Possibly Real Copy Of ‘Fairies’ by Andy Warhol
October 25, 2021 1:42 PM Subscribe
1000 MSCHF ARTWORKS FOR SALE: One original Andy Warhol (worth $20K) mixed at random into a stack of 999 exact MSCHF forgeries. "By forging Fairies en masse, we obliterate the trail of provenance for the artwork. Though physically undamaged, we destroy any future confidence in the veracity of the work. By burying a needle in a needlestack, we render the original as much a forgery as any of our replications."
"QUANTITY VS. VALUE, QUANTITY VS. REVENUE
All else being equal, an original is worth more than a copy; a unique work is worth more than an editioned work. It’s common practice for a gallery to increase the price of prints in their inventory as more are sold–local scarcity sets the price, even though the total extant quantity is unchanged.
Walter Benjamin might say that copies diminish the artistic value of the original because they exist outside the work’s original, unique context, thereby diluting the singularity of the original’s existence in culture that initially imbued it with aura.
Paradoxically, for artists, successfully merching down an object = consistent, increased revenue. Posters, prints, or easily replicable derivative works turn an artwork into a product line, and when you hit the big time, product lines tend to be net more profitable than a handful of masterworks. Copies reduce value but increase revenue."
"QUANTITY VS. VALUE, QUANTITY VS. REVENUE
All else being equal, an original is worth more than a copy; a unique work is worth more than an editioned work. It’s common practice for a gallery to increase the price of prints in their inventory as more are sold–local scarcity sets the price, even though the total extant quantity is unchanged.
Walter Benjamin might say that copies diminish the artistic value of the original because they exist outside the work’s original, unique context, thereby diluting the singularity of the original’s existence in culture that initially imbued it with aura.
Paradoxically, for artists, successfully merching down an object = consistent, increased revenue. Posters, prints, or easily replicable derivative works turn an artwork into a product line, and when you hit the big time, product lines tend to be net more profitable than a handful of masterworks. Copies reduce value but increase revenue."
This is also strangely related to empirical economics. V nice. Wondering if I want one.
posted by clew at 1:52 PM on October 25, 2021
posted by clew at 1:52 PM on October 25, 2021
Warhol is the perfect artist to prank this way; no one can legitimately complain that it's not totally within his milieu. I'm not always a fan of art that is specifically about art, but this is clever and fun while being both instructive and destructive. Kudos.
posted by rikschell at 1:54 PM on October 25, 2021 [23 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 1:54 PM on October 25, 2021 [23 favorites]
so now I buy one and color it in right?
posted by Ziabatsu at 2:03 PM on October 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Ziabatsu at 2:03 PM on October 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
Isn't this in and of itself art that has value? Doesn't it increase yet again, given that the art piece is now part of another art piece, with MSCHF effectively doing performance art with it? I mean, isn't this a similar performance as Girl with a Balloon / Love is in the Bin?
posted by Nanukthedog at 2:04 PM on October 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Nanukthedog at 2:04 PM on October 25, 2021 [4 favorites]
Nanukthedog is on to something. If you buy the whole run of forgeries, along with the mystery original, you have something that the art world will probably regard as greater in value than the sum of its parts. Thereby coopting the subversion and defeating the point of the exercise, as the art world tends to do.
posted by adamrice at 2:09 PM on October 25, 2021 [12 favorites]
posted by adamrice at 2:09 PM on October 25, 2021 [12 favorites]
Yeah, I would have added a rule that each buyer can only purchase one per shipping address, thus preventing some obnoxious rich person from buying the entire run and trying to sit on them hoping for an increase in value.
It wouldn't necessarily prohibit a single person from eventually buying them all up, but at least they'd have to go around collecting them like Warhol's horcruxes.
Warhol's Horcruxes also seems like a pretty solid band name.
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:26 PM on October 25, 2021 [23 favorites]
It wouldn't necessarily prohibit a single person from eventually buying them all up, but at least they'd have to go around collecting them like Warhol's horcruxes.
Warhol's Horcruxes also seems like a pretty solid band name.
