale

16 23 25 27 29 30

02 PRODUCTION OF FORGERY Authenticity and In-Authenticity Plagarism and Counterfeit Copyrights and Patents Forged Market Philosophies Timeline of Forgers

34 38 43 49 61 67

03 REALISATION IN ARCHITECTURE Copying Intentional | Unintentional Subconscious Elemental Can we learn anything from Vegas? Game of Clones

73 77 83 89 95 99

04 THE CONCLUSION

108

BIBLIOGRAPHY

114

APPENDIX

121

introduction

(noun)

1. the action of introducing something. “this chapter will provide an introduction to the graduation project” 2. a formal presentation of one person to another, in which each is told the other’s name. “he returned to his desk, leaving Michael to make the introductions”

Definations from Oxford dictionary.

BACKGROUND The inquiry begins with questioning the idea of something being original and the value of its authenticity after its reproductions. With artworks traveling over centuries and being displayed in museums and galleries, what still makes it resonate that sense of originality? With an extensive amount of reproductions, it is the image the travels rather than the painting itself. The significance of a painting has now shifted away from its unique painted surface, that was subjective to one location. A substantial portion of its apprehension has become transmissible. The meaning of a painting is not only an interpretation of a viewer but information that transmits. The paintings are viewed as messages that disseminate information to exploit people into purchasing additional originals which these replicas have supplanted. However, one might argue that original artworks are still unique. They appear differently than they do on television or on postcards. “ Reproductions distort, only a few facsimiles don’t ” 2. For example, fig 1, is the original painting by Leonardo Da Vinci. Only what you are seeing is still not the original. It is only when you stand in front of it located in The National Gallery. That is authentic. The painting consists an entry, 14 pages long, in the national gallery that talks about its previous commissions, ownerships, its provenance reflecting on data that shows years of research now raises questions of authenticity. My understanding of it is to be a genuine Leonardo, which might be considered arguable by many. But why is it so important to preserve and display these drawings? It seems there is a new sense of importance that it withholds, not because of what it depicts or its significance as a picture, but because of its commercial worth. “It is not that there is nothing left to experience before original works of art except an ‘awe’, because they have endured, or they are real, or they are ridiculously precious. A lot more is possible but only if the art is stripped of the false mystery and the false religiosity which surrounds it.” 2. This religiosity, which is often associated with monetary worth and is constantly claimed under the shadow of culture and civilization has been replaced by the ease of duplicity enabled by cameras. With all these factors involved in reproductions, comes the real act of producing one. Art forgers have and potentially will be producing fakes as precise as possible for the authenticators to just prove them wrong. It is, in general, a peculiar way of creating art one would argue.

2. Berger, J. (1972) “Ways of Seeing , Episode 1.” Youtube. Available at: https://www. youtube.com/h?v=0pDE4VX_9Kk&list=PLn6KyJ4PmZsPhigNqPlWGEoCgBHJbhib3&index=1& ab_channel=tw19751 [Accessed 5 Feb, 2022].

Fig-01.

A common misconception about art forgeries is monetary benefits. Another significant factor that is often overlooked is the attempt to con the system for not recognizing an artist’s potential. Among the various categories of art forgers, two major groups may be distinguished: those who create reproductions of existing artworks and those who create completely new pieces by filling in the gaps of celebrated painters. 1 Records show that the titles existed without any supporting image instigating forgers to reproduce them. The celebrity status of famous artists and the whirlwind of money and fame surrounding them when they are deemed to be important by a certain group of people could become deceiving.

Figure 01 - The Virgin of the Rocks by Leonardo da Vinci and other(s), 1495–1508.

(source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_of_ the_Rocks#/media/File:Leonardo_da_Vinci_Virgin_ of_the_Rocks_(National_Gallery_London).jpg).

One of the famous paintings histories ever recorded is by Leonardo Da Vinci, the Mona Lisa. A piece of art, not only magnificent for what it is but also carries a heavy, disrupted history of its origins and questions the very premise of its authenticity. Monalisa has been stolen multiple times moved around countries and auctioned at numerous places projects a countless number of theories to justify its very existence leaving one wondering, is it the actual/ original/ authentic/ real/ sole painting painted by Da Vinci? It has been said the artist painted more than one true painting of the commissioned portrait, bringing out the question of which one is the true masterpiece.? Or was it left to his most cherished apprentice Salaì?

Figure 02 - Multiple itterations of the painting Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1503–1506, perhaps continuing until c. 1517. (source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mona_ Lisa,_by_Leonardo_da_Vinci,_from_C2RMF_ retouched.jpg ).

Figure 03 - (pg 17,18) Gustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger’s art studio.

(source - https://www.boredpanda.com/famousartists-and-their-muses-in-their-studios/?utm_ source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_ campaign=organic ).

Fig-02.

‘Nearly everything that we learn or read about art, encourages an attitude and expectation rather like that’.1 - John Berger (1972).

AIM The thesis focuses on the idea of forgery in the art world, investigating the concept of authenticity in something in-authentic and applying it in the field of architecture.

OBJECTIVE The main objective of this thesis is to briefly analyze notions of forgery and authenticity in the art world and generate an intrigue about a similar situation in the field of architecture. The early research will focus on exploring different methods of art forgeries and a historical mapping for different art forgers. Understanding its relevance into the art world and eventually apply the critic of authenticity in architecture. In arts, the whole debate is driven by a scholarly value that curates art and its historical understanding which is directly proportional to its monetary value and more importantly impacts the viewer’s exparience. Can this be applied to architecture? The premise does not focus on its acceptance of being good or bad, rather, the research shall focus on bringing forward certain parameters that will define the idea of forgery within the architectural realm. 23

RESEARCH QUESTIONS What is forgery?

What do you forge? What accounts

as authenticity? one?

Is forgery a criminal offence,

if so what makes it

Can an idea be forged? Can a person be forged?

How one generates value for the piece of art? How

many

people are banksy? Who is banksy? What is a legitimate

copy?Are galleries a source of adding value to a piece of art? How in-authentic can a forge be? Does borrowing

Is there an inert satisfaction to forge a piece of art? What is an illegitimate copy? Can this technique used as a medium instigate imitation? How have forged artist gained fame?

In the world of NFT’s what claims to be authentic? What makes art really original and unique? Is it the hand that made it or the innate qualities of the work itself? What actually is an art fake? Who was the inventor? Who had it first? , How do we arrive at the deviance of a forgery? What is the impact of its existence? What do they disturb? What is a forgery in architecture? What are the architectural opportunities in forgery? in academia?

forge (n.) late 14c., “a smithy,” from Old French forge “forge, smithy” (12c.), earlier faverge, from Latin fabrica “workshop, smith’s shop,” hence also “a trade, an industry;” also “a skillful production, a crafty device,” from faber (genitive fabri) “workman in hard materials, smith” (see fabric). As the heating apparatus itself (a furnace fitted with a bellows), from late 15c. Forge-water (1725), in which heated iron has been dipped, was used popularly as a medicine in 18c.

forge (v.1) early 14c., “to counterfeit” (a letter, document, etc.), from Old French forgier “to forge, work (metal); shape, fashion; build, construct; falsify” (12c., Modern French forger), from Latin fabricari “to frame, construct, build,” from fabrica “workshop” (see forge (n.)). Meaning “to counterfeit” (a letter, document, or other writing) is from early 14c.; literal meaning “to form (something) by heating in a forge and hammering” is from late 14c. in English, also used in Middle English of the minting of coins, so that it once meant “issue good money” but came to mean “issue spurious (paper) money.” Related: Forged; forging.

forge (v.2) 1769 (with an apparent isolated use from 1610s), “make way, move ahead,” of unknown origin, perhaps an alteration of force (v.), but perhaps rather from forge (n.), via notion of steady hammering at something. Originally nautical, in reference to vessels. (“forge | Etymology, origin and meaning of forge by etymonline”) Related: Forged; forging.

Etymology from oxford etymology dictionary.

METHODOLOGY The research project takes a qualitative, exploratory, and reflective approach to explore the potential of the word forgery in a creative, imaginative field of art and architecture. The project consists of 3 primary phases: definitions, research, and design exploration. With art forgers being most creative while copying one’s piece of art, is it possible for architects to potentially follow a similar direction? Can counterfeit be used as a medium of production for designs in architecture while staying within the laws of forgery and plagiarism? The way the piece shall emerge is by being a part of the topic, the thesis defines the status of forgery through the act of being one. It is the emphasis and the language used as a means of communication that brings out the notion of authenticity in something in-authentic. The preliminary research will therefore be about elaborating on the word forge, what does a forgery implies. Looking at different case studies of forgeries in art and expanding the topic on patents will help derive parameters involved in the act. The reason for such research is to draw on facts and incidents taken place throughout history for a cohesive understanding of the problem. The second part of the dissertation, therefore, raises the question, if this is the state of the art world, does this pertain to architecture? If so, how might this apply to architecture? Following the empirical research in architecture, the thesis looks at different projections of the word copy being iterated in terms of the design and execution of buildings. And how appropriation in architecture exists but it is difficult to convey it as a criminal offense. As the research brings out certain parameters to understand the idea of forgery in architecture, the notion of influence or copying as a form of architecture practice forms an infinite loop of research via design and design via research. 27

RELEVANCE The word ‘copying’, is always used in a context of negative reinforcement. Things multiply in nature and that is how evolution exists. There are certain conditions where the capacity of this word or potentially this notion changes the way one understands it. In the world we live in today, copying is embedded within us in an excessive amount. It is the lens of capturing this idea that defines what is a good copy and what is a bad one. With this degree of acceptance, imitating or using something as a means of copy is acceptable depending on its way of use. New discoveries tend to use precedents as a solid foundation in order to define a certain new outcome. The art of imitation allows one not only to place themselves in the shoes of someone else but also to experience a genuinely good production of the work and contrast it with your own. This, in turn, allows one to thoroughly understand the good and bad processes of whatever work it is that one attempts to generate. “ As an artist you are only a link in a chain, and whatever you find or whatever you do not find, you can find comfort in it ”. 3 - Vincent Van Gogh. Evolution is inevitable and copying is a part of that process. By imitating someone, it should be learned by the experience of doing it rather than reusing it. 3. Gogh, V. (1889) Theo van Gogh, 3 May.

A Tale

What is an artist’s point of view on the world? You start by deciding what is worth taking, and then you go on to the next thing. That’s about all there is to it. When you look at the world through this lens, you do not have to worry about what is “good” and what is “bad” — there are simply things worth stealing and things that aren’t. Everything is up for grabs. If you don’t find something worth taking right now, you could find it tomorrow, a month later, or a year later. If one is free from the burden of trying to be completely original, they can stop trying to make something out of nothing and embrace influence instead of running away from it. Every new idea is just a mashup or a remix of one or more previous ideas. A good example is genetics. You possess features from both parents, but the sum of you is bigger than their parts. You are a remix of your mother and father and all your ancestors. Just as you have a familial genealogy, you also have a genealogy of ideas. You cannot choose your family, but you can choose your teachers and friends, as well as the music you listen to, the books you read, and the movies you watch. You are, in reality, a mashup of everything you allow into your life. You are the accumulation of your influences. The artist is a collector, not a hoarder. There is a difference: hoarders accumulate indiscriminately, whereas artists collect selectively. They only collect items that they truly adore. Your job is to collect good ideas. The better ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by. Every artist gets asked the question, “Where do you get your ideas?”

The honest artist answers, “I steal them.” 4

NOTHING IS ORIGINAL. The writer Jonathan Lethem has said, ‘when people call something

“Original,” nine out of ten times they just don’t know the references, or the original sources involved’.4

It’s right there in the Bible: “There is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9) As the French writer André Gide puts it, “Everything that needs to be said

has already been said. “But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again” 4. “What is originality? Undetected plagiarism.” — by William Ralph Inge.

A good artist understands that things do not just appears out of nothing. All creative effort builds on previous work. Nothing is totally unique. It’s right there in the Bible: “There is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9) The German writer Goethe said, “We are shaped and fashioned by what we love”. 4

“Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic” —Jim Jarmusch. 4

4. Kleon, A., 2012. Steal like an artist: 10 things nobody told you about being creative. Workman Publishing.

nothing is nothing is nothing is nothing is nothing is

Authenticity and In-authenticity

original. what is original then? original. what is original then? original. what is original then? original. what is original then? original. what is original then?

