Artistic strategies of fake - criticism of the original and forgery
Artistic Strategies of Fake - Critique of Original and Fake is a reference book by Stefan Römer published by DuMont Verlag in 2001 .
In the book, Römer explains the contemporary artistic strategy of fakes . The examples in which the author demonstrates his current theory of the fake range from Sigmar Polke and Orson Welles to the appropriation art of Sherrie Levine , Louise Lawler and Richard Prince , Guillaume Bijl , Peter Weibel to Ingold Airlines and the Californian Museum of Jurassic Technology .
“The term fake means a mimetic imitation of another work of art, which, in contrast to the forgery itself, indicates its counterfeit character. An artist reproduced photographs of Walker Evans; She presented these own photographs in a similar way to the model; the title, »Sherrie Levine After Walker Evans«, identifies the work as appropriation that reflects the changed contextual and conceptual conditions of the identical image. The fake is aimed at an art-historical cognition process by means of a precise image examination: The reproduction is no longer morally condemned as a forgery, but the fake is viewed as a critique of the institution of art and its ideology of the original. "
Reviews
“In his exciting, challenging analysis, Römer breaks down how artists produced something new from existing material in order to break the boundaries of a moralizing, essentialist concept of art. The question of real or fake, true or false does not become obsolete, but the decision - at least in art - dissolves into discursive processes. "
“For Harald Fricke, Stefan Römer's 300-page treatise on“ fake ”as a special stylistic device of the art of the 80s reads like a“ brain teaser for deconstructivists ”. Fake, the conscious copy, questions the concept of originality as a whole, explains Fricke, so it is always a “second-order observation” that is not about a false view of reality, but rather the question of the extent to which an image is could claim authenticity and a reference to reality at all. However, according to Fricke, such considerations lead “astray in subversion”, since there is no longer an original and a forgery, but a multitude of images and symbols. In times of capitalist exploitation, Fricke is skeptical of Roman's postulate of "fake as an artistic strategy". "
"Stefan Römer is about introducing the exact distinction between counterfeit and fake. Using the example of the artist Sherry Levine, who (only apparently) exhibited photos of Walker Evans unchanged under the title “Sherrie Levine After Walker Evans”, he shows that almost everything has changed due to the changed circumstances. For this form of conceptual art, which is also known as appropriation art, he chooses the term fake. The intention of fake art, in the words of reviewer Christine Meixner: “Instead of enjoying art, it offers insights into art” as an institution. Overall, Meixner agrees very much with the theses of Römer's dissertation, only the “risks” of fake art are neglected. After all, criticism has long since become the "fetish of capital". "
literature
- Stefan Römer: Artistic Strategies of Fake. Criticism of original and fake. DuMont, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-7701-5532-7
- DISSERTATION The Concept of Fake (PDF; 1.3 MB), 1998