Hoax Museum Blog: Art

Sun Tunnels for Sale — In yet another eBay hoax, Utah's Sun Tunnels were offered for sale a few days ago. In case you haven't heard of them, the Sun Tunnels are a series of large concrete tubes sitting out in the Utah desert. They were designed by the artist Nancy Holt back in the '70s. Unfortunately, the person offering them for sale didn't own them. But that's okay, because no one bid on them anyway, which is a little sad considering that they're pretty cool and were offered for a bargain-basement price. The real owner is the artist Nancy Holt herself.

Art Forgery — MyStudios.com has an interesting History of Art Forgery (via Fiendish Is The Word). Plus, they challenged 20 contemporary artists to create works in the style of past masters, and you can see the results here.

Johann Dieter Wassmann — I've already linked to the website of the art of Johann Dieter Wassmann, but The Age has a full article about this fictitious artist.

Origami Boulders — Origami Boulder: The Japanese art of folding paper used to make round rocks

Bleeding Napoleon, The Art of Johann Dieter Wassmann — Check out this site dedicated to the art of Johann Dieter Wassmann, a university lecturer/sewerage engineer/artist who lived and worked in Germany from 1841-1898. It's incredibly elaborate, including his life history and samples of his work. And nowhere on the site does it suggest that the entire thing is a hoax, that Johann Dieter Wassmann never existed. You only find this out if you click on the link at the bottom of the page that says 'Next Show: Melbourne International Arts Festival, 12-25 October, 2003.' This takes you to the website of the Melbourne Festival itself where it admits that, "The Wassmann Foundation and artist Johann Dieter Wassmann are constructions created by American-born installation artist Jeff Wassmann and Australian curator/writer Kirsten Rann." Thanks to John Plutt for telling me about this site.

Van Gogh Caught on Film — Dutch filmmakers who claimed to have a roll of film showing Vincent Van Gogh walking by admit it was all a hoax.

Fake Goyas — The NY Times reports on a growing controversy in the art world. The famous Black Paintings by Francisco Goya may not have been painted by Goya at all. A new book coming out speculates that they were actually painted by his son, who's been considered pretty much a nobody as far as art historians have been concerned.

The Mystery of Splat Solved — Finally an answer to the riddle of 'what is Splat' that sounds like it's probably correct. According to John Lundberg of circlemakers.org, Splat was a sculpture created by the British artist John Isaacs in the mid 1990s.

Disumbrationist Art — A reader of my book wrote to me pointing out that in the book I claim that examples of Paul Jordan Smith's hoax 'Disumbrationist' paintings could be found on my website. But in fact, the paintings weren't there. My fault entirely. At some point, during some reorganization of the website, the page of Disumbrationist Art was deleted and never put back up. So here it is again, restored to its original glory. For those not familiar with the Disumbrationist story, Paul Jordan Smith was a novelist living in LA during the 1920s. As a joke he adopted the persona of a scruffy Russian artist, Pavel Jerdanowitch, and submitted some paintings 'in the modern style' to art contests. Jerdanowitch (i.e. Smith) claimed that his paintings represented the Disumbrationist School of Art. Inevitably Jerdanowitch soon became a darling of the art world, thus proving that art critics are suckers for brooding geniuses with foreign-sounding names.

Czar of the Bizarre — The Czar of Bizarre: sideshow-related art, prose, and links.

This is not a calculator — I wouldn't call this a hoax website, but it's definitely a site that has a strong viewpoint about reality. To be precise, the creator of the site knows exactly what is a calculator, and what is not a calculator.

Princess Caraboo Portrait — An 1817 portrait of Princess Caraboo done by Thomas Barker is going up for auction at Christie's soon. Bidding is supposed to reach at least £6000. If I had the money I'd bid on it. It would go nicely above my desk.

John Myatt, forger — The forger John Myatt has now become respectable and is showing and selling his art in galleries. The works are still forgeries, but now they're openly acknowledged as such, and they're flying off the shelves.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo — The St. Louis Post-Dispatch asks of the Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo dance troupe: is it parody or real ballet? What is Les Ballets Trockadero all about? From their website, it's about "teaching hairy guys in tutus how to take flight."

Mortimer Menpes — An exhibition of the art of Mortimer Menpes is being displayed at the National Library of Australia. Menpes was known for making fakes of the works of the great masters. This was in the early 20th century.

Museum of Forgery — The Museum of Forgery: a nomadic institution dedicated to the aesthetics of forgery.