Authenticity is a dimensional word. Like its near relations, “real,” “genuine,” and “true, its meaning is ambiguous until we know what dimension of its referent is being discussed. The way the authentic/ inauthentic difference is resolved is highly dependent on the context. A forged piece of art will not be inauthentic in every aspect. For example, a Han van Meegeren forgery of a Vermeer is at once a fake Vermeer and an authentic van Meegeren at the same time. Whenever the term authentic is used it raises a question, authentic in comparison to what? Despite the vast range of settings in which the word authentic/inauthentic is used as a form of aesthetic, the contrast tends to focus on broader categories. Firstly, by identifying the object’s origins, authorship or provenance and ensuring the object of aesthetic value is properly named. However, the term “authenticity” is often used to refer to an object’s character as a real manifestation of an individual’s or a society’s values and ideas. Much of the notion of authenticity in contemporary society depends around legal issues such as fair use of imagery or copyright and reproduction legislation. Many artists take inspiration from their peers’ work, adding to it and changing the meaning in the process. When the objective is just to replicate without giving credit to the original idea, the work becomes inauthentic. Many of the most often debated concerns of authenticity have been around art forgery and plagiarism. The notion of forgery necessitates misleading intentions on the side of the forger or the seller of the work, distinguishing forgeries from harmless copies or even incorrect attributions. In general, an honest copy can subsequently be used as a counterfeit, even though it was not initially meant to be such and is therefore tends to be a forgery. The line between innocent copy and overt forgery can be difficult to discern. In common parlance, authenticity is contrasted with “falsity” or “fakery,” although, falsity does not have to mean fraud at every stage of the production of a fake. Forgery and intentional misrepresentation of art items have existed for as long as there has been an art market. However, many works of art that are called “inauthentic” are merely misidentified. There is nothing dishonest about incorrectly identifying the provenance of an ostensibly antique New Guinea mask or an apparently eighteenth-century Italian artwork. Fraudulence is seen only when what seems to be an optimistic guess is presented as well-established information or when the individual making the guess utilizes position or authority to give it more weight than it deserves. The boundary between unjustified optimism and fraudulence on the other hand, can be called hazy at best.

Fig-04.

The authenticity of presentation is crucial not only to performing arts, for example, modern museums have been criticized for presenting old paintings in a strong lighting environment that reveals the detailing whilst giving an overall effect that is at odds with how they could have been enjoyed in a domestic space. Cleaning, revarnishing and strong illumination arguably amount to an inauthentic presentation. Georgina Adam, author of the book Dark Side of the Boom, a book about the art markets excesses, talks about how many forgers are wisely choosing to impersonate 20th-century painters, who used colors and canvases that are still available, and whose abstractions are simpler to mimic. “The technical talent required to produce a Leonardo is immense, but it isn’t with someone like Modigliani,” she explains. “Now, scholars will claim it’s simple to discern, but the truth is that it’s not at all.” In January, 20 of 21 paintings in a famed Modigliani show in Genoa were discovered to be forgeries. Figure 04 - The Louvre Copyist learning to paint by copying the old masters work,

(source - https://mymodernmet.com/ivan-guilbertlouvre-copyists/ ).

Fig-05.

The question of authenticity is not only, or even largely, intellectual in nature. There is more at stake than a satisfactory solution to the fundamental question of whether authenticity matters at all - a discussion that has waged and refought throughout the history of western art. “If a fake is so expert that even after the most thorough and trustworthy examination its authenticity is still open to doubt,” the critic Aline Saarinen once wondered, “is it or is it not as satisfactory a work of art as if it were unequivocally genuine?” (“Crisis of authentication ... - Oxford Education Blog”) Typically, this discussion usually ends up in the same place every time. Of course, authenticity is important; studying a counterfeit Rembrandt as a legitimate one would limit our knowledge of Rembrandt as an artist and the evolution of art. However, the philosophical whimsy of the question has been supplanted with financial necessity. At a time when the art market has become associated with art itself, a disregard for attribution would undermine a trade that deals in the scarcity of genuine Rembrandts.

Figure 05 - The men at Emmaus by Han van Meegeren, in the style of Johannes Vermeer, 1937.

(source - https://www.boijmans.nl/en/collection/ artworks/101464/the-men-at-emmaus ).

Leaving aside outright forgeries, every discussion about an artwork’s “authenticity” plunges us, like a trapdoor, into the darkness of words. On the art historians’ sliding scale of attribution – painted by; hand of; studio of; circle of; style of; copy of – each step distances the artist from the picture. These changes, which are often subtle, are accentuated by the concern about overpainting; critics argued that Salvator Mundi had been painted over so many times and so extensively that it was done less by Da Vinci and more by his restorers. Deliberate forgeries, misattributions, and bad restorations all infringe on the domain of the genuine. The market was startled by the quality of these paintings, as well as their faithful duplicity. The sums of money at stake in art, which were never little to begin with, have grown gigantic.

Authenticity is thus a far bigger concern than merely detecting and eradicating fakery in the arts. The urge to establish a piece’s nominal authenticity, identifying its maker and provenance — in other words, determining how the work came to be — stems from a general desire to interpret a work of art according to its original canon of criticism: - What did it mean to its creator? - What was its relationship to the cultural milieu in which it was created? - What existing genre did it fit into? - What was its initial audience supposed to think of it? - What would they have found interesting or significant about it? These questions are frequently phrased in terms of artists’ intentions, which will, in part, determine the answers. The motivation to be a skilled forger has risen in lockstep; a single, perfectly done old master counterfeit may fund a lengthy, happy retirement. The technology available to assist prospective forgers have also advanced. Naturally, the forgeries are becoming better, triggering a crisis of authentication for the art world’s institutions: museums, galleries, auction houses, and experts who are expected to tell the difference between the genuine thing and its replica.

Figure 06 - The Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci (alone) or Leonardo with workshop participation,

Fig-06.

(source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvator_ Mundi_(Leonardo)#/media/File:Leonardo_ da_Vinci,_Salvator_Mundi,_c.1500,_oil_on_ walnut,_45.4_%C3%97_65.6_cm.jpg ).

plagiarism (n.) “the purloining or wrongful appropriation of another’s ideas, writing, artistic designs, etc., and giving them forth as one’s own,” 1620s, from -ism + plagiary (n.) “plagiarist, literary thief” (c. 1600), from Latin plagiarius “kidnapper, seducer, plunderer, one who kidnaps the child or slave of another,” used by Martial in the sense of “literary thief,” from plagiare “to kidnap,” plagium “kidnapping,” from plaga “snare, hunting net” (also “open expanse, territory”), which is perhaps from PIE *plag- (on notion of “something extended”), variant form of root *plak- (1) “to be flat.” De Vaan tentatively compares Greek plagia “sides, flanks,” Old High German flah “flat,” Old Saxon flaka “sole of the foot.”

plagiarist (n.) “one who plagiarizes,” 1670s; see plagiarism + -ist. The earlier noun in this sense was plagiary (c. 1600). Related: Plagiaristic.

plagiarize (v.) “to steal or purloin from the writings or ideas of another,” 1716, from plagiary “plagiarist” (see plagiarism) + -ize. Related: Plagiarized; plagiarizing. (“plagarism| Etymology, origin and meaning of forge by etymonline”) Related: plagarist; plagarize. Source : https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=plagarism

Plagarism and Counterfeit

save your thefts for later.

The meaning of the word plagiarism comes from the Latin word ‘plagiarius’, which means to kidnap. Plagiarism can lead a piece of work to fail in its primary objective. While artwork or writing is deemed successful if it reaches the intended audience, plagiarism undermines the work’s credibility and prevents the artist’s or writer’s message from reaching the intended audience. Plagiarism, as we know, describes as misrepresenting another author’s words, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one’s own original work. It is regarded as a breach of academic integrity as well as a breach of journalistic ethics. Although plagiarism is regarded as theft or stealing in certain settings, the idea does not exist in a criminal sense, however, using someone else’s work to earn academic credit may fit some legal definitions of fraud. “Plagiarism” is expressed not referenced in any contemporary, criminal, or civil legislation. When compared, it is not the same as an infringement of intellectual property rights. While both names may refer to the same conduct, they are not the same thing, and fraudulent claims of authorship are normally considered plagiarism regardless of whether the content is protected by copyright. Copyright infringement is a breach of a copyright holder’s rights when certain content that is limited by copyright law, is used without permission. Plagiarism, on the other hand, is concerned with the unearned enhancement of the plagiarizing author’s reputation or the acquisition of academic credit through fraudulent claims of authorship. As a result, plagiarism is regarded as a moral violation against the plagiarist’s intended audience. In an explanatory sense, the words depict an explanation that basically identifies the problem but at the same time is very subjective to its case. Counterfeit at the same time deals with the idea for forgery but has a different position of use. To counterfeit is to imitate something legitimate in order to steal, destroy, or replace the original, to employ in unlawful activities, or to fool people into believing that the imitation is of equal or higher worth than the actual item. Counterfeit products are fakes or unauthorized replicas of the real product. Here the state of the product is defined by the nomenclature and not the act for instance. Counterfeiting is the fraudulent imitation (forgery) of a wellknown brand and product, as well as the theft of someone else’s trademark. Trademarks are used by businesses of all sizes to help consumers identify their products. A trademark is often a word, phrase, or symbol that identifies the source or origin of a certain commodity or service that is offered in commerce. A counterfeit item is one that exploits another person’s brand without their consent. Criminals strive to benefit unfairly from the reputation of the trademark owner by creating or selling a counterfeit. The interesting thing to know here is counterfeit is similar to the idea of forging a painting. One needs to be very precise in duplicating their respective objects and when it goes undetected it is as good as a branded or one of a kind product.

“As a crime, art forgery can seem trifling – less a sinister outrage than a half-complete Robin Hood jape that merely robs the rich.”, - Samanth Subramanian

Copyrights and Patents

fake it ‘til you make it.

Understanding the fundamentals of copyright law is critical for every professional artist, whether they are selling original work or reproduction rights. A copyright is a set of conditions that automatically vest in the creator of an original work of writing. These conditions include the ability to reproduce the work, create derivative works, distribute copies, and publicly perform and exhibit the work. It is crucial to understand that copyright almost always belongs to the creator, regardless of who owns the artwork. There are several exceptions to this rule, such as work that was specially commissioned or finished during employment, in which case the commissioner or employer retains the copyright. Selling a picture to a private client through a gallery would imply neither the gallery nor the eventual owner of the piece has the right to reproduce it. An artwork and its copyright are two wholly different business entities. Anyone intending to replicate a work that is protected by copyright must first obtain permission from the copyright holder. Artists, on the other hand, can sell their copyright, although these transactions must be in writing; otherwise, the sales are invalid and cannot be legally enforced. 44

A patent is a type of intellectual property that grants the owner the legal right to prevent others from creating, using, or selling an invention for a certain number of years in exchange for publishing of an enabling disclosure of the invention. In most countries, patent rights are governed by private law, and the patent holder must sue someone who infringes on the patent to enforce their rights. According to national laws and international agreements, the system for issuing patents, the conditions put on the patentee, and the extent of the exclusive rights differ greatly between nations. A patent application must typically include one or more claims that identify the area of protection sought. A patent may have several claims, each of which defines a distinct property right. These claims must satisfy several patentability conditions, including innovation, usefulness, and non-obviousness. Prior art (also known as state of the art or background art) is a notion in patent law that is used to establish whether an invention fits the novelty and inventive step or non-obviousness requirements for patentability.

Fair use and restricted rights The rights granted by copyright are not limitless. There are restrictions in place to ensure that the regulations do not stifle creativity in the name of safeguarding it. Many of the rights guaranteed by copyright are linked to the physical work. However, the regulation does not cover more intangible characteristics of a work of art. Ideas, techniques, methods, or concepts cannot be copied unless they are written down and recorded. Furthermore, the textual accompaniment (titles, names, phrases, and slogans) is not protected by copyright. Calling your work Untitled would be a violation of copyright. Section 107 of the 1976 Copyright Act, also known as fair use, provides a legal defense to copyright infringement. Simply said, once you acknowledge stealing someone’s work, but may argue that your use of that work still requires and qualifies for legal protection. In the case of an artist’s image being taken without permission, its acceptance under fair use is reliant on certain factors, which would eventually allow the judge to take the final decision depending on the argument’s viability. This also shows there is a degree of uncertainty involved as to what constitutes as fair use. As a result, there is always some doubt about what constitutes fair usage. The main question here is whether the image is used for commercial purposes (which is more likely to get in trouble) or for educational and non-profit purposes (more likely to be in the clear). The argument for fair use is weaker when the usage is “less original” or “less creative”. It also relies on the nature of how the copyrighted material is used. Another key consideration is the overall number of copyrighted pictures that is being duplicated. One is less likely to be protected by fair use if the amount of reproductions are in excess. Reproductions affect the market and diminish the economic worth of the author’s original. 45

Fig-07.

