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    This Artist Was Set to Show With Lisa Schiff Before a Lawsuit Shuttered the Gallery. Now, She’s Staging the Exhibition on Her Own 

    Earlier this month, art advisor Lisa Schiff abruptly closed her New York gallery space less than a week after being hit with a high-profile “Ponzi scheme” lawsuit. The move left more questions than answers. 
    That was especially true for photographer Richelle Rich, who was set to open an exhibition at Schiff’s SFA Advisory space on June 7.
    “I’m sad to say that unexpectedly the gallery has closed,” Rich wrote on Instagram at the time. “We will no doubt learn the whole story as things play out in the press, but for now I am left pretty devastated.” 
    But Rich, who considers herself a “political, conceptual artist,” was determined for the exhibition to go on. “I just didn’t want her story to define mine,” she told Artnet News over the phone. “I just wanted to move forward.” 

    Move forward she did. The artist will open her show in early June as intended, though it will look a little different—and it won’t have anything to do with Schiff. Instead, it will take place for one night only on the seventh floor of a walk-up in New York’s Lower East Side neighborhood.  
    Rich won’t show the prints she had planned for SFA, but rather a film that comprises some 200 pictures from the same body of work. The series, called “Comeflor,” features shots of flowers, fruits, and other quotidian objects that, for her, symbolize larger ideas and moments in time. 
    “Through them I document the social, political and historical events I witness,” she wrote of her subjects in an announcement for the revised show. “Deadly poisonous flowers, glass from a shipwreck, custom made needles, ephemera, and detritus make these interwoven narratives tangible. They are secrets hidden in plain sight.” 
    Richelle Rich, Comeflor (2020). Courtesy of the artist.
    Rich was introduced to Schiff through a mutual acquaintance. “Lisa was only ever really supportive of me and my work,” she said of their relationship.  
    The artist heard news of SFA’s closure from Schiff herself the morning of May 15. “It was really shocking,” she recalled, noting the five months’ worth of work she had put into preparing for the show, which was to be her first solo exhibition in American and first show of any kind in New York.
    “This was such an enormous deal for me,” she went on, adding that it was supposed to be a “comeback show.” 
    But after an hour of sulking, Rich got back to work. Within about a week’s time, she lined up a space on Eldridge Street—a studio used by a film editing company. When asked how she was able to secure it on such short notice, the artist laughed, then said, simply: “Begging.” 
    Reflecting on the last two weeks, after having a show canceled then re-confirmed, Rich took a step back and considered the experience within the context of her now 30-year-long art practice. “It was just another challenge,” she said.  
    “Here’s One I Made Earlier“ is the name of the artist’s show, which has been given a new title for the new space. It’s set to open on June 7. 
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    Is an Ethel Schwabacher Revival at Hand? Peek Inside the Nearly Sold-Out Show of the Abstract Expressionist’s Rarely Seen Works