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:26 PM on October 25, 2021 [23 favorites]
some obnoxious rich person from buying the entire run and trying to sit on them hoping for an increase in value.
The original was apparently worth $20K when bought, and the entire run would cost $250,000, so if someone wants to gamble that this gimmick represents a more than tenfold increase in the realizable value of the original artwork, despite the original no longer being identifiable, I guess nobody can really stop them. I wouldn't take that bet.
posted by jackbishop at 2:46 PM on October 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
The original was apparently worth $20K when bought, and the entire run would cost $250,000, so if someone wants to gamble that this gimmick represents a more than tenfold increase in the realizable value of the original artwork, despite the original no longer being identifiable, I guess nobody can really stop them. I wouldn't take that bet.
posted by jackbishop at 2:46 PM on October 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
“Originality is a device that untalented people use to impress other untalented people, and protect themselves from talented people . . .” --William Gaddis, The Recognitions
posted by chavenet at 3:07 PM on October 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by chavenet at 3:07 PM on October 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
I want to do this with Piero Manzoni. Did you get the irreplaceable artiste's poop, or just some rando's dump? Only a trained connoisseur can know for sure!
posted by phooky at 3:53 PM on October 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by phooky at 3:53 PM on October 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
It's a good deal from the artists who make $250,000 on a $20,000 investment, AND a good deal for the collectors who pay $250 but have the pleasure of imagining it's a $20,000 Warhol piece. For that price tag, it doesn't matter if it's a good investment or not.
posted by subdee at 4:20 PM on October 25, 2021
posted by subdee at 4:20 PM on October 25, 2021
I'd love to know what (say) an art restorer thinks of the copies. The video shows that they were made by a mechanical plotter, then distressed in some way. I kind of doubt that the plotter's lines look exactly like those drawn by Warhol, that the ink and inkflow are exactly the same, that the paper is the same, that the distressing is the same as actual aging.
posted by zompist at 4:21 PM on October 25, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by zompist at 4:21 PM on October 25, 2021 [7 favorites]
I'd love to know what (say) an art restorer thinks of the copies.
It’s irrelevant without provenance. Even if an expert were to assert that a specific copy was the true original, some owner of another copy could find another expert to assert otherwise.
I think this is a brilliant hack of a bogus model of value, and a delightful homage to Warhol. I’m sad they’re all sold already, but also not surprised.
posted by panglos at 5:08 PM on October 25, 2021 [7 favorites]
It’s irrelevant without provenance. Even if an expert were to assert that a specific copy was the true original, some owner of another copy could find another expert to assert otherwise.
I think this is a brilliant hack of a bogus model of value, and a delightful homage to Warhol. I’m sad they’re all sold already, but also not surprised.
posted by panglos at 5:08 PM on October 25, 2021 [7 favorites]
This is kind of bullshit. Except for the statement it makes about art as a commodity, like Banksy's Girl with Balloon.
It's kind of like when we used to (some of us still do) buy records of music we love. I can't pay Peter Gabriel to play his first solo album in my house, and I can't buy the master tapes, but I can fork over the money for the limited edition blue vinyl release so I can have a copy of something that is great, enjoy it, and know that the artist received some compensation from my purchase. My wife and I love original art, we are not rich, but when something surprises and delights us we want A) to support the artist and B) some version of the art to appreciate and enjoy. Sometimes, if we're lucky, we can buy an original. More often we're buying a signed and numbered copy, with the proceeds going to the artist. Rarely, it's just some dumb poster I've mounted which the artist sees nothing.
Personally, I think this Warhol print is shit. Is anyone *really* inspired by this sketch? I mean, I guess maybe. But if you want to hang a copy and enjoy it because you're a fan, you should do so because artists produce things that have value and you contribute something to the artist to encourage them to keep making art. But the fact that there's never going to be another original Warhol or Rembrandt or whatever -- when that's what's driving up the value of the piece -- Ok, I get it. But it's disgusting that it's people who want the "rare and valuable" thing rather than appreciate the piece who turn this into a bitcoin-style commodity. There are certainly Warhol pieces that I appreciate and would pay $$$ to have an image close to the original, but it wouldn't be because of the name alone and it certainly wouldn't be to gamble on a chance that I have the original which is indistinguishable from the copy.