Practice appropriate appropriation Appropriation artists usually find themselves stuck in the midst of a copyright case for years. These are no small matter and decisions around appropriation can seriously restrict artistic practices, pitting different artistic communities against each other. For example, Jeff Koons, an American artist known for his work dealing with popular culture and his sculptures of everyday objects, was involved in two of the number of cases illustrating the fine line between fair use appropriation and appropriation that violates copyright statutes. A postcard by Art Rogers, a photo of a smiling man and a woman cradling a litter of pups (Fig-07) led to a copyright case involving. Koons had discovered the postcard and constructed a nearly similar sculpture named String of Puppies (1998, Fig-08). Rogers sued and finally won the case when the court determined that even a “reasonable observer” would recognize that Koons had imitated the painting and that it was neither a parody nor sufficiently unique, and so fair use did not apply. However, in another case involving, Andrea Blanch (american photographer) sued Koons, alleging that the artist had violated the copyright of one of her images. Spotting the photo in an Allure Magazine advertisement, Koons incorporated a piece of it in his work Niagara (2000). Koons said that his use of the picture was transformative, implying that he significantly transformed the artwork’s intent and substance. Unlike Rogers, the court in this instance determined that fair use applied.

Figure 06 - (left) Andrea Blench, Silk Gucci sandals. (right) Jeff Koons, Niagra Falls.

(source - https://artinvestment.ru/en/invest/ stories/20090216_appropriation_art.html).

More broadly, when an artist appropriates a copyrighted work for a collage or composited outcome and the balance of other circumstances is in the artist’s favor, fair use often protects the artist. This message shift is one of the reasons why the artist Elaine Sturtevant does not infringe any copyright rules while making works that often seem nearly identical to their appropriated subject. She is investigating the very process of repetition and what happens in the creating careful inexact duplications of other artists’ works.

Fig-08.

Fig-09.

Figure 08 - Art Rogers, Schenochki,

(source - http://www.artrogers.com/portraits.html).

Figure 09 - Jeff Koons, String of Puppies. (source - http://www.jeffkoons.com/artwork/ banality/string-puppies).

Figure 10 - STURTEVANT, Warhol Licorice Marilyn, 2004, acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas. Fig-10.

(source - https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/ sturtevant-on-repetition-and-difference).

Forged market

imitation is not flattery.

Making decisions about authenticity over a piece of art has turned into a fraught venture, as the tide of money in the art market rises. Realizing how much collectors stand to lose; they are willing to sue the experts and connoisseurs — usually the last authority on authenticating works of art – for their mistakes. Realizing that financial balances, as well as, their reputations may suffer as a result of the heat, many experts have begun to withdraw from the game totally. Sotheby’s is the world’s largest, most trusted, and dynamic marketplace for art and luxury. Established in 1744, when Sotheby’s sell an artwork, they give a five-year return guarantee if the piece turns out to be a fraud – “a modern forgery intended to deceive,” as the conditions state. After there was some doubt about the Hals and Parmigianino (artists), the auction company submitted them to Orion Analytical, a conservation science lab in Williamstown, Massachusetts, in 2016. James Martin (scientist, professor, art conservator, and artist), had an answer for Sotheby’s within days: both the Hals and the Parmigianino were forgeries. The “Hals” used synthetic pigments that the artist could not have employed in the 17th century. Similarly, Martin discovered phthalocyanine green in Saint Jerome, a pigment first synthesized four centuries after Parmigianino died. It was found in 21 paint samples taken from different places of the picture – “a little like measuring the pulse of a body 21 times,” Martin says. Sotheby’s reimbursed both buyers and sued the sellers, requesting that they restore the proceeds of the purchases. The first major painting sold by Sotheby’s was also a Hals – a real one: Man in Black, a halflength portrait of a hatted gent, (Fig-11). Several twentieth-century artists’ estates formerly took on the task of settling attribution disputes by forming authentication committees. These comprised of the artist’s former friends or colleagues and specialists — those who were expected to know the works. In 2007, a collector called Joe Simon-Whelan filed a lawsuit against the Andy Warhol estate’s authentication committee, alleging that the committee had repeatedly rejected a Warhol silkscreen he possessed in order to keep scarcity of artworks in the Warhol market. The estate losing the claim, disbanded the group four years later. Other contemporary artists’ authentication boards have also followed. Individual connoisseurs – as the art industry refers to its specialists – are hesitant to contradict popular identifications because they do not want to disturb the already wrecked institutional boat. The rest of the world stays on the sidelines for fear of losing their status. It is no surprise that many old master specialists are being silent and not saying anything with this wounded art market. The demise of these committees feels like a victory of the market over the academy, a damage to the very cause of trustworthy authentication.

Fig-11.

Figure 11 - A painting purportedly by Frans Hals sold by Sotheby’s in 2011. (source - https://www.boijmans.nl/en/collection/ artworks/101464/the-men-at-emmaus ).

Figure 12 - Frans Hals, Portrait of a man, half-

Fig-12.

legth in black, with a broad-brimmed back hat and a white ruff, holding his gloves, within apainted oval, also the first major painting sold by Sotheby’s. (source - https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/ auction/2020/evening-sale-london/frans-halsportrait-of-a-man-half-length-in-black ).

Art forgery is not a new concept. With Greek sculptures being copied by Roman artists, the modern buyers were most likely aware that they were not authentic. Production of art during the classical period, was primarily for religious inspiration, historical reference, or aesthetic enjoyment. The buyers were usually unconcerned about the artist’s identity. During Renaissance, numerous artists took on apprentices who learned painting skills by duplicating the master’s works and style. This would let the master then sell these pieces as a method of payment for the training. Although some of these copies were eventually mistakenly ascribed to the master, this technique was typically regarded as a tribute rather than a forgery. Art forgers are essentially classified into three types. One who creates the fraudulent artwork; second who discovers an artwork and attempts to sell it off as something else in order to increase its value; and third, is a person who recognizes certain artwork as a forgery but sells it as an original, nevertheless. Although certain reproductions, replicas or pastiches are often legitimate works by counterfeit artists, but the line between genuine reproductions and willful frauds is becoming increasingly blurred.

Figure 13 - (previous page) An auction of important Modern pictures at Hôtel Drouot in Paris on 5 June 1942.

(source - https://www.theartnewspaper. com/2021/03/26/louvre-probes-its-collection-fornazi-and-colonial-loot-in-massive-provenanceresearch-project).

Many forgers began as inexperienced artists who attempted and failed to get into the market, eventually turning to forgery. Often there is a case where the original piece of work is sometimes borrowed or stolen from its owner in order to make a duplicate that is eventually returned to the original location possessing the original to oneself. In 1799, Abraham Wolfgang Küfner borrowed Albrecht Dürer’s self-portrait, located at the Nuremberg Town Hall since the 16th century. The painter duplicated the original and returned a fake as an original. When the original went up for sale in 1805, it was recovered and kept for the royal collection. Although many art forgers copy artworks merely for monetary gain, some have claimed that they made forgeries to expose the art world’s naivety and snobbishness. Essentially, the artists claim, after being exposed, that they have just engaged in “hoaxes of exposure.”

In order to make an item look legitimate, forgers construct false paper trails, a fake provenance in order to make it look legitimate. John Drewe, a British art dealer, faked documentation of provenance for artworks produced by his associate John Myatt. He even slipped photographs of forgeries into the archives of important art organizations. Following his incarceration, John Myatt continued to paint and sell his forgeries as “Genuine Fakes.” This still enables Myatt to manufacture and sell authentic reproductions of well-known pieces of art, as well as to paint one in the manner of an artist. But what is a ‘genuine fake’? A genuine fake describes as, ‘An imitation of a (usually) valuable object that is so good that it is, to all intents and purposes, identical’. It still would not justify being an authentic piece of art. Although a commodity such as art has buyers even for genuine fakes.

Figure 14 - A John Myatt genuine fake of Vincent van Gogh - Self-Portrait. Fig-14.

(source - https://www.castlefineart.com/artists/ john-myatt ).

Detecting an art forgery is like flicking one piece in dominoes. You identify one fake forgery, and the rests start to unveil themselves. No art dealer or gallerist would even want to think that their collection consists of anything fake. The corrupted art market is no good than as of a political one. No one investigates further if the money keeps circulating unless but when the word goes out, they start investigating. A fascinating case of art forgery that duped one of the biggest art gallerists in the world took place between 1994 and 2008. The Knoedler, New York’s oldest gallery, collapsed in 2011, just days after issuing a report concluding that a $17 million Jackson Pollock it had sold was a fake. The fake Pollock was just the beginning of a scandal. Over the course of 15 years, Knoedler sourced and sold 40 paintings attributed to a variety of famous Abstract Expressionist artists. Ten buyers sued Knoedler and its director when the ambiguity of the works’ origin raised concern. Investigators eventually discovered that the forgeries were painted in a garage in Queens by a Chinese immigrant and sold to Knoedler by an art dealer who later pled guilty. Knoedler’s officials stated they were unaware of the deception and that scholars had authenticated the paintings before sale. The case became the subject of a Netflix documentary; Made You Look: The True Story About Fake Art, released in 2020. Sources speak that the company was at a loss for not making enough money and it has been said that the gallery director and everyone present somewhat knew the provenance of these paintings lacked substantial proof. Still, in order to keep the business up and running, the auction house went forward with selling the phenomenal fakes. This is not new for the art market; art dealers and auctioneers have at some point knowingly/unknowingly sold a couple of fakes for them to eventually reveal the truth. This all leads to the company making profits on paper and things run smoothly. With progress in detecting fakes, forgers have also with time and new techniques master the art of producing better fakes. It goes till such an extent that even auction houses and prestigious art galleries are unable to detect them. It is quite plausible to say that the art market is heavily comprised with art fakes and the idea of legitimacy is dissolved. It is almost like creating another world of fake artworks and judging the best fake piece of art. This resembles to a kind of world we live in where museums and galleries, the few places one can admire an original piece of art work are under question weather is it actually an original piece by the artist itself.?

Fig-15.

Figure 15 - The fake Mark Rothko once sold by Knoedler. (source - https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ knoedler-rothko-in-forgery-show-1040315 ).

Philosophies

write the book you want to read.

Thierry Lenain’s Art Forgery: The History of a Modern Obsession, investigates into philosophical issues of art forgery. In his text, Lenain makes three central claims: (1) that art forgery, as we know it, did not exist as a practice in the ancient world; (2) that art forgery instead evolves from medieval relic fetishism; and (3) that the perfect fake degrades the conceptual notion at the heart of contemporary art connoisseurship—the ‘trace paradigm.’ When an artwork is revealed to be a fake, it is generally hidden away from the public view or completely destroyed. Forgery of art is often viewed as a scourge on the art historical landscape, a sickness that jeopardizes the entire notion of art. For a long time, art history and connoisseurship have been based on the trace paradigm. It means that all artworks bear traces of its historical origin. In particular, it holds different connections to the style in which a work is created invariably that links directly to the creator’s personality. Art forgery is a kind of artistic insanity, then, devoid of intrinsic value and intended to usurp the place of genuine art. Once discovered, it is said to be a monstrous doppelgänger. A true work of art forgery, according to Lenain, imitates the appearance of an artwork of a different origin in order to steal its place in the art system. The capasity to cause harm to someone’s interests plays a distinct role in the art world, one that is not shared by harmless copies or innocent pastiches. Lenain further distinguishes true forgeries from what he refers to as ‘artistic mystifications,’. Whilst being identical in nature, and having the intent to deceive, these duplications are also, at times, planned from the start to be eventually disclosed by their makers, hence not harmful. Art historians and philosophers alike have long condemned the possibility of a perfect forgery. Historians have proposed that any forgery carries traces of its historical origins. While they are not always visible at the time of production, they definitely become clearer over time, to the point where one wonders how these forgeries could ever have passed as originals. ‘The perfect fake destroys the absolute significance of the trace paradigm both in scientific and experiential terms – not only as far as particular objects are concerned but also with respect to artworks in general, fake or not. Even though that paradigm is still functional in a majority of cases, it will never be possible to consider it as absolutely applicable in any particular case: since some artworks have been subjected to perfect stylistic simulation, no artwork can be regarded as the absolute (that is, bi-univocal) manifestation of its origin.’, Thierry Lenain (“Art Forgery | The British Journal of Aesthetics | Oxford ...”) Figure 16 - (previous page) A man assembling multiple portraits of Monalisa .