    It’s been 30 years since Ethel Schwabacher had a proper solo show in New York City. But in the 1950s, she was at the forefront of the Abstract Expressionist movement, showing vibrant canvases with bold colors, fluid brushstrokes, and even snippets of poems at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York.
    “Ethel was a poet as well, so she would put lines of her poetry in her paintings—which for the 1950s was way ahead of its time,” Christine Berry, cofounder of New York’s Berry Campbell Gallery, told Artnet News.
    Now, the late artist—who has work in the collections of institutions including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York—is having enjoying a well-deserved revival at Berry Campbell.
    At the Chelsea gallery, a nearly sold-out exhibition is on view through this weekend. The works, priced at $165,000 to $400,000—far above the artist’s auction record of $56,250, set in 2020, according to the Artnet Price Database—focuses on the artist’s works from the 1950s.
    Ethel Schwabacher, Seasons and Days: July (1955). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.
    For decades, the Schwabacher estate was represented by Anita Shapolsky Gallery, an elderly dealer on the Upper East Side who stages about three shows a year out of her townhouse.
    The past few years have been a moment of rediscovery for many other women of the Ab Ex movement, with the acclaimed Mary Gabriel book Ninth Street Women, and in the landmark 2016 Denver Art Museum show “Women of Abstract Expressionism.” But it seemed as though Schwabacher—one of the 12 artists in the Denver show—might be left behind.
    Enter Berry Campbell, which also represents the estates of Judith Godwin and Perle Fine, two of the other women in the Denver show.
    When the dealers got in touch with the artist’s son, lawyer Christopher Schwabacher (who for years represented Parsons), they were shocked if delighted to discover hundreds of paintings, not seen for decades, carefully packed away in storage. That included the show’s centerpiece, Prometheus, a 1959 canvas that had to be unrolled and stretched for the occasion.
    Ethel Schwabacher, Prometheus (1959). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.
    “These all have Betty Parsons labels on the back,” Berry said. “It’s incredible.”
    The artist continued painting until her death in 1984, and the dealers hope to build an appreciation of Schwabacher’s oeuvre with a series of shows spanning her entire career.
    “Originally, we thought we would have to do a retrospective since no one knew who she was—but the paintings were so strong,” gallery cofounder Martha Campbell added.
    When Artnet News visited “Ethel Schwabacher: Woman in Nature (Paintings from the 1950s),” it was a busy afternoon.
    Ethel Schwabacher (ca. 1955). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.
    Christopher Schwabacher and his wife, Hannelore, had stopped by to visit, and there were repair men in the space—a construction project next door had dropped an anvil on the gallery skylight, causing pane of glass to shatter. Thankfully, no one was hurt, and the paintings were not damaged.
    Christopher Schwabacher, now age 81, was unfazed by the incident, and happy to share childhood memories of his mother painting—a widow, she would put on classical music to drown out the noise of him playing with his sister, Brenda Webster, while she worked. The living room was pressed into service as an art studio.
    “I’ve never seen so many paint tubes of paint. As kids we were fascinated by them,” Christopher Schwabacher told Artnet News. “When we could sort of let loose and not be so careful was when she would bring her brushes out to the faucet in the pantry to wash them.”
    Decades later, the artist’s son is hopeful the time is ripe for a reappraisal of Schwabacher’s career—and he sees the skylight incident as a good omen: “We have a smashing success right here!”
    See more paintings from the show below.
    Ethel Schwabacher, Origins I (1958). Courtesy Berry Campbell, New York.
    Ethel Schwabacher, Pennington: Return and Departure of Birds (1957). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.
    Ethel Schwabacher, Return No. 3 (1957). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.
    Ethel Schwabacher, Steps of the Sun (1957). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.
    Ethel Schwabacher, Return and Departure (1956). Courtesy of Berry Campbell, New York.
    “Ethel Schwabacher: Woman in Nature (Paintings from the 1950s)” is on view at Berry Campbell, 524 West 26th Street, New York, New York, April 20–May 26, 2023.
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    In Pictures: Toads, Lizards, and Tadpoles Take Over the London Underground in Monster Chetwynd’s Quirky Gloucester Road Installation

