art & quality 14: personal fabricator 2 (digital fabrication)

to continue with this line of thinking, a question relevant to the quality of an art work also seems: how difficult is it to make such an art work?

with nanomachinery, the time is nearing where we will be able to manufacture many things from a digital blueprint.

consider a van gogh. the oil paint has a certain age, the brush strokes are (say) thick and impasto-style. it is as much a 3dimensional work as a twodimensional one. which is part of the reason why photographic reproductions don't work, and why it is hard to forge a van gogh.

but now suppose we can create a nanomachinery-driven 3d copier, which replicates paintings down to the very essence of a brushstroke, down to the chemical components, say molecule by molecule (or very close).

suddenly, everyone can have a van gogh in her/his room IF the museum would allow the nanomachinery-driven blueprinting, and subsequent distribution. everyone can have brancusi's sleeping muse, in any wanted material too.

think about it.

what would it mean for art & quality? how would it change our perspective of forgery? and what does that say about the validity of our current perspective?

quality & art 13: forgery 3: andy warhol

obviously, other people are thinking on the same issues. i came across edward winkleman's blog (the posting of thursday 26 june 2008, i cannot link to it directly), where he discusses a current forgery issue which tallies with my previous post.

it concerns works by -or not by- andy warhol, such as the work below:



andy warhol?, 315 johns


the issue is also discussed in the new york times of 26 june 2008.

the interesting thing these articles show is that intrinsic value of an art work seems to be considered completely derivational to who made it, generally without any questioning whatsoever as to whether this is a sound principle. by contrast winkleman runs an open thread on what makes an art work `good', and he is clearly thinking about art & quality somewhere along the same lines as the thread art & quality of this blog (he doesn't make a pagerank comparison though, which i believe to be a key issue).

would you -i mean seriously, would you really- believe there is such a thing as the andy warhol art authentication board? it would lead one to not ever take the modern art world seriously again. perhaps unless an art work strikes you as inescapable, unless you are rooted to the ground, or you find yourself coming back to an art work either physically or in your mind over and over again.

i doubt that art works made by artists who produce works by the dozen a day will fall in the above category.

when an artist doesn't produce works as if every scribble, every scrap, every idea, every execution is brilliant deep art - in other words when an artist takes time, effort, mistakes, reworking etc. before releasing art to the world, then i think there will be much less need for an authentication board.

i have seen exhibitions of joseph beuys for instance, serious exhibitions mind you, where it seemed that the curators thought that every scrap of paper that the good man ever touched was transformed into breathtaking mindboggling art.

all the more is the pity, because in my eyes beuys was a very talented draughtsman...but how to find these wonderful drawings amidst all the nonsense? how difficult to fake/forge a beuys? well that depends on the work, but in general it should be extremely easy. just take any oily substance (wax, linseed oil, cooking oil, motor oil) smear it on an envelope, add some pencil, maybe a little ink/paint and you are done. the less you think about it, the more convincing. if you want to do a good job, study beuys' handwriting carefully, and add some mystifying terms. in german.

quality & art 12: forgery 2

returning to `quality and art', although really this theme also underlies all the previous posts, i would like to add some extra background to the post on anonymous art and forgeries. [where anonymized art as well as forgeries are presented as methods to prick through the balloon of art legitimization. a balloon which floats most of the contemporary art scene. don't be impressed by it, is what i'm saying.]

so, forgeries. what do they have to do with quality?

suppose i would brilliantly forge a scarlatti sonata. [you should read this, to be honest about my musical ablities, as: suppose i COULD forge a scarlatti sonata ;-)]. i would claim i was cleaning some attic, conveniently dating back to the 18th century, when suddenly my eye fell upon...etc.

experts go wild. in all the texts 555 has to be replaced by 556. special performances are given all over the world. reviews are raving.

then, i'm found out. boohoo. BUT does it make the music any less beautiful? is its QUALITY any less for having been found out as a forgery?