(source - https://different-level.medium.com/ art-forgery-why-do-we-care-so-much-for-originals7ec4d88fd241 ).

Forgery cannot be comfortably positioned either within or outside of the art world: A fake, perfect or not, is not a normal artwork; it serves a perverse cultural role, and to subject the fake to ordinary aesthetic analysis is to ignore its role as a fake (“Art Forgery | The British Journal of Aesthetics | Oxford ...”). ‘[i]f we decide that fakes are artworks, we must accept the concept of an author-less artwork. However, the cultural nature of such forgeries makes it nearly impossible to interpret them as artworks while also recognizing their forgery status. The conflict stems from competing conceptions: any interpretation of art requires a concept of authorship but, recognizing forgeries as forgeries necessitates viewing them as author-less. Nonetheless, despite their non-art status, art forgeries are completely relevant to art history and theory.

In L’image ouverte, the French philosopher Georges Didi Huberman recalls how painting has often been defined as “minor-being, a work of appearance”. He also adds that “Whoever says to paint says to pretend” (Didi-Huberman, 2007, p. 44), reiterating a critical position towards images that has ancient roots. Such a judgment comes from an age in which the sight was underestimated. The truth was rather transmitted through the ‘word’, the ‘touch’ or ancient written sources, which were given an absolute value for centuries. Pictures were instead considered “unreliable and deceptive” (Nuti, 2008, p. 10). Isidore of Seville declares it bluntly around the 4th century: the painting is an image that reproduces the appearance of some reality and which, when you look at it, brings that reality back to mind. The painting was called pictura almost to say fictura: it is, in fact, a strong image, that is, false, not real […] in fact there are paintings that, striving to reproduce the original exactly, go beyond reality itself and, wanting to be more credible, offer a deceptive image. (Isidore of Seville, 615-636, XIX, 16) Imitation, which was originally meant as a derivation from a “model,” was formerly based on aspects such as the material used, the proportions or key figures, the arrangement of the pieces, or the application of certain formulas. This interaction evolved to a fundamentally visual level throughout the Renaissance when pictures gained legitimacy and prominence in the development and transfer of knowledge.

‘In principle, the work of art has always been reproducible. What man has made; man has always been able to make again.’, Walter Benjamin (1935). The book “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” by Walter Benjamin talks about the reproductions in the world of art and how they have changed in modern times. Benjamin introduces the concept of the “aura.” The aura, as the phrase indicates, is the environment of detached and transcendent beauty and power that supports cultic cultures. It also incorporates the object’s validity as a result of its long historical existence. Aura is a non-tangible entity that is generated because of a specific presence in space and time. It defines the physical or temporal context when it was made and imitating, or replicating would in turn reduce the aura of the original. Benjamin writes: “the authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced.” (“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction ...”) A counter to that is because that original is repeated so many times being disseminated and everyone knows about it, it is in a way feeding back to the aura as well. The value of the original has increased because of the amount of counterfeit it has now. In order to clarify the idea, he compares it to the experience of natural phenomenon: “we define the aura of the latter as the unique phenomenon of a distance, however, close it may be. If, while resting on a summer afternoon, you follow with your eyes a mountain range on the horizon or a branch which casts its shadow over you, you experience the aura of those mountains, of that branch. (“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction ...”) Benjamin’s example is notable because, like the cultic item, the aura of the mountains appears to be based on something independent and outside human control. The statue is unlike any other thing made or used within a society; it appears to be free of ideological control or human meddling, as if its power, like that of the mountain, emanates from within. The rise of modernism and the fall of the cult merely mark the beginning of the end of auratic art. He sees a persisting aura cult in modern art’s insistence on individuality.

Figure 17 - (right) The forger Hans Van Meegeren and his fake Vermeer, Jesus among the doctors, 1945.

(source - https://magazine.artland.com/the-art-offorgery-art-forgers-duped-world/ ).

While acknowledging the historical truth of artistic reproduction Benjamin argues that mechanical reproductions have produced an altogether new and revolutionary alteration in the experience of the artwork. Mechanical reproduction, which appears in its most radical forms in film and photography, results in the circulation of millions of copies, all of which lack the “genuine” aura of their source. This process impacts and is affected by changing societal conditions in which all previously distinct and holy institutions have become equal. The general acceptance of a copy in lieu of the original also reflects a disinclination to engage in previous ceremonial aesthetics and politics. For example, a photograph or film of a Catholic cathedral denudes its unique aura, transforming the role of participant into that of a spectator or possibly a detached commentator.

A Timeline of Forgers

I can copy this artist, he is too easy. Who, Michelangelo? Yes.

Left to Right

- Han van Meegeren (1889 -1947) - Yves Chaudron (.... - ....) - Elmyr de Hory (1906 - 1976) - Thomas Patrick Keating (1917-1984) - Fernard Legros (1931-1983) - David Stein (1935 - 1999) - Guy Ribes (b. 1948) - Eric Hebborn (1934 -1996) - Ken Perenyi (b. 1949) - Anthony Gene Tetro (b. 1950) - Mark Augustus Landis (b. 1955) - Shaun Greenhalgh (b. 1961) - John Myatt (b. 1945) - Wolfgang Beltracchi (b. 1951) - Pei-Shen Qian (b. 1940)

Brief explanation on the forgers lives in appendix, pg 121.

- Hans Van Meegeren.

(source - https://www.kommersant.ru/ doc/3403425).

- Yves Chaudron.

(source - https://www.historytoday.com/archive/ months-past/mona-lisa-stolen-louvre).

- Elmyr de Hory.

(source - https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/ elmyr-de-hory-art-forger).

- Thomas Patrick Keating.

(source - https://www.sleek-mag.com/article/ art-forgers/).

- Fernard Legros.

(source - https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/ news-photo/october-7-fernand-legros-art-dealerconvicted-of-selling-news-photo/154900957).

- David Stein.

(source - https://www.kazoart.com/blog/en/thefive-best-known-forgeries-in-the-history-of-art/).

- Guy Ribes.

(source - https://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2015/12/25/ guy-ribes-vaarensi-chagalleja-ja-picassoja-ja-elikuin-miljonaari).

- Eric Hebborn.

(source - http://www.intenttodeceive.org/forgerprofiles/eric-hebborn/).

- Ken Perenyi .

(source - https://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/19/ arts/design/ken-perenyi-art-forger-now-sells-hiswork-as-copies.html).

- Anthony Gene Tetro.

(source - https://alchetron.com/Tony-Tetro).

- Mark Augustus Landis.

(source - http://www.intenttodeceive.org/forgerprofiles/mark-landis/).

- Shaun Greenhalgh.

(source - https://www.theguardian.com/ artanddesign/2017/may/27/wasnt-cock-a-hoopfooled-experts-britains-master-art-forger).

- John Myatt.

(source - https://www.independent.co.uk/ news/people/profiles/john-myatt-the-artist-andconvicted-forger-on-life-and-art-in-and-out-ofprison-9639038.html).

- Wolfgang Beltracchi.

(source - https://nftevening.com/wolfgangbeltracchi-nft-collection-the-famous-art-forgerjoins-the-scene/).

- Pei-Shen Qian.

(source - https://heavy.com/news/pei-shen-qianupdate/).

WHAT ABOUT ARCHITECTURE? well who cares?

copy (n.) mid-14c., “written account or record,” from Old French copie (13c.) and directly from Medieval Latin copia “reproduction, transcript,” from Latin copia “an abundance, ample supply, profusion, plenty,” from assimilated form of com “with” (see com-) + ops (genitive opis) “power, wealth, resources,” from PIE root *op- “to work, produce in abundance.”

copy (v.) late 14c., “make a copy of, duplicate” (a text or document), from Old French copier (14c.) and directly from Medieval Latin copiare “to transcribe,” originally “to write in plenty,” from Latin copia “plenty” (see copy (n.)). Hence, “to write an original text many times.” Figurative sense of “to imitate, to follow as an example” is attested from 1640s. Of computer data, by 1953. Meaning “send a copy (of a letter, later e-mail, etc.) to a third party” is attested by 1983. Related: Copied; copying. (“copy| Etymology, origin and meaning of forge by etymonline”) Source : https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=copy

Copying

the not-so-secret formula.

With all the copying, can come some murky territory when the expectation for originality encounters unscrupulous idea thievery. When it occurs in architecture it can be met with praise or frustration and scorn. Some might call this kind of insider appeal, naval gazing - making designs that only a few can understand and ignoring the needs of the world at large. Or it might lead to outright copying, leading to lawsuits and copyright infringement. But, when done well, it can sometimes be part of creating some of the richest and most engaging buildings that not only respond to their context, but also thrust you into a world of history and memory. École des Beaux-Arts, also known as the Beaux Arts model of architectural education, was built entirely around students drawing and copying the masterful designs of past architects as a way of understanding the fundamentals in architecture. The idea was that through reenacting the processes and actions of those masters, students would gain a feeling for and practice with the rules that govern their designs. Their curriculum started by focusing on students trying to prove their skill set with basic drawing tasks before advancing to the next step, a practice that was highly based on the expertise to imitate someone.

Figure 18 - (previous page) The image comes from episode 19b of the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon, “Double Identity.

(source - https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/didspider-man-no-way-home-recreate-the-spideyspointing-at-each-other-meme-4581383.html ).

Figure 19 - Drawing and painting from live models, in a turn-of-the-century photo, an essential part of the Beaux Arts curriculum. (source -https://harcourthouse.ab.ca/life-drawingsessions-2/ ).

Fig-19.

Fig-20.

The idea that architects copy clashes with the expectation that each building should be considered a unique prototype. And that each building should be a perfect reaction to the needs of interior married against thoughtful response to a context. In this way copying feels antithetical to the genius of architectural design at a fundamental level. But in between the idea that buildings can be copied ad nauseam or that each is a unique snowflake, there are some interesting ideas that can help one think about the importance and usefulness of copying in the design of buildings. Sometimes copying becomes a means to invent a new proposition that helps the design cater to different approaches. Copying can also be a way to fit into a much broader context within the history of architecture itself. For example, like the Vanna Venturi House by Robert Venturi, one can find a cacophony of samples from a grab-bag of architectural history. The overall shape looks house-like, even though it is not produced by a gabled roof, rather it is shaped that way only to look similar-ish to its neighbors. But then there are things like the window to the kitchen which is long and narrow like the ribbon window of the Villa Savoy. Le Corbusier invented a new kind of window when he stretched it sideways into a long ribbon. Regardless, most architects know the story of how it came to be and when it is used elsewhere will immediately associate it with the original. Where the gable copies other buildings in only a very general way, the window is a specific reference to a particular house. While one recognizes the element being used, it is also made unfamiliar through the act of deformation or repetition. In order to fully understand the games being played in the changing of elements, one must be familiar with where the original came from. Whether finding inspiration in the work of others or explicitly making multiple variations of the same thing, copying is inevitable in architecture. Although one can identify it based on the scale with which these reproductions are intended, the research brings forward certain parameters that allow us to define the idea of forgery within the architectural realm. The query here is not to identify its acceptance as good or bad, it is rather to devise its tollerance and way of use.

Figure 20 - The Vanna Venturi House, by architect Robert Venturi. (source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanna_ Venturi_House#/media/File:VVenturi_House_ Highsmith.jpeg ).

Intentional | Unintentional

Oh! I am sorry, I did not realise.