    Commuters on the London Underground passing through Gloucester Road station are in for an unexpected treat. On a disused platform, British performance artist Monster Chetwynd—born Alalia Chetwynd, and formerly known as Spartacus and Marvin Gaye—has installed giant statues of lily pads, toads, and other amphibian creatures.
    The exhibition, titled “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily,” is on view until May 2024. It’s inspired by the history of the station as it connects to the Great Exhibition of 1851, staged by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, held in nearby Hyde Park in the famed Crystal Palace designed by the architect Joseph Paxton.
    A former gardener, Paxton drew on the structure of the water lily and its ribbed veins to come up with his modular design for the groundbreaking building. In Chetwynd’s work, the animals—beetles, lizards, salamanders, dragonfly larvae, tadpoles, and tortoises—are working together to build the Crystal Palace.
    “Normally my work is linked to bad taste and disarming humor, but these look oddly delicate, almost like Wedgwood porcelain,” Chetwynd told the Guardian, marveling over the craftsmanship of the original Crystal Palace. “To read that each pane of glass was individually hand blown—I get really genuinely excited about things like that.”
    Monster Chetwynd with her exhibition “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily” (2023). Gloucester Road Station. Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Photo by Benedict Johnson.
    The first performance artist ever nominated for Britain’s prestigious Turner Prize, in 2012, Chetwynd is known for her offbeat works. She has enlisted both friends and strangers to take part in elaborate costumed parades, built a creepy indoor children’s playground called The Idol in East London, and has an ongoing film project, Hermito’s Children, about a transgender detective investigating a woman who died from orgasming on a dildo seesaw.
    For her new Art on the Underground commission, the artist was on hand for the unveiling, clad in a glittery pink body suit and a blonde wig. This was Chetwynd’s costume for the Fact-Hungry Witch, a character in her film Who named the Lily?, currently on view in the station. It presents a history not only of the Amazonian lily and the Crystal Palace, but also of the subway, architecture, industry, and colonialism.
    Monster Chetwynd, “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily” (2023). Gloucester Road Station. Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Photo by Benedict Johnson.
    “The poetic connection between a Lily from the Amazon (that smells of pineapple and entraps beetles in its pink interior overnight) and the arches and rumbling tunnels of Gloucester Road, this connection needs to be brought forward,” Chetwynd said in a statement. “How history is re-examined and allowed to be accessible is also in need of discussion.”
    The installation also includes seven poster artworks in the station, which each hide clues for an interactive detective hunt that the artist hopes will engage local families.
    “I’m hoping that when people see the work on the platform that they’re delighted, and they get some joy from it, because it’s quite fun and playful,” Chetwynd told the BBC. “I also hope that are interested and intrigued into the history that I researched.”
    See more photos of the installation below.
    Monster Chetwynd with her exhibition “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily” (2023). Gloucester Road Station. Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Photo by Benedict Johnson.
    Monster Chetwynd, “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily” (2023). Gloucester Road Station. Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Photo by GG Archard.
    Monster Chetwynd, “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily” (2023). Gloucester Road Station. Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Photo by GG Archard.
    Monster Chetwynd, “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily” (2023). Gloucester Road Station. Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Photo by GG Archard.
    Monster Chetwynd with her exhibition “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily” (2023). Gloucester Road Station. Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Photo by Benedict Johnson.
    Monster Chetwynd, “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily” (2023). Gloucester Road Station. Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Photo by GG Archard.
    Monster Chetwynd, “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily” (2023). Gloucester Road Station. Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Photo by GG Archard.
    Monster Chetwynd, “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily” (2023). Gloucester Road Station. Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Photo by Benedict Johnson.
    Monster Chetwynd with her exhibition “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily” (2023). Gloucester Road Station. Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Photo by Benedict Johnson.
    Monster Chetwynd, “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily” (2023). Gloucester Road Station. Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Photo by GG Archard.
    Monster Chetwynd, “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily” (2023). Gloucester Road Station. Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Photo by GG Archard.
    Monster Chetwynd with her exhibition “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily” (2023). Gloucester Road Station. Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Photo by Benedict Johnson.
    Monster Chetwynd, “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily” (2023). Gloucester Road Station. Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Photo by GG Archard.
    Monster Chetwynd, “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily” (2023). Gloucester Road Station. Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Photo by GG Archard.
    Monster Chetwynd, “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily” (2023). Gloucester Road Station. Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Photo by GG Archard.
    Monster Chetwynd, “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily” (2023). Gloucester Road Station. Commissioned by Art on the Underground. Photo by GG Archard.
    Monster Chetwynd’s “Pond Life: Albertopolis and the Lily” is on view at Gloucester Road Station, South Kensington, London, U.K., May 2023–May 2024. 
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    The First Museum Show on the Sari Unravels the Garment’s Evolution and Staying Power in 60 Spectacular Designs. See Them Here