well, in the visual arts this is not a question. so-called experts even frown upon this question. a forgery of a matisse, when found out, will be removed from the museum's exhibition. how hard is it to forge a matisse? well, to be honest, i don't think that should be too difficult.



henri matisse, icarus

in fact i have sold a number of...oh. perhaps i should wait a little with this revelation, since the centre pompidou is already in trouble with another suspected forgery, see below.



ralf kwaaknijd, paradise snake / hidden in plain sight xxxiv, 2005, centre pompidou paris

rather exact replicas of this work from controversial dutch visual artist ralf kwaaknijd have been acquired by a number of other museums of modern art, raising serious questions as to its authenticity. [ralf kwaaknijd is preparing a statement on the issue, it is said. more work by kwaaknijd later.].

tribal art? modern art? look and see

one of the many irritating things about the presentation of `tribal' art in western museums is precisely the implication of `tribal'.

what a complete lack of self-reflection. as if our society is not tribal. as if our medieval and much of our other-periods' art is not religious / shamanistic even.

but even on the aesthetic level, the difference in appreciation can be stunning to behold. i repeat the picture from the previous post, below. and i ask you: is this sculpture not in every sense more balanced, more provoking, more evoking than eg. any of giacometti's works? do you not think that most `modern' sculptors would have given an arm and a leg to have a form sense as profound as in this statuette?



man, wood, african, 19-20th century (did not write down the details, sorry)



alberto giacometti, sitting man (or something like that, did not write down the details, sorry), centre pompidou

so why don't we see any african art in the centre pompidou? or other `tribal' art? could it be that although we are supposedly in the 21st century, we are still as bigoted as our 19th century forebears? could it be we are still droogstoppels, only covering up?

world cultural heritage 2: musée du quai branly

one of the museums not permitting the taking of pictures is the (new french prestige) musée du quai branly, which shamelessly presents extremely valuable religious/shamanistic tribal art works from africa, asia, polynesia, and the americas... shamelessly you say, why do you use that word frank? well, because one cannot help but wonder where all these incredible art works came from, and how they were acquired. and even if they are in need of protection and conservation, why they are not in the respective national museums of the countries of origin. [the same question irrevocably pops up when visiting the louvre, and seeing the enormous amount of egyptian art which i believe was largely simply carted off during 19th and early 20th century by the french. why not give it back to egypt?]

so, the art works having most likely been taken away from peoples not capable of protecting their national cultural heritage, the museum also actively obstructs these peoples and the rest of the world in acquiring images of these art works.

are these not mankinds collective treasures? are these not meant for as wide a dissemination as is possible? shame, musée du quai branly.



man, wood, african, 19-20th century (did not write down the details, sorry)

world cultural heritage: taking pictures in museums

in several important museums containing critical elements of world cultural heritage, it is forbidden to take pictures. the only sensible explanation for this is that the museum wants to exploit its collection even further by selling photographs in the museum shop.

also, in many of these museums, we are talking about art from centuries and centuries, deplaced from its original country (often robbed/stolen/looted in the days of colonialism).

i find myself increasingly angered by such museum policies.

from what does the museum, which is almost always publicly funded, derive its right to limit access to the imagery of its collection to those fortunate enough to be able to travel to the museum?

you can argue that other people can look at photographs in books, but the point is that most of these works cannot be found in books, or only very poorly photographed.

it is an example of closed source, where money and power motives of a few win out over benefit for all. shame on these museums. and shame on us for letting our legislation permit them to act like this.

intermezzo: constantin brancusi in paris

illumination of this blog is necessary i think, or we will end up with words words words.

saw works of constantin brancusi in centre pompidou on my visit to paris. pictures can be taken freely in the museum -i will come back to this- so here three pictures i took:



sleeping muse, constantin brancusi



sleeping muse, constantin brancusi



sleeping muse, constantin brancusi

here is where you can see a webpanorama 360 degree view of brancusi's atelier in centre pompidou.