In works of art, production of forgery when created is the exact same of the original, it goes unnoticed. If the forged artwork consist of certain anomaly it gets detected. In the case of architecture, a perfect reproduction can be easily noticed and overtly criticized whereas forging certain elements attracts a smaller crowd. Saying this, couple of cases involving the architects bluntly copying buildings but changing their explanations about the idea behind can be seen as something of a misdirection but obvious mimicry. Forgery, when completely portrays the original, can at times start to look unreal.

Fig-22.

Figure 21 - (previous page) Denys Lasdun’s workshop The pile of expired models thrown out by Lasdun when he was designing the National Theatre.

(source - https://www.architectural-review.com/ essays/folio/folio-denys-lasduns-model-graveyard ).

Figure 22 - Scan of The Vanna Venturi House, by architect Robert Venturi.

(source - https://architectureau.com/articles/armarchitecture-building-the-impossible-and-makinga-culture/ ).

Figure 23 - Howard Kronberg Medical Centre, by ARM architecture, Australia. (source - https://ohplateau.wordpress. com/2011/05/05/kronborg-clinic/ ).

Fig-23.

Fig-24.

Fig-25.

The example of Howard Kronborg Medical Clinic by ARM architects in Australia shows how the firm literally took a page from a book, that had an image of Robert Venturi’s Mother’s house and moved the page during the scan process. They then produced the building from the scan itself with the streaks, blemishes, errors, and all other abnormalities. It looks like a copy of a copy of a copy. The same firm has also made a direct copy of the Villa Savoye itself as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. After coloring the building brown, they claim it is an understanding of a local version - an inversion, a reflection of Aboriginal architecture, culture, or perceived attitudes. But sometimes copying might be more like a one-linear than an essay filled with nuance and complexity. Another example of a Villa Savoy copy is Rem Koolhaas’ Villa D’Alva which is basically the equivalent of taking the Fransworth House by Mies van der Rohe and sandwiching it below the Villa Savoy by Le Corbusier. Here, the elements like windows aren’t challenged, rather it is the overt use of the entire building that is striking. However, the materials have been changed drastically, it still resembles that a majority amount of copying in terms of inspiration has occurred.

Figure 24 - AIATSIS building by ARM architecture.

(source - https://armarchitecture.com.au/projects/ australian-institute-of-aboriginal-and-torres-straitislander-studies/ ).

Figure 25 - Villa dall’Ava, by OMA.

(source - https://www.archdaily. com/448320/ad-classics-villa-dall-avaoma/52818cd7e8e44e95f6000119-ad-classics-villadall-ava-oma-photo ).

Of course, copying is not always so overt, and architects find influences all around them. But sometimes it is more than that. At times things just unintentionally keep filtering in our brains only to come out as identical. For example, one of the competitions in the 1990s for the Eyebeam Museum of Art and Technology saw two entries, one by the architect Thomas Leeser and the other by the firm Diller and Scofidio, came in looking oddly similar, each featured flowing singular folded surfaces. This surface bends around to create different spaces inside. In this instance not one of the architects claimed original authorship but the responses of the architects were telling a different story; Thomas Leeser said, “it’s the zeitgeist, if we copied anything, we copied our own work”. Liz Diller on the other hand says, “the only way to avert the problem of plagiarism is to be a moving target. If your work is copied and that upsets you, it means you’ve waited too long to move on.”

Figure 26 - Competition entries for Eyebeam Museum of Art and Technology. (left) Leeser Architecture. (right) Diller Scofidio and Renfro Architects.

(source - http://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes. com/slideshow/2005/08/25/arts/20050828_BERN_ SLIDESHOW_2.html ).

Fig-26.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote about copying in architecture: ‘In our cities, an ugly building is soon removed, and is never repeated, but any beautiful building is copied and improved upon, so that all masons and carpenters work to repeat and preserve the agreeable forms, whilst the ugly ones die out.’ This approach has created the beautiful 19th century cities. Unfortunately, the dilemma is posed as “originality” versus the “needs of the world at large” or the “need of the interior” and all kinds of words are used that seem to describe qualities: ‘rich, engaging, productive, clever’. To be taken seriously as an architect means to avoid subjectivity and the word beauty, or else you come too close to sentimentality and kitsch. The real problem here should not be originality versus copying. Originality has no value in itself; human values are always dependent on human feelings. The real problem is this: copying can do three things: 1. spread beauty (quantity), 2. diminish beauty or 3. advance beauty (quality). When architects copy a beautiful building or an aspect, it can be that you have more of a good thing. However, it can also be that the repetition makes it boring (diminish beauty) or the application is not effective (in a subjective sense). Or a variation or new combination can advance beauty. There the discussion should start: what works in touching our heart and why and how does copying help and where does it fail. But because architects are afraid of subjectivity, they remain imprisoned in intellectual games, references and functionality or worse, legal questions. This ‘navel gazing’ is mentioned but dismissed: the insider game of architects is more important than the daily, subjective experience of the user.

“in nature, nothing is created, everything is transformed.”, - Antoine Lavoisier

Subconscious

build your own world.

Architects have copied things from outside the history of architecture. Frank Gehry has made buildings in the shape of regular objects, such as a perfectly scaled-up pair of binoculars. And while this is one of his most overt copies with others at various levels of abstraction like the fish, Frank Gehry is not working in a vacuum. These experiments themselves owe their gestation in the work of an artist named Claes Oldenberg who would famously create artworks of familiar objects, supersize them and put them out of their normal context. So Gehry is, in a way, copying Olderbery by copying binoculars. Although copying here isn’t necessarily an end in itself, rather it is a means to an end. The fish does not really look so much like a fish anymore, allowing him to invent new ways of evaluating objects based on their complex curvature that one takes. It also promoted ways of solving the problem of trying to fabricate these kinds of complicated forms, which leave the world of traditional building constructions techniques. So armed with these new interests Gehry moved on to creating buildings out of swooping shapes devoid of their initial starting point of trying to look something else in particular. Of course, now Gehry might be said to be copying himself when various buildings start to look alike. When the swoopy shapes are a ready-made solution to almost every problem of building that he encounters, it starts to become a style, a word that most architects try to avoid today. If it is only one architect working in a particular style it is usually called a signature style.

Figure 27 - Chiat/Day Building by Frank Ghery architects.

(source - https://www.thoughtco.com/binocularsbuilding-178514 ).

Fig-27.

Fig-28.

Fig-29.

Fig-30.

There is a layer of subconsciousness involved in the things you see end up creating the vocabulary that you will design with as well. Why do we often say deconstruction is a method? Because there is some sort of repetition that can be seen in the outcomes that are generated. Elements when replicated, one tends to associate themselves with that specific typology. Humans often mimic or imitate others unconsciously. As a behavioral trait, perception becomes directly linked to our behavior and we choose to imitate others probably because we are uncertain about our best course of action. The brain creates memories by capturing things that we see in our daily lives and subconsciously we interpret these into our designs unknowingly. To say new inventions have always had precedent theories to either back them or give them a lead to generate something radical(new), architectural designs in general will have certain variations of duplicity in them. It is the tolerance of forgery that becomes measurable.

Figure 28 - Dropped Cone by Claes Oldenburg.

(source - https://www.wikiart.org/en/claesoldenburg ).

Figure 29 - Clothespin sculpture by Claes Oldenburg. (source - https://www.wikiart.org/en/claesoldenburg ).

Figure 30 - Shuttlecocks sculptures by Claes Oldenburg . (source - https://www.wikiart.org/en/claesoldenburg ).

Fig-31.

Fig-32.

One can, at times, easily identify the architect of a certain building just by looking or moving around it. A certain sense of repetition is resembled in these buildings that can be found such as, certain structural elements, use of materials, scale, and aura of the built space within, etc. Self-forgery, as one would call, is repeating certain aspects of design or an abstract style which leads to generating original works reeking of few similarities. There is a sense of forgery involved that we feel has happened here. Repetition is bound to happen in unconscious will, creating a ‘uniqueness’ that associates with the architect. Figure 31 - Chandigarh Secretariat Building, by Le Corbusier.

(source - https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/ object/605520 ).

Figure 32 - Unité d’habitation Building, by Le Corbusier.

(source - https://www.archdaily.com/224525/ brutalism-architecture-of-everyday-culture-poetryand-theory-symposium/01_corbusier_unite01 ).

For example, the works of Le Corbusier are easy to recognize even if the architect is unknown to one. The two images shown above can be seen to have certain repetition of sorts that create a sense of similarity, such as the overt use of concrete, cubical windows on the facades, columns free of walls, staircase placed in an unconventional manner, and so on.

Elemental

use your hands.

Going down to the level of scaling down things and placing them in a context would also imply sorts of forgery. But there is a spectrum of forgery in architecture. As shown in the Netflix documentary Abstract, the idea of an abstract-o-meter by Christoph Niemann, (fig 34). Every idea requires a very specific amount of information. Sometimes it is a lot: a lot of details, a lot of realism, sometimes its really just a line or one pixel. But each idea has one moment on that scale of abstraction. In order to illustrate, take the example of a heart as a symbol for love. When seen as just a red square being the ultimate abstraction of a heart, the majority would not understand the meaning, so it totally falls flat. When seen all the way to the realistic side of it, drawn as an actual heart made of flesh and blood pumping, it becomes revolting towards the idea of love. So somewhere between the abstract red square and the real blood pumping heart is the graphic shape that kind of looks the best of both ends and is the right symbol to transport this idea of a symbol for love.

Fig-34.

Figure 33 - (previous page) Donald Henkel’s home where he manufactured fake paintings and sports memorabilia.

(source - https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/07/ michigan-art-forgery-investigation ).

Figure 34 - The Abstract-O-Meter, graphic representation by Christoph Niemann. (source - https://twitter.com/abstractsunday/ status/891630379723096064?lang=en ).

In a similar way, in architecture the amount of copying things is based on this scale of abstraction in a way. The term forgery can be classified as either replication, imitation or as a reference generating these thresholds which when exceeds from a certain level, moves away from the intent. Forgery here has a lot to do with the surface value. A post-modern thought of mimicry is quite a heavy part of it. The argument is maybe architects and designers are becoming too obsessed with being original and should get over their aversion to copying others. The book, Copy Paste The Badass Architectural Copy Guide argues that the fetish of originality is stifling creativity. Instead of ridiculing the culture of copycats, design should improve its ability to create decent fakes. There is a kind of syndrome surrounding originality that architects and designers are suffering from. They are expected to be unique, and if you source something, it contradicts your originality quota and may ruin your career, because clients are always looking for originality.

The book compares architecture unfavorably with science, which progresses via researchers building on the work of others. This failure to accept and build on past solutions is resulting in “a generation that suffers, untethered from history,” it states. Architects are trained to be original these days, and the entire realm of star architects is nurturing that. The industry expects architects to be innovative, which is “OK” in part, but is reasonable to say that 90% of the built environment is not about that. Production is essentially developing on top of current knowledge. Restoration of buildings is in a way repeating what was there before. It does not clearly fall under the impression of copying something because in a way it is being reproduced at the same place of its origin. But with so much documentation of historic buildings, and the art of simulation reaching such heights, it is safe to say that the buildings could not be made to look the way they did on the day it were produced. Only a few changes such as the addition of modern fixtures, and other adaptations to current codes would give away the picture of continuity. Looking closely on the idea of elements and their proportions, classical architecture was heavily governed by masonry work, which required the masons to generate individual objects of the same design although implying some kind of uniqueness involved in the production. The post-modern era introducing ‘moulds’ as a way of reproduction. Now the objects produced were becoming a copy of the original. Implying that now reproduction even lacks the small bit of originality that was seen earlier. Therefore, when forgery is completely the same, it starts to look unreal in architecture.

Figure 35 - Stone masons working on liverpool cathedral. Fig-35.

(source - https://www.pinterest.co.uk/ pin/551620654333429047/ ).

Sometimes copying elements might be a means of creating a building that fits into or relates to its surroundings, by copying certain aspects of nearby buildings into the new construction. Such is the case with the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery in London. It takes the column from the building it is attached to and copies it so many times and in so many ways that it stops looking like the original column. Having one exact copy and then other thin squared off versions that just start to pie up at the edge of the addition looking more of a facade development rather than an actual column. Here the idea of repetition shows that the use of element is blatant, but its purpose and technique is different separating it from identifying as a copy.

Fig-36.

Figure 36,37 - Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery in London.

(source - https://www.dezeen.com/2019/01/14/ venturi-scott-brown-sainsbury-wing-national-galleryaia-25-year-award/ ).