But in this case, fine, whatever. I'd never hang this in my house or want to take a long gaze at it. I question the taste of those who would purchase a copy with that in mind. It seems clear that people are buying this in order to get an Andy Warhol Original(tm) which is just stupid.
Maybe that's part of the whole thing.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 5:58 PM on October 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
It's kind of like when we used to (some of us still do) buy records of music we love. I can't pay Peter Gabriel to play his first solo album in my house, and I can't buy the master tapes, but I can fork over the money for the limited edition blue vinyl release so I can have a copy of something that is great, enjoy it, and know that the artist received some compensation from my purchase. My wife and I love original art, we are not rich, but when something surprises and delights us we want A) to support the artist and B) some version of the art to appreciate and enjoy. Sometimes, if we're lucky, we can buy an original. More often we're buying a signed and numbered copy, with the proceeds going to the artist. Rarely, it's just some dumb poster I've mounted which the artist sees nothing.
Personally, I think this Warhol print is shit. Is anyone *really* inspired by this sketch? I mean, I guess maybe. But if you want to hang a copy and enjoy it because you're a fan, you should do so because artists produce things that have value and you contribute something to the artist to encourage them to keep making art. But the fact that there's never going to be another original Warhol or Rembrandt or whatever -- when that's what's driving up the value of the piece -- Ok, I get it. But it's disgusting that it's people who want the "rare and valuable" thing rather than appreciate the piece who turn this into a bitcoin-style commodity. There are certainly Warhol pieces that I appreciate and would pay $$$ to have an image close to the original, but it wouldn't be because of the name alone and it certainly wouldn't be to gamble on a chance that I have the original which is indistinguishable from the copy.
But in this case, fine, whatever. I'd never hang this in my house or want to take a long gaze at it. I question the taste of those who would purchase a copy with that in mind. It seems clear that people are buying this in order to get an Andy Warhol Original(tm) which is just stupid.
Maybe that's part of the whole thing.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 5:58 PM on October 25, 2021 [2 favorites]
Poifect. It is the point of the factory, after all. The dilution of cultural references.
Who is the creator? In an era when Wikimedia sues a photographer over photo rights for a macaque. What are copyrights to a macaque? Here the question is: who is the artist?
posted by geekP1ng at 6:28 PM on October 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
Who is the creator? In an era when Wikimedia sues a photographer over photo rights for a macaque. What are copyrights to a macaque? Here the question is: who is the artist?
posted by geekP1ng at 6:28 PM on October 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
andy would be proud.
posted by lkc at 7:04 PM on October 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by lkc at 7:04 PM on October 25, 2021 [1 favorite]
My only reaction is: So what?
The more time I spend in and around the art world, the less point I see in "cute" little stunts like this.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 7:21 PM on October 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
The more time I spend in and around the art world, the less point I see in "cute" little stunts like this.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 7:21 PM on October 25, 2021 [3 favorites]
I have a similar attitude about the art world but have the opposite response. In short - art is bad, art about how art is bad is good
posted by thedaniel at 12:26 AM on October 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by thedaniel at 12:26 AM on October 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
My only reaction is: So what?
The more time I spend in and around the art world, the less point I see in "cute" little stunts like this.
Okay, but that same attitude can be taken towards pretty much any art. You don't have to care much about Ed Sheeran's romantic inclinations or Taylor Swift's romantic history, or any songs where someone yearns for another or is upset about losing someone. We've heard it all before, thousands of times, just as one may not care about some villainous threat to destroy the earth or what a cowboy might do when faced with a mean hombre with a gun.
They're variations on themes tied to genres of work that explore certain aspects of life, art, and other concepts. Any given work or genre may not mean much to any one of us, but the exploration of the various aspects of the conditions given by the genre can shed new light on those conditions or just make them interesting or "fun" for people invested in the premises they work off of.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:09 AM on October 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
The more time I spend in and around the art world, the less point I see in "cute" little stunts like this.