    The sari debuted in the Indus Valley around 2800 B.C.E. Here in the 21st century, it’s undergoing “conceivably its most rapid reinvention in its 5,000-year history,” according to the Design Museum in London. It’s been reimagined as the gown sari, which is still sparking debates. Other rebels are dressing theirs down with sneakers.
    In London, lead curator Priya Khanchandani has spearheaded “The Offbeat Sari,” the first-ever museum show dedicated to the timeless garment, presenting 60 genre-defining specimens from recent history, some for the first time in the U.K. Standouts include a sari woven from steel and another from discarded x-ray film, and the first-ever sari to grace the Met Gala, an iridescent Sabyasachi design that Indian biotech executive Natasha Poonawalla wore last year.
    “The Offbeat Sari” unfolds over three sections: “Transformation” explores the recent stylistic innovations filling in new chapters for the sari, “Identity and Resistance” incorporates cultural context and the wearers’ roles in such shifts, and “New Materialities” concludes with a deep dive into the sari as a textile.
    Installation view of “The Offbeat Sari” at the Design Museum, London. Photo: © Andy Stagg for the Design Museum.
    “The evolution of the contemporary sari returns us to the founding principles of Indian design, devised post-independence and intertwined with post-colonial ideologies,” Khanchandani told Artnet News. “It also reflects a new generation in today’s India who, 76 years on from independence from colonial rule, are freed from the weight of postcolonial baggage, and are bolder in exploring their identity.” The open market, digital culture, and rising confidence in Indian craft has also had an impact, she added.
    “The Offbeat Sari” balances the universal and unique. Though one donned by Lady Gaga does appear, Khanchandani questions the impulse to peg the sari’s import to potential global adoption. On a research trip to India, she visited numerous designers featured throughout this show. “It was wonderful to get to know their work,” she said, “but what I didn’t expect was to uncover so many smaller studios whose creativity and ideas are transforming the sari into fresh, radical clothing in ways that I never imagined.”
    Surprises abound for viewers, too—including a sari and baton belonging to feminist Gulabi Gang leader Sampat Pal and saris worn by a skateboarder, a mountain climber, and more.
    See more images from the show below.
    China town sari from Ashdeen’s Chinoi-sari collection, 2017. Photo Hormis Antony Tharakan
    Installation view of “The Offbeat Sari” at the Design Museum, London. Photo: © Andy Stagg for the Design Museum.
    Installation view of “The Offbeat Sari” at the Design Museum, London. Photo: © Andy Stagg for the Design Museum.
    Concept sari by Tarun Tahiliani in foil jersey, 2010. Photo courtesy of the Design Museum, London.
    Installation view of “The Offbeat Sari” at the Design Museum, London. Photo: © Andy Stagg for the Design Museum.
    Installation view of “The Offbeat Sari” at the Design Museum, London. Photo: © Andy Stagg for the Design Museum.
    Installation view of “The Offbeat Sari” at the Design Museum, London. Photo: © Andy Stagg for the Design Museum.
    The Quilted Sari from the HUEMN Fall ’17 Collection, 2017. HUEMN. Photo: Pankaj Dahalia. Model Rachi Chitakara.
    Installation view of “The Offbeat Sari” at the Design Museum, London. Photo: © Andy Stagg for the Design Museum.
    “The Offbeat Sari” is on view at the Design Museum, 224-238 Kensington High Street, London, through September 17.
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    In Pictures: See Artist David Popa Paint Prehistoric Creatures on Natural Landscapes Around the World for Apple TV’s Dinosaur Documentary

    Its easy to forget that long before human evolution, dinosaurs roamed many of the same landscapes we enjoy visiting today. For a special project, the land artist David Popa has brought this prehistoric fauna back in the form of large scale portraits.
    The three works were completed as part of the American artist’s involvement with the second season of Apple TV’s “Prehistoric Planet,” narrated by the nature documentary legend Sir David Attenborough.
    One mammoth 100-feet-wide depiction of a T-Rex head bearing its teeth was composed on the red rock of a desert in Utah. Travelling far and wide, Popa also drew a Hatzegopteryx— most notable for its huge wings—on a remote island in Finland, where he lives.
    Finally, a Triceratops appeared along the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, England, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and major destination for fossil collectors.
    The ancient animals were drawn straight onto the land, incorporating the terrain’s natural textures into pictures that were made using organic materials like charcoal, chalk and earth pigments. Each work took up to 15 hours to complete.
    “It looks like the skin of a Triceratops,” Popa told BBC News about the role of the earth’s surface in the works. “I didn’t have to do too much because it was working for me.”
    Due to their expansive size, the portraits can only be seen in their entirety from above and have been documented by drones before they were inevitably worn away by the weather.
    “We’re so used to seeing things on a horizontal plane,” Popa said. “But how many beautiful locations are there that look completely different from top down? There’s a limitless number of locations that look otherworldly.”
    Popa is no stranger to making art in challenging conditions. Other examples of him working in the wild include a series of faces drawn with charcoal onto fragments of ice. These pieces were also highly ephemeral, although photos of the lost images have been sold as limited edition prints and 1/1 NFTs. More