Fig-37.

Fig-38.

Fig-39.

Whereas the idea of replicas, like one might find in places like Las Vegas or in China cater a different perspective. China has their own Ronchamp and Eiffel tower for instance. This is a copying of buildings, done in such a way that is not trying to be a new interpretation and is not hiding the fact that it is a copy. The issue of China and its attitude toward intellectual property rights has resurfaced. A statement by a developer could be the manifesto for modern urban China, “Never meant to copy, only want to surpass.” From pirated DVDs to knock-off designer products, the country has a vibrant counterfeit culture, which is sometimes aided by local protectionism and the government’ unwillingness to enforce any intellectual property laws. Furthermore, there are no particular rules safeguarding architecture, owing to its ambiguous classification as a work of applied art - with both utilitarian and aesthetic elements – of which only the latter is protected. This ignores the reality that the two are seldom separated: a façade can be both a vital aspect of a building’s structure and its major artistic push. As a result, China, like a global architectural magpie, plunders the world’s largest and greatest cities. According to a Shanghai-based intellectual property lawyer, even if the judge rules in favor of the prosecutor, the court will not order the defendant to demolish the building. However, it has the authority to order the payment of compensation. So inevitably the construction continues.

Figure 38 - The Eiffel Tower replica in Tianducheng.

(source - https://www.thedrive.com/the-warzone/33591/chinas-biggest-base-has-hugereplicas-of-taiwans-presidential-building-and-theeiffel-tower ).

Figure 39 - Now a barbecue restaurant, Ronchamp in Zhengzhou,. (source - https://www.theguardian.com/ artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2013/ jan/07/china-copycat-architecture-seeingdouble).

Can we learn anything from Vegas? yes, gambling!

Learning from an existing landscape is in a way, an act of inspiration for an architect. The commercial strip in Las Vegas particularly challenges one to take a positive, antagonistic view. Modern architecture has been progressive, if not revolutionary, idealistic, and puristic in nature. It is dissatisfied within the status quo leaving the architect out of the habit of looking at the surroundings objectively because orthodoxy prevents them from doing so. Architects, hence, decide to alter the current environment rather than improve it. Vegas in a lot of ways is a study of method and not of content. Architecture is being described as symbols, billboards and signs that derive a condition of space irrespective of its previous context. For it, this is the context and preferably a new one with different perceptions to understand it. The city is analyzed as a phenomenon of architectural communication. That is why the structure of, a Gothic cathedral need not include a debate on the morality of medieval religion, Las Vegas’s values are not questioned here, (learning from Las Vegas). This leads to the point where replica cities are made in a scaled down version to represent an idea in a certain way. This copying of buildings done in a way represents no level of originality and is a pure form of ‘copy’. Although it does not mean that it cannot be used to create new experiences though. Places like ‘New York’ New York in Las Vegas are really similar. This is a case of a New York themed environment, like a concentrated version of a built somewhere else. In addition to replicating certain architectural landmarks like the Empire State Building or the Chrysler Building, there is also a 150 feet Statue of Liberty.

Figure 40 - (previous page) Las Vegas.

(source - https://www.redbookmag.com/life/ g28480596/old-las-vegas-vintage-photos/ ).

The art critic Dave Hickey writes about ‘Fake Honesty’ and ‘Honest Fakery’ and makes the distinction between places like Las Vegas and x Fe New Mexico. Each one of these cities are made up of new buildings that try to look old but in Santa Fe these older buildings are meant to try and fool you into thinking they are genuine, although Las Vegas versions are upfront about being a spectacle made out of copies.

Fig-41.

Fig-42.

Figure 41 - The Eiffel Tower replica in Las Vegas.

(source - https://www.sellingtrip.com/en/losangeles/los-angeles-tour-las-vegas-grand-canyonmonument-valley-lake-powell-antelope-canyonbryce-canyon-las-vegas-8-days.html ).

Figure 42 - New York NY in Las Vegas.

(source - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/1/16/Las_Vegas_NY_NY_Hotel.jpg).

Figure 43 - Santa Fe, New Mexico. Fig-43.

(source - https://aquisantafe.com/santa-fesweekend-travel-guide/ ).

Game of Clones

and the court is adjourned.

Appropriation is not new in architecture, nor is it necessarily harmful. Forms of imitating, parodying, and criticizing are integral to the discipline; they are just as significant as novelty. We seek to draw a better line between permissible and plagiaristic types of architectural copycatting. What is problematic is that the definition established by law distinguishes between use and usefulness. We’ve been taught that use and expression are fused together. If we were to design according to copyright laws, we would end up with an odd object. Because the legislation separates utility from invention, designing in accordance with it might easily result in a type of status quo base and an appliqué of aesthetic expression. It would be more difficult to create distinctive architectural shapes that are both utilitarian and aesthetic—would be harder to produce. Architectural copyright is difficult to establish since the structures (or representations) in question must pass standards to demonstrate significant resemblance. There’s the ‘whole look and feel’ test, in which an ordinary person, such as a juror, compares two works and asks, ‘do these things appear significantly similar?’ The alternative test is the abstraction, filtration, and comparison test, which looks at only the design’s protectable aspects. As a result, there is only a sliver of copyright protection. There are obvious wide safeguards in visual art but for architecture, every single infringement allegation must be peeled apart and searched through to look at what they call ‘off-the-shelf’ or ‘component parts’, to find out where the architects’ originality lies. Copyright is one of several intellectual property rights that must be protected. The Copyright Act was extended to include architectural works in 1911. The criteria for copyright is one of originality, with a relatively low threshold. It is an automatic right that does not need to be registered; nevertheless, verification of who created the work and when it was made may be required. This may just be a question of record keeping; nevertheless, including the copyright symbol, name, and date might help avoid confusion and the possibility of a person who violates copyright claiming ignorance of the violation. It protects drawings, diagrams, maps, charts, plans and models as well as actual buildings extending for a lifetime of the creator, and a further 70 years from the end of the year in which they died. Normally, the inventor retains the copyright. In the event of an architectural design, the architect who produced it will keep the copyright. However, if an architect is an employee working in the course of their job, the practice that employs them will automatically own the copyright. Practices must decide whether to allow private work to remain an employee’s copyright or whether this is prohibited by the terms of employment, and they must be cautious when hiring free-lance designers or agency staff to ensure that the terms of employment grant the practice the copyright in their work.

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Fig-45.

Fig-46.

Figure 44 - Column design at the University of Illinois at Chicago - Science and Engineering Laboratories. (source - https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/ retrofitchicago/home/participants/universityof-illinois-at-chicago-science-and-engineeringlaboratories-buildings-607-608.html ).

Figure 45 - Column design at the University of Illinois at Chicago - Science and Engineering Laboratories. (source - https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/ retrofitchicago/home/participants/universityof-illinois-at-chicago-science-and-engineeringlaboratories-buildings-607-608.html ).

Figure 46 - Architect Jeehoon Park’s Cityfront 99 tower design.

(source - https://www.archdaily.com/873750/ architect-sues-som-for-stealing-one-world-tradecenter-design ).

Figure 47 - One World Trade Center by architect David Childs.

(source - https://www.archdaily.com/873750/ architect-sues-som-for-stealing-one-world-tradecenter-design ).

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Fig-47.

In one of the few instances of copying that led to a lawsuit was after the unveiling of replacement for the World Trade Center tower. David Childs of SOM was sued by a former student over the new building design. The student’s design in question was the result of a thesis project at IIT in Chicago and Childs was his thesis advisor. While the designs do look strikingly similar, and arguably Child’s might have copied it, the question rises whether a lawsuit complicating things around the issue of copying and plagiarism would resolve anything. Eventually both the parties had revoked their cases and the matter did not go any further evaluation, but the question about the design which so simple and can be also seen as the exact same shape as the column at UIC infers to claim a shape as an intellectual property seems a bit dubious. ‘There is so much rich activity going on at schools, it is hard not to be influenced by it’- Bill Sharples (PA of SHoP).

In another incident, Rem Koolhaas, had been accused by Gareth Pearce, a student and former employee, of “surreptitiously and dishonestly” using his plans and infringing his copyright. Mr. Pearce said that Mr. Koolhaas used some of his ideas in the design of the Kunsthal art gallery in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He contended that there were several parallels between the Kunsthal designs and the Docklands plans, which indicated that Mr. Koolhaas must have plagiarized his drawings. The Court, on the other hand, adopted a different stance. It didn’t matter that Mr. Pearce had found a number of measurements that were comparable between the two structures. Acknowledging that architects are often limited in their options when trying to accomplish a certain structure or appearance, the judge commented that you could take thousands of measures to compare the two distinct designs, and many would be guaranteed to be comparable. That did not imply that there had been copying or that the copying was illegal. ‘You do not have to be an architect,’ the judge said, ‘to recognize the absurdity of the comparison as evidence of copying’. The case had ‘no foundation whatsoever’; it was ‘pure fantasy – preposterous fantasy at that.’ Copyright infringement occurs when someone copies the entirety or a substantial portion of a protected work without permission or with the benefit of a copyright exemption. When it comes to architectural works, however, it is not always so simple to prove that illegal copying has occurred.

Fig-48.

Fig-50.

Figure 48,49 - Gareth Pearce Docklands Town Hall 1985. (source - http://garethpearce.info/ ).

Figure 50,51 - Kunsthal Gallery in Rotterdam by architect Rem Koolhaas. Fig-49.

Fig-51.

(source - https://www.copyrightuser.org/educate/ the-game-is-on/episode-1-case-file-3/ ).

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Fig-52.

The polished copper petals of Thomas Heatherwick’s Olympic cauldron surged up to form a spectacular flaming dandelion for the London Olympics 2012, eliciting gasps of astonishment and wonder throughout the world. Although there were gasps of different kinds in the offices of the New York design studio Atopia that claim the cauldron looked identically similar to something the studio had proposed to the London Olympic committee back in 2007. Despite accusations in the press, the New York design studio eventually tried to resolve the authorship controversy, claiming that it never accused Thomas Heatherwick of plagiarism or claimed to be the designers of the cauldron. Instead, it believes the Olympic Committee was motivated by its narrative scenario for the pavilion. Atopia had created a concept notebook depicting how the planned One Planet pavilion would be built from “umbrellas” brought into the stadium by representatives of competing nations as part of the opening ceremony and formed into a “lightweight canopy for events.” This canopy would be made from “a large number of umbrellas like flowers.”

Figure 52 - Thomas Heatherwick’s 2012 Olympic cauldron.

(source - https://www.dezeen.com/2012/07/28/ london-2012-olympic-cauldron-by-thomasheatherwick/ ).

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Similarly, Heatherwick’s design had 204 copper “petals,” each symbolizing a different participating country. During the opening ceremony, representatives from each team brought the petals into the stadium, where they were united into a burning cluster. The petals were distributed as presents to each nation at the conclusion of the games. Heatherwick considers this claim of copying, a spurious nonsense. They say, ‘The ludicrous accusation that LOCOG briefed us to work with, develop or implement a preexisting idea and that we acted in accordance with this briefing is completely and entirely untrue’. Atopia on the other had says, ‘We are entirely focused on the issue of how ideas transmit through large organizations, often organically and unconsciously. This becomes an even more complex issue when work and material submitted by small organizations is subject to stringent Confidentiality Agreements.’ (Atopia London 2012). They sought from LOCOG is a formal acknowledgment of this. In this case it seems the dominant organizations tend to have an upper hand on allegations as such nevertheless it seems there is a subconscious way of implementing things which are known to have no copyright laws attached with it leading to defamation but not a lawsuit. Such complexities in resolving architecture lawsuits concludes the inevitability of copying or “getting inspired” in the world of architecture. Lawsuits only conclude that either one of the parties trying to acquire fame and recognition in this competitive field of design.

Figure 53 - ATOPIA Sketchs for One Planet Object_London 2007. Fig-53.

(source - https://issuu.com/atopia/docs/ london_2012_sketchbook_copyright ).