Okay, but that same attitude can be taken towards pretty much any art. You don't have to care much about Ed Sheeran's romantic inclinations or Taylor Swift's romantic history, or any songs where someone yearns for another or is upset about losing someone. We've heard it all before, thousands of times, just as one may not care about some villainous threat to destroy the earth or what a cowboy might do when faced with a mean hombre with a gun.
They're variations on themes tied to genres of work that explore certain aspects of life, art, and other concepts. Any given work or genre may not mean much to any one of us, but the exploration of the various aspects of the conditions given by the genre can shed new light on those conditions or just make them interesting or "fun" for people invested in the premises they work off of.
posted by gusottertrout at 1:09 AM on October 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
If you're looking for a more concrete response to this particular "work", I like to think of it as a sort of homeopathic approach to aura, as MSCHF references Walter Benjamin's notion of the importance of an "original" or singular work prior to an era when works could be duplicated and widely transmitted in copied form. Warhol's factory approach to art, among others, challenged this perception by its methods of producing art under Warhol's direction, but without necessarily any hands on involvement with the piece. The signature and/or evidence of being part of the supervised run carries the aura and value for the work, to put it crudely.
MSCHF takes that a step further, allowing one "real" work into a batch of forgeries that one might end up with if one buys one of the pieces from the batch. If one thinks of the works as indistinguishable, then the possibility one owns a "real" Warhol is 1 in 1000, but any given print might be that "one" giving each individual print a partial or watered down sense of "aura" about it, for the possibility it is the "real" work. The batch as a whole too then gains a value beyond the Warhol print being included for being a separate conception/holistic offering, where the run of prints each now are both possibly a Warhol and are part of a artistic response to the Warhol via Benjamin that adds some new value to the limited run. I don't need to own one to appreciate the thought behind the process/work, any more than I need to have experienced a relationship of the sort described in a song to appreciate the artistry of the music. The monetary aspect matters in the concept, as something of a stand in for aura, and to the buyers, but it isn't the only consideration of importance to appreciating the work.
posted by gusottertrout at 4:12 AM on October 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
MSCHF takes that a step further, allowing one "real" work into a batch of forgeries that one might end up with if one buys one of the pieces from the batch. If one thinks of the works as indistinguishable, then the possibility one owns a "real" Warhol is 1 in 1000, but any given print might be that "one" giving each individual print a partial or watered down sense of "aura" about it, for the possibility it is the "real" work. The batch as a whole too then gains a value beyond the Warhol print being included for being a separate conception/holistic offering, where the run of prints each now are both possibly a Warhol and are part of a artistic response to the Warhol via Benjamin that adds some new value to the limited run. I don't need to own one to appreciate the thought behind the process/work, any more than I need to have experienced a relationship of the sort described in a song to appreciate the artistry of the music. The monetary aspect matters in the concept, as something of a stand in for aura, and to the buyers, but it isn't the only consideration of importance to appreciating the work.
posted by gusottertrout at 4:12 AM on October 26, 2021 [1 favorite]
More works from MSCHF -- I'm glad to find out about them. Thanks for the post.
posted by travertina at 8:27 AM on October 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by travertina at 8:27 AM on October 26, 2021 [4 favorites]
This kind of stunt feels very retro to me, like maybe it was novel in the 1970s. Speaking of which, didn't Warhol himself mess around with authenticity of his works? I seem to recall him making some stunt about how some of "his" screenprints weren't really his but you couldn't tell the difference so ha ha joke's on you.
posted by Nelson at 9:09 AM on October 26, 2021
posted by Nelson at 9:09 AM on October 26, 2021
Salvador Dali did a ton of this type of thing.
posted by Windopaene at 4:59 PM on October 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Windopaene at 4:59 PM on October 26, 2021 [2 favorites]
yes I have heard that he put real signatures onto fake Dali paintings, in the later years of his life
posted by thelonius at 5:10 PM on October 26, 2021
posted by thelonius at 5:10 PM on October 26, 2021
Wait till the art world sees me do this with Jens Haaning's new work.
posted by sebastienbailard at 4:50 AM on October 28, 2021
posted by sebastienbailard at 4:50 AM on October 28, 2021
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