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    An Exhibition of Taylor Swift’s Stuff Has Just Opened at the Museum of Arts and Design. Here Are 5 Must-See Displays, Swifties

    Swifties, rejoice! The Museum of the Arts and Design in New York has dedicated an entire floor to exhibiting a hoard of costumes, props, and jewelry worn by Taylor Swift over her decade-plus, Grammy award-winning career.  
    Across “Taylor Swift: Storyteller,” fans will find ensembles she donned in music videos for tracks including Shake It Off (2014) and Bejeweled (2022), guitars she wielded in live performances, and concert attire designed by couture houses. These 50-some artifacts are displayed alongside live projections of Swift’s music videos and wall-sized blow-ups of her handwritten lyrics.
    As hinted at by its title, the exhibition is intended to showcase Swift’s storytelling prowess, which has grown in scope and ambition throughout her 10-album-strong discography and expanding videography.
    “The music is telling you a certain story and she uses costumes and props in order to build upon those stories and characters she’s creating,” Tim Rodgers, MAD’s director, told Artnet News. “Like all artists, she is taking that into other realms—there’s fantasy woven into this, notions of larger archetypes.” 
    “All Too Well” outfit, designed by Marina Toybina. Photo: Bruce M White.
    The show was masterminded by Swift’s management company, 13 Management, which approached MAD specifically after seeing images of its Machine Dazzle retrospective. The showcase was put together in the short span of two months—a “speedy” sprint, in Rodgers’s words, to coincide with Swift’s current The Eras Tour, which rounds the tri-state area at the end of May. 
    There is every likelihood at the exhibition will be inundated by ardent Swift devotees (hence the timed entries and a gift shop stocked with Taylor Swift merch), but Rodgers is adamant that you don’t have to be a deep-dyed Swiftie to get sucked in. 
    “Yes, this is about Taylor Swift, but this is about something bigger than Taylor Swift,” he said. “This is really about our own culture and how it is that women are being presented, thought about, and written about. These are the ideas that we wanted to explore.” 
    Below, we’ve picked five highlights from the show ahead of your own inevitable visit.

    1. The cheerleader and ballerina ensembles from “Shake It Off”
    The cheerleader and ballerina outfits from the “Shake It Off” video (2014). Photo: Bruce M White.
    Swift’s video for “Shake It Off” made her the only female artist to hit a three-billion view count on YouTube, but also illustrates her wont of playing to and against archetypes. The four-minute clip sees her don personas from an inept break dancer to an inept performance artist, aided by vibrant costuming. Two of the most iconic, the ballerina (bearing hints of The Black Swan) and cheerleader (“You Belong to Me” callback, anyone?), are included here, encapsulating Swift’s inquiry into “notions of what women are supposed to be, can be, or should be,” per Rodgers. 

    2. One spangly guitar
    GS6 sparkle guitar #3 by Taylor Guitars. Photo: Min Chen.
    Quite likely Swift’s most recognizable instrument, this GS6 acoustic guitar, bejeweled with Swarovski crystals, is manufactured by Taylor Guitars (no relation) and harks back to the musician’s Speak Now era (c. 2010–12). It is not the only model out there though: the one on view is labeled guitar #3 and yet another one is now accompanying Swift on her The Eras tour. 

    3. This cat-themed outfit from “Look What You Made Me Do”
    An ensemble, featuring a sweatshirt by Gucci, boots by Christian Louboutin, and cat mask, from the “Look What You Made Me Do” video (2017). Photo: Min Chen.
    Will Taylor Swift ever run out of archetypes? Don’t bet on it. Her 2017 video presented us with a whole new slew of characters, including one dressed in an oversized Gucci hoodie sequined with a tiger’s face and wearing a cat mask. It’s in this costume that Swift is filmed amid a rifled bank vault, dollar bills at her Louboutin boots, practically inviting all manner of cat burglar puns.