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Conclusion This thesis expands on the different examples presented in the aforementioned chapters that develop the idea and meaning of the act of forging. The topic progresses with understanding the word “forge” and its near relations that eventually lead towards understanding the very act of forgery. What is shown in the first section is that things evolve from nature. It is a process that cannot be governed, and every new interpretation will have a precedent as an original. Imitation and reproduction are part of human and environmental evolution and is essential in nature. What one can obtain in a skillful, yet deceitful world currently is a mix of some kind of originality in the form of a deceit that ultimately produces something authentic. Section two concludes that copyright law and patenting for any piece of art produced requires a certain kind of provenance and authentication so that its position in a market filled with fakes acquires authenticity. The legal concepts of plagiarism and counterfeiting are heavily catered to in the art world. Although there remains a gray line that allows forgers to forge art and get away with it. This gives forgers another reason to produce fakes in order to gain recognition eventually. It is not just the forgers who wish to produce fakes; people want to buy fakes and more so are even willing to pay a higher price for these so-called ‘genuine fakes’. Section three concludes that the production of counterfeit products have a similar parlance in the discipline of architecture. The need for obsessive invention of original ideas is an overkill for architectural designs. The struggle to be credited with originality runs against the current of reasonable and efficient architecture. Amidst the desire for the new and the natural tendency to reproduce, the need for originality will never manage to replace the excessive demands. The world wants speed and speed demands replicas or objects that can be mass-produced. Instead of originality being the primary aim for all designs, one should choose it not only as a means of necessity, but to invent something that eases architectural problems. At some point, imitation needs to shift from copying to emulating. Imitation requires mutating from meaningless copying to unique variations by oneself. Conan O’Brian once said, “it is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique.” Interestingly humans have inherited a significant flaw that makes us incapable of making perfect copies of anything. This failure makes us discover our potential for innovation in the process. That is how we evolve. The simple truth is one cannot avoid copying. The question remains, how does one ‘copy’ in a manner that is both self-conscious and productive.

Figure 54 - (previous page) Typical architectural offices in 80’s .

(source - https://www.architectural-review.com/ essays/typology/typology-offices ).

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Just like painting, architecture is a modern, and romantic art form in which originality is crucial, copyright is sacrosanct, and plagiarism is taboo. Even imitation is a fragile issue. For centuries, imitation was commonplace in architecture, and architects respectfully borrowed each other’s ideas. It was, in a way, a technique to understand the existing architectural forms, and evolving from it. Indeed, most architecture has involved enriching pre-existing designs and types of building. To classical architects, then, imitation was not a sin but a tribute - an attitude that was inherent in the very nature of seventeenth century classicism. Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, author of De Architectura, who laid the foundations for the Renaissance, perceived architecture as an imitation of nature. This has been followed with various architects writing books on architecture with detailed drawings showing the correct use of the classical components. Thinking through ‘construction kits’ in architecture culminated when books published by French neoclassical architect, Jean-Louis-Nicholas Durand (1760 - 1834), saw classical architecture as a language, believing that architecture was made up of letters - the smallest components - and words - combinations of these - and through which architects could create in the manner of writers. The actor and producer Bob Rosenberg, argues that art runs in a 40-year cycle. Once something is 40-years old, one cannot claim it anymore as a part of the contemporary discourse. Secondly, once it is 40-years old, one can also finally steal from it. It applies to the economic cycles in the arts and is also relevant in architecture at times. Postmodernism emerging around 1970 - with its first building, Venturi House, Philadelphia, USA, 1964 by the architect Robert Venturi - started bringing the idea of language back into architecture in such terms. Following it till the twentieth century, with the advent of technical-rationalist modernism, the notion of architecture as a language almost vanished. Those who think of architecture as a language believe it is only logical when basic components of architecture are identical, and hence many buildings look alike. And yet, to Renaissance and neoclassical architects, imitation was never the same as mere copying, and always involved re-creation. In architecture, belief in the zeitgeist led to the widespread view that every age had, and indeed demanded, an architectural style of its own, leading to the architects’ moral duty to be contemporary. Anyone that continued to work in an old ‘uncontemporary’ style, was resisting progress and the inevitable onward march from history.

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In a seminar coordinated by Dr. Polly Gould on the topic, ‘Curation as a site writing method’, on 24th February 2022, a discussion based on the idea of authorship between art curator and the artist generated an interesting argument. When an artist creates an artwork, he/she is given authorship for the work and by extension for the exhibition which is organized by a curator. The curator gets authorship for curation, but curation can also be considered as a form of art based on how the curator, as an audience for an art piece, experiences and understands it and then “curates it” for others to experience. Whilst the curator is also seen as an artist, how does one work out the question of authorship here? In a similar way, when one writes a paper on a certain topic, it is an act of curation. Since we are referencing the works of other artists/ writers, we are interpreting their work and rearranging it in a way that works best for our project or makes sense to us. This thesis, in a way, is an act of curation as well. As mentioned earlier in the methodology, the piece would emerge as being a part of the topic itself. The notion of originality here is in question when things represented in the dissertation are wholly, or partly, referring to multiple original works. What is seen here can be termed as an act of copying as well, the only difference being the degree of representation involves the emulating factor that shifts it from mere copying to a unique variation of the originals. The other difference while presenting exists in the conclusion that defines the degree of tolerance in every act, and thus redefining the use of the word “copy”. With the world trying to become a host to a cult of newness, and constitute as an engine for change, raises questions on what newness actually is, and how new is it. People’s expectations to find something new in everything has a parallel expression in architecture. These expectations are usually to have something different, that is generated from an existing thought or an idea, to obtain something authentic, special, and of a greater value. The act of copying is a complex process which needs to be handled critically. It is an inevitable approach towards designing in art or architecture, realizing that the process towards any new idea will have precedents. It is difficult to maintain originality in a world where information and inspiration is just a click away, yet people still manage to get something unique out of the process. This thesis is an attempt to embrace the complexity and contradictions that justify the act of forgery and not perceive it as negative reinforcement.

| A famous Hindi idiom translating; ‘even to cheat you need brains’.

Figure 55 - (next page) The Johnson Wax headquarters in Racine, Wisconsin, built by Frank Lloyd Wright,1939.

(source - https://outofoffice.room.com/openoffice-plan-history/ ).

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Zeveloff ,J. Weiss, L. (2011). Eight Of The Biggest Art Forgeries Of All Time [online] Insider. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/artforgeries-2011-6?r=US&IR=T [Accessed 11 Jan, 2022]. Copes, M. (2021). 4 of the World’s Most Notorious Art Forgers [online] Side Projects. Available at: https: https://sideprojects.site/mysteries/4-of-theworlds-most-notorious-art-forgers/ [Accessed 11 Jan, 2022]. Latimer, J. (2021). 7 of the Most Famous Art Forgers in History. [online] Joe Latimer. Available at: https://www.joelatimer.com/7-of-the-most-famousart-forgers-in-history/ [Accessed 11 Jan, 2022]. Horberry, M. (2021). The Artist Beneath the Art Forger [online] The New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/arts/ design/elmyr-de-hory-art-forgery.html [Accessed 11 Jan, 2022]. Art Market (2020). Famous art forgers - From David Stein to Wolfgang Beltracchi [online] artalistic. Available at: https://www.artalistic.com/en/ blog/famous-art-forgers/ [Accessed 17 Jan, 2022]. Bubmann, S. (2020). The 5 Most Notorious Art Forgers. [online] Barnebys. Available at: https://www.barnebys.co.uk/blog/the-5-most-notorious-artforgers [Accessed 11 Jan, 2022]. Kiely, A. (2015). A Brief History Of Art Forgery In Four Crazy Case Studies [online] Headstuff. Available at: https://headstuff.org/culture/history/ brief-history-art-forgery/ [Accessed 17 Jan, 2022]. Cohen, P (2012). Suitable for Suing. [online] The New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/arts/design/authenticity-oftrove-of-pollocks-and-rothkos-goes-to-court.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 [Accessed 11 Jan, 2022]. MABIRE, C. (2020). FIVE OF THE MOST FAMOUS ART FORGERIES OF ALL TIME. [online] Canvas Gallery. Available at: https://www.canvasgallery. com/blog/most-notorious-art-forgeries/. [Accessed 17 Jan, 2022]. Cascone, S. (2016). 9 of the Craziest Recent Art Forgery Scandals [online] artnet. Available at: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/recent-artforgery-scandals-705428 [Accessed 17 Jan, 2022]. Kelso, P. (2001). Architect’s copycat claim pure fantasy, says judge [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/ uk/2001/nov/03/arts.highereducation [Accessed 21 Jan, 2022]. BLACKLER, Z (2001). Koolhaas in the clear and set to sue [online] Architects Journal. Available at: https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/ archive/koolhaas-in-the-clear-and-set-to-sue [Accessed 21 Jan, 2022]. Pearce, G (2005). The Pearce vs. Koolhaas case [online] Gareth Pearce. Available at: http://garethpearce.info/ [Accessed 23 Jan, 2022]. Colonnese, F. (2021). Forgery and narrative in architecture design communication. img journal, 4, 116-133. Hernández, D (2021). When Architects Copy [online] Arch Daily. Available at: https://www.archdaily.com/964785/when-architectscopy#:~:text=Copying%20happens%20all%20the%20time,an%20 important%20tool%20for%20architects. [Accessed 23 Jan, 2022].

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APPENDICES things that unfortunately couldn’t make it.

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A Timeline of Forgers

Han van Meegeren (1889 -1947) Faked Paintings - over hundred Faked Artists - 17th-century artists including Frans Hals, Pieter de Hooch, Gerard ter Borch and Johannes Vermeer. Dutch painter, portraitist, and Art Forger. Books - The Forger’s Spell: A True Story of Vermeer, Nazis, and The Greatest Art Hoax of the Twentieth Century. While he had some success painting portraits for the upper classes in a style reminiscent of Rembrandt, his peers chastised him for being unoriginal. So, in 1932, Van Meegeren devised a plan to exact vengeance on his critics. He planned to create a ‘new’ and ‘original’ work by the great Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. Beginning in 1936, he set aside mere canny simulations, mostly of Vermeer’s work, to create wildly implausible pictures that were presented as discoveries of a missing phase in the artist’s conveniently spotty, little-documented opus. The paintings were accepted as genuine and, at times, exquisite by the best art critics and experts of the time. Supper at Emmaus, his most successful forgery, was created in 1937 almost taking him six years to finish the masterpiece. “My paintings will become original Vermeers once more. I produced them not for money but for art’s sake.” (Meegeren)

Yves Chaudron Faked Paintings - unknown Faked Artists - unknown Art restorer, Art forger Forging and theft of Mona Lisa Yves Chaudron is a purported French master art forger who is accused of forging images of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa as part of Eduardo de Valfierno’s famous 1911 Mona Lisa painting theft. In reality, he could be a fictional character created by Karl Decker for an article that ran in the Saturday Evening Post in 1932 and passed off as a real person. There is also little evidence that Valfierno existed, or that if he did, he was involved in the theft of the Mona Lisa in any way. Decker claims that six Chaudron copies were already sent to the US prior to the theft, while the stolen original remained in France.

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Elmyr de Hory (1906 - 1976) Faked Paintings - Over thousand. Faked Artists - Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Renoir, & others. Hungarian-born painter and art forger Clifford Irving book, Fake (1969); a documentary essay film by Orson Welles, F for Fake (1974); and a biography by Mark Forgy, The Forger’s Apprentice: Life with the World’s Most Notorious Artist (2012). By the time he completed his art studies, his figurative painting style had become obsolete, as new avant-garde movements such as Fauvism, Expressionism, and Cubism began to emerge, making his chances of becoming an artist difficult. He focused on his talent as a forger after selling a successful uncanny pen-ink draing to a British woman as a Picasso. After relocating to New York, In 1947, he forged his first Modigliani oil painting and sold it to New York’s Niveau Gallery, quickly expanding his forgery repertoire to include works by Matisse and Renoir as well. In 1959, de Hory formed a partnership with two dealers, Fernand Legros and Real Lessard, who devised many of the most brilliantly insidious strategies for selling his forgeries on five continents over a nine-year period. Toward the end of his career, de Hory, who was living the life of a “bon vivant” on the Spanish island of Ibiza, decided to try his hand at painting in the hope of capitalising on his newfound fame: this time, he would sell his own, original work. This was the first time Mark Forgy met de Hory. The two became close, and their friendship resembled that of a teacher and a student despite their fourdecade age difference. De Hory would teach royal company etiquette and administer art history tests on a regular basis. Mr. Forgy has devoted years to honouring de Hory’s memory. He has written a book, given talks, and contributed to forgery exhibitions.

