art forgery as
a class weapon
water-based paint, linen canvas, wooden frame, coffee, dust,
tea, paper, ink, rust accelerator, mordant, baking soda, staples
2024
Vedova's paintings were initially received as a form of political and aesthetic resistance to the alienation of the industrial world, opposing it with the artist's authentic, expressive, and unrepeatable gesture. The making of two forged paintings, identical in every detail, from the paint splatters to the holes left by woodworm, raises the suspicion that painting itself was not spared from the commodification imposed by the market, and that the promise of salvation held out by abstract expressionism was ultimately absorbed into processes of serial production.
The title art forgery as a class weapon opens up the possibility that these objects may have lost their political charge on an aesthetic level, but that they can still be relevant today if forged, becoming a tool of class struggle through which established, emerging, or marginalized artists can retaliate against an elitist system, undermining the stability of the market that sustains it.