    4. The flamingo lawn ornaments from “You Need to Calm Down”
    From left: Agent Provocateur robe from the “You Need to Calm Down” video (2019); a Versace ensemble worn by Swift to the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards; and an ensemble with a shirt by Marina Hoermanseder, shorts by Yves Saint Laurent, brassiere by Fleur de Mal, boots by Irregular Choice, and yard ornaments by Ohuhu from the “You Need to Calm Down” video (2019). Photo: Bruce M White.
    The video for Swift’s 2019 single is less a music video than a series of random celeb cameos (RuPaul! Katy Perry! The guys from Queer Eye!). But the real star turn comes from, of course, the flamingo ornaments that generously bedeck Laverne Cox’s trailer park lawn. Produced by art supplies company Ohuhu, the objects are here paired with the spiffy costume Swift wore in the video, an ensemble of designs by Saint Laurent, Marina Hoermanseder, and Irregular Choice. 

    5. A painting of Taylor Swift’s cat, Benjamin Button
    Painting of Benjamin Button, set against wallpaper by Rebecca Graves, from the “Lover” video (2019). Photo: Min Chen.
    Did you know Taylor Swift loves cats? She has three of them, christened with names like Meredith Grey, Olivia Benson, and Benjamin Button. The last, who she adopted after he appeared in her “ME!” video, is immortalized here in a painting, artist unknown, peering out endearingly from a misty blue backdrop. If you can’t view it in person, the work can also be glimpsed in (where else) another video, 2019’s “Lover.”  
    “Taylor Swift: Storyteller” is on view at the Museum of Arts and Design, 2 Columbus Circle, New York, through September 4.
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    In Pictures: Tate Modern Pairs Abstract Art Pioneers Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrian—Who Never Met in Life But Shared a Love of Nature

    They may be two of the best-known names in early 20th century modern art, but Piet Mondrian and Hilma af Klint never actually met. Decades after their deaths in 1944, they are enjoying a posthumous encounter for a new show at Tate Modern in London.
    With more than 250 paintings, drawings and archival objects, the exhibition “Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrian: Forms of Life” demonstrates how, even as each artist embarked on their own distinctive journey towards abstraction, many of the same forces were at play.
    Both artists shared an initial love of landscape painting and nature before getting swept up in the more radical ideas of their age.
    Born in Stockholm, Af Klint was one of the first women to attend Sweden’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts and began making a living by creating conventional, naturalistic works including botanical studies. Her real passion lay, however, in spiritualism and she became a medium who later claimed that voices had told her to “to execute paintings on the astral plane.” The result was a highly enigmatic, esoteric body of work that she kept secret for decades. As these paintings have become better known by the public, however, many have realized that Af Klint may well have been very first abstract artist.
    Mondrian’s early depictions of plants grew steadily more abstracted over time, until all that remained was the most basic structure of colour and line. At the same time, the Dutch artist’s interest grew in movements like theosophy and anthroposophy. The minimal grid paintings for which he is best known can therefore be understood as attempts to get closer to the essential reality of the universe.
    Though the two artists arrived at very different destinations by the end of their lives—Af Klint’s swirling masses a far cry from Mondrian’s more geometric style—the organic world remains for both the universal language through which they made their biggest breakthroughs.
    See some key works from the exhibition below.
    Piet Mondrian, The Gein Trees along the water (c.1905). Photo courtesy of Kunstmuseum Den Haag.
    Piet Mondrian, Red Amaryllis with blue background (1909–1910). Photo courtesy of Tate.
    Installation view of “Hilma Af Klint and Piet Mondrian” at Tate Modern 2023. Photo: Jai Monaghan, courtesy of Tate.
    Installation view of “Hilma Af Klint and Piet Mondrian” at Tate Modern 2023. Photo: Jai Monaghan, courtesy of Tate.
    Installation view of “Hilma Af Klint and Piet Mondrian” at Tate Modern 2023. Photo: Lucy Green, courtesy of Tate.
    Installation view of “Hilma Af Klint and Piet Mondrian” at Tate Modern 2023. Photo: Jai Monaghan, courtesy of Tate.
    Installation view of “Hilma Af Klint and Piet Mondrian” at Tate Modern 2023. Photo: Jai Monaghan, courtesy of Tate.
    Installation view of “Hilma Af Klint and Piet Mondrian” at Tate Modern 2023. Photo: Jai Monaghan, courtesy of Tate.
    “Hilma af Klint and Piet Mondrian: Forms of Life” is on view through September 3.