Thomas Patrick Keating (1917-1984) Faked Paintings - over 2000 Faked Artists - over 100 English art restorer, Art forger Impressionist and Modern Art Tom Keating began his career as an art restorer, touching up other artists’ paintings before branching out into a new field: art forgery. His work in art restoration, as well as his study of many famous painters and their works, provided him with an understanding of each one’s style, which he was able to replicate in new works, which were frequently sold at auction as originals. “I flooded the market with the work of Palmer and many others,” the artist said. “Not for gain (I hope I am no materialist) but simply as a protest against the merchants who make capital out of those I am proud to call my brother artists, both living and dead.”

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Fernard Legros (1931-1983) Faked Paintings - Unknown Faked Artists - Sold Elmyr De Hory’s forged works Art dealer Fernand Legros was a flamboyant millionaire art dealer who served a brief prison sentence in the 1960s for selling forgeries of European modern masters and the art forgeries of Elmyr de Hory to a wealthy Texas art collector. Together with his lover Real Lessard, sold the art forgeries of Elmyr de Hory. Legros and de Hory travelled throughout the United States in the 1950s, selling De Hory’s paintings to galleries. However, the Art Dealers Association of America examined 58 French paintings hanging in Mr. Meadows’ Dallas home in 1967 and determined that at least 44 of them were forgeries, the majority of which had been purchased from Mr. Legros.

David Stein (1935 - 1999) Faked Paintings - unknown Faked Artists - Marc Chagall, Matisse, Braque, Paul Klee, Miró, Jean Cocteau and Rouault, and many more. Artist, Art forger and Art dealer Three Picassos Before Breakfast - Book by Anne-Marie Stein, David’s life partner, about their experiences in the art world. Stein frequently imitated paintings in the style of the masters. When Marc Chagall reported forgeries of his work hanging in a New York gallery in 1967, Stein was arrested. Art dealers refused to cooperate with the prosecution because doing so would have incriminated them and called their knowledge of the art world into question. Some art collectors refused to hand over their works of art as evidence. After serving his sentence in the United States, Stein was deported to France, where he served another sentence. Prison officials allowed him to continue painting, but this time under his own name. Some of these paintings were sold in a London gallery in 1969. “The first thing you have to do is know intimately the artist you are imitating, not only to know him but also to like him, to love his art,” Stein said. “You go into the soul and mind of the artist. You become someone else. When I painted a Matisse, I became Matisse. When I painted a Chagall, I was Chagall. When I painted a Picasso, I was Picasso.” (Stein )

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Guy Ribes (b. 1948) Faked Paintings - Over 1000 Faked Artists - Chagall , Picasso , Dalí , Léger , Bonnard , Modigliani, Renoir , Laurencin , Braque , Vlaminck or Matisse Painter and Forger. He was born in a brothel to a prostitute mother and a gangster father and is a former member of the French Foreign Legion as well as a lifelong admirer of the great painters. Although he began by creating and selling his own work, he also supplied paintings “inspired” by the masters to a criminal art ring, which sold the paintings as genuine. He would create work that simulated style, paintings that could have been done by Picasso, Chagall, or Renoir and, say, languished in a private collection before being made available to gullible buyers, rather than copying known work. Mr. Ribes, 61, was sentenced to three years in prison for this offence and was released in December 2010. His career as a copyist was furthered when he was hired to paint fake Renoirs for a film called A Genuine Forger, about the French impressionist.

Eric Hebborn (1934 -1996) Faked Paintings - over thousands Faked Artists - Corot, Castiglione, Mantegna, Van Dyck, Poussin, Ghisi, Tiepolo, Rubens, Jan Breughel and Piranesi. English painter, draughtsman, art forger and an author Despite having a disturbing childhood, Eric Hebborn had artistic skills that made him a great artist. Attending schools and university to lear about the fine arts, he flourished at the academy, winning prizes and awards untill a Soviet spy Sir Anthony Blunt in 1960, told Hebborn that a couple of his drawings looked like Poussins, sowing the seeds of his forgery career. Hebborn was hired by an art restorer to not oly restore paintings but to paint on entirely blank canvases to be later sold for money. When contemporary critics did not seem to appreciate his own paintings, Hebborn began to copy the style of old masters. In 1984 Hebborn admitted to a number of forgeries — and feeling as though he had done nothing wrong, he used the press generated by his confession to denigrate the art world. Hebborn’s assault on the art world, critics, and art dealers continued. He was open about his ability to deceive supposed art experts, who (for the most part) were only too willing to play along with the ruse for the sake of profit. Hebborn also claimed that some of the works that had been proven to be genuine were his forgeries. “Instead of stressing how clever the possible imitations are, it might be more rewarding to examine the abilities of those who made the attributions and on whose advice large sums of public money were spent.” (Hebborn 1980)

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Ken Perenyi (b. 1949) Faked Paintings - Unknown Faked Artists - 18th &19th century British and American paintings Art forger Ken Perenyi is a self-taught artist who spent 34 years creating forgeries that passed muster with experts in the world’s major auction houses and galleries who eventually comes cean in his book Caveat Emptor: The Secret Life of an American Art Forger. Ken’s days of fooling experts are long gone, and he now creates works that are every bit as convincing as his infamous forgeries, but without the subterfuge and at a fraction of the cost. He also has a website and a gallery where he sells his works both forged and his original. “I create paintings the masters could have painted but didn’t.” “Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. The artists that I targeted in 99% of all cases were long dead, but I feel that I paid a tribute to them,”

Mark Augustus Landis (b. 1955) Faked Paintings - unknown Faked Artists - unknown American Painter, Forgery artist. Donating large numbers of forged paintings and drawings to American art museums. At the age of 17 after his father’s loss Mark was diagonised with schizophrenic, paranoid, and psychotic disorders and catatonic behavior. Landis studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago and then in San Francisco, where he worked on the restoration of damaged paintings, among other things. He wanted to make a gesture that would please his mother and honour his father’s memory, so he donated an original copy of a Maynard Dixon illustration he had created to a California museum. This first successful attempt at art forgery inspired him to try again. Landis donated all kinds of fake art to institutions in the United States, including more than 50 museums, for more than 20 years. Furthermore, museums do not always authenticate gifts as thoroughly as they do purchased works. His forge career came to an end after one of his forged paintings given to a museum director was examined under UV light and microscope causing the colors or glow suspiciously and detecting a dot-matrix pattern usually project onto a board for a sense of scale. Landis appears to have broken no laws by donating forgeries to art museums, despite the fact that his actions were clearly deceptive. If he had sold the works to museums or taken a tax deduction for them, he could have been charged with federal art crime. However, the fact that he did not profit financially from his actions, and that he directed his donations to specialists who could have detected his forgeries but did not, protected him in the eyes of the law. 126

Anthony Gene Tetro (b. 1950) Faked Paintings - unknown Faked Artists - Rembrandt, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí and Norman Rockwell and others. Art forger Tony Tetro (aka), is an art forger known for his perfectionism in reproductions of artwork created in the 1970s and 1980s. Tetro never had formal art lessons, but instead learned from books and forged paintings for over three decades through painting and experimentation. By 1973Tetro was studying art by reading books and visiting museums. He never received formal art training and had no desire to develop his own style, but he enjoyed painting and copying the masters. He discovered that the exercise taught him more about the art. The art market expanded in the 1980s, and one Los Angeles art dealer claimed that some people were more concerned with matching their carpet than with the authenticity of a painting. Reproductions were in high demand, and Tetro had a reputation for producing flawless copies, even travelling to Europe to purchase wooden stretchers and canvas specific to where a particular artist had worked.

Shaun Greenhalgh (b. 1961) Faked Paintings - over 250 Faked Artists - Barbara Hepworth, Thomas Moran, and more. British artist and former art forger Selling his fakes internationally to museums, auction houses, and private buyers with help of his family members. Greenhalgh’s family was part of “the garden shed gang.” His parents, George and Olive, approached clients, while his older brother, George Jr., handled financial matters. Other family members were enlisted to assist in determining the legitimacy of the various items. He created his forgeries from sketches, photographs, art books, and catalogues. He was a self-taught artist who was undoubtedly influenced by his job as an antiques dealer. Perhaps buoyed by the fact that they had so successfully duped the experts, the Greenhalghs tried again while selling a piece of sculpture, this time using the same provenance. They were arrested in 2007 after instilling suspicion in the buyer and the art market. The Greenhalghs did not appear to put their newfound wealth to good use. They led a “far from opulent life.” Shaun Greenhalgh is a shy, introverted man who is fixated on “one outlook, and that was his garden shed.” The forgeries were intended to “perfect his love for such arts.” By implication, the forgeries were an unintended, albeit unfortunate, side effect. “possibly the most diverse forgery team in the world, ever”, - Scotland Yard

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John Myatt (b. 1945) Faked Paintings - Around 200 Faked Artists - Roger Bissière, Marc Chagall, Le Corbusier, Jean Dubuffet, Alberto Giacometti, Matisse, Ben Nicholson, Nicolas de Staël & Graham Sutherland. British Artist and Art forger John Myatt and John Drewe (a British purveyor) committed what has been described as “the biggest art fraud of the twentieth century.” Myatt went to art school and discovered a talent for imitating the styles of other artists, but at first he only painted for fun and for friends. In 1985, John advertised in Private Eye magazine under the heading “Genuine Fakes.” “Paintings from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.” He was initially truthful about the nature of his paintings, but a regular customer, John Drewe, was able to re-sell some of them as genuine works. Myatt willingly became a willing accomplice to Drewe’s deception, and he began to paint more paintings in the style of masters. When he was eventually arrested, he confessed because he had grown tired of Drewe’s deception. Myatt has continued to paint commissioned portraits and clear copies after serving time in prison, and has held exhibitions of his work. His “genuine fakes” are popular among collectors as a low-cost alternative to a sought-after artist or work of art. “When I paint in the style of one of the greats… Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh… I am not simply creating a copy or pale imitation of the original. Just as an actor immerses himself into a character, I climb into the minds and lives of each artist. I adopt their techniques and search for the inspiration behind each great artist’s view of the world. Then, and only then, do I start to paint a ‘Legitimate Fake’.,” Wolfgang Beltracchi (b. 1951) Faked Paintings - Over hundreds` Faked Artists - Over 50 German art forger and Artist. At the age of 14, he astounded his family by painting a decent “Picasso” in a single day. He eventually enrolled in an art academy in Aachen, but after becoming dissatisfied with courses far beneath his artistic abilities, he dropped out. His artistic talent became more apparent, and he began to earn a living by selling and buying paintings at antique markets. In 1978, he had some early success, contributing three works to a prestigious art exhibition in Munich. Beltracchi, on the other hand, was drawn to “an outlaw life” even back then. He eventually met Helene, his wife, and they were once dubbed “the Bonnie and Clyde of the art world.” Beltracchi did not copy existing or well-known paintings, but instead created his own works in the style of the artists in question. He made up the titles and motives, or claimed that one of his paintings was a lost work known only by its title in old documents or catalogues. He and his wife also told stories about the works’ origins and provenance. The film, The Art of Forgery, released in 2014 reporting that Wolfgang Beltracchi currently makes “millions” from selling his original works.

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Pei-Shen Qian (b. 1940) Faked Paintings - unknown Faked Artists - Unknown Abstract Expressionist paintings Artist and Art forger Pei-Shen Qian is a Chinese artist who moved to New York after finishing art school to further develop his skills. Because he was overwhelmed and unable to sell much art, he began forging paintings for people to keep a copy in their homes. Eventually, he became involved in what is likely the largest art forgery case of the twenty-first century, when the New York art gallery M. Knoedler & Co. sold $80 million in fake artworks claiming to be by Abstract Expressionist artists between 1994 and 2008. During this time, Glafira Rosales brought in approximately 40 paintings that she claimed were genuine and sold to gallery president Ann Freedman. The paintings, which were claimed to be by Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock, were all forgeries by Pei-Shen Qian, a Chinese artist and mathematician living in Queens. Pei-Shen Qian was charged, but he fled to China and was never prosecuted. “ My intent wasn’t for my fake paintings to be sold as a real thing, they were just copies to put up in your home if you like it. These people clearly knew it was a fake, how could you sell it as a genuine. I knew nothing of this and none of the after math, they wouldn’t tell me anyting.”

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