DUSSELDORF: CARAVAGGIO

In Dusseldorf at the Museum Kunst Palast I saw an exhibition about Caravaggio. Prepared to see the artist’s many masterworks, I was surprised that the exhibition included many fakes. The curatorial emphasis was on the chiaroscuro techniques which Caravaggio used to surpass his many imitators. His style was so imitated that it inspired an entire movement called Caravaggismo.

Although the exhibition claimes to be “tracing the footsteps of Caravaggio”, it was jarring for the viewer forced to determine between the originals and the fakes. Jarring, but illuminating.

What is the realtionship between vision and knowledge? Why does the fake - when acknowledged as such - become less interesting?

Brushstrokes is a Canadian company that is making ‘authentic’, textured reproductions of such paintings as Van Gogh’s Irises.

See the fake here.

On the one hand, blatant reproductions of unique masterpieces seems outrageous. On the other, reproduction has a long history, as the Caravaggio exhibition makes evident. For as long as there has been admiration and desire for an artist’s work (in other words, an art market), there have been ways to satiate the demand.

With the advent of printing and photography, the so-called aura of the unique art object was destroyed. Have heavily reproduced art images entered our consciousness to a point where the original no longer matters, except in the upper echelons of the collector’s market?

To have a fake painting that is barely distinguishable from the original seems entirely uneccessary.

Brushstrokes says more about the economic system than it does about art. The image is accessible as an idea, drained of value, monetary or otherwise. Better to buy the poster.