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    A New Show in London Is Exploring the Art of Forgery by Presenting Works That Are—You Guessed It—All Fake

    What’s in a forgery? More than you would expect, according to a new show at London’s Courtauld Gallery.
    Opening June 17, “Art and Artifice: Fakes from the Collection” brings together paintings, drawings, and sculptures from the museum’s holdings that have one thing in common: they’re not genuine. The 15th-century panel depicting virgin and child? A 1920s forgery in the style of Botticelli. That watercolor seascape by John Constable? A passing imitation.  
    But the exhibition is less a show about the art of forgery than an inquiry into the value of art—and not just the financial kind. The show’s curators Karen Serres and Rachel Hapoienu instead are attempting to suss out the historical and aesthetic value of fakes. 
    “If this drawing is by Michelangelo, it adds to our understanding of his evolution as a draughtsman,” they said in a joint statement to Artnet News. “If the drawing is by a forger, then it tells a different story altogether, and has value as a teaching tool for our students and researchers. Close examination of a forger’s lines and their comparison to Michelangelo’s lines forces us to consider the draughtsmanship of each artist.” 
    Some fakes too, they added, have been made of works by artists that are little known today, indicating that these artists were likely “much more popular in their own time to give rise to a market for forgeries.” 
    It’s for these educational purposes that the gallery has received forgeries over the years, being an institution dedicated to teaching art history and conservation. Some pieces were donated as out-and-out frauds meant to be studied; some others were gifted by collectors who later learned that their prized works, upon technical analysis and provenance research, are but knock-offs.
    Jacob Savery I, Forgery in the manner of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Rocky landscape with a castle (c. 1590). Photo: The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust).
    Still, though forged works may have been produced to hoodwink collectors or museums, the show makes an argument that they too might be considered artworks themselves. Serres and Hapoienu point to the fake Constable, executed in the 1840s long after the artist’s death, which fooled generations of experts, and to the fact that even a skillfully executed fake could be affecting to a viewer.
    “If you find a piece of art beautiful, or moving, or thought-provoking, does it matter the name of the artist?” they said. “If a fake is good enough to fool all of the experts, does that mean its aesthetic quality is undisputed? Does knowing the artist’s identity automatically enhance our appreciation of a work of art?” 
    In fact, forgers themselves are artists to begin with. The exhibition includes works from the 16th century that were created by well-known artists, as well as those by notorious forgers Han van Meegeren, Falsario del Guercino (Faker of Guercino), and Eric Hebborn, whose counterfeits have entered both art history and the art market.  
    Essentially, the curators hope the show might create more transparency around discussions of art forgery (accompanying the Courtauld’s upcoming online collections database that will allow visitors to easily search its collection for fakes). After all, even with art expertise on hand and technological advancements in authentication, anyone could be duped. 
    “Most of these fakes fooled the experts of the time and later, and many were likewise unmasked by experts, so there is this question of connoisseurship and our reliance on it in the study of art,” said the curators. “We hope it also serves as a reminder of our fallibility, and that we should challenge our assumptions—often we see what we want to see, and we need to try to view works of art with a critical eye and open mind.” 
    See more works in the show below. 
    Umberto Giunti, Forgery in the manner of Sandro Botticelli, Virgin and Child (1920s). Photo: The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust).
    Forgery in the manner of Auguste Rodin, Seated female nude. Photo: The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust).
    Han van Meegeren, Forgery in the manner of Dirk van Baburen, The Procuress (c. 1930). Photo: The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust).
    “Art and Artifice: Fakes from the Collection” is on view at the Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, Strand, London, June 17 through October 8.

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