[HN Gopher] How to spot a perfect fake: the world's top art forg...
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How to spot a perfect fake: the world's top art forgery detective
(2018)
Author : Geekette
Score : 26 points
Date : 2021-09-28 10:24 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| chris_overseas wrote:
| I posted an article earlier today[0] about an AI that recently
| identified a probable fake painting. It certainly seems like an
| area where AI should be able to compliment and/or outperform
| humans.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28692543
| keiferski wrote:
| If you are at all interested in art forgery (or just good cinema)
| I highly recommend the Orson Welles film _F for Fake._ It's a
| true story about how a man who faked a biography of Howard Hughes
| went to meet one of the greatest art forgers of the 20th century,
| all wrapped together with great commentary on the concepts of
| fakery and originality. Incredible film.
|
| The entire thing used to be on YouTube but here's the trailer:
|
| https://youtu.be/twlA_yzagXo
|
| Edit: _Every Frame a Painting_ made a great analysis video on it
| too:
|
| https://youtu.be/1GXv2C7vwX0
| devindotcom wrote:
| I'd never heard of this, how interesting. I'll save this for a
| rainy day (and there are lots coming). Thank you.
| keiferski wrote:
| No problem! It is a really entertaining movie.
| devindotcom wrote:
| The story of the fake album of Galileo's moon illustrations was a
| truly fascinating one:
|
| https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/16/a-very-rare-bo...
|
| and one of my favorite stories of all time, about the theft of
| the Mona Lisa, similarly may hinge on forgery:
|
| https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/reprints/why_mona_lisa_s...
|
| Unfortunately you have to page through in this virtual magazine,
| but it's a great read. Apparently not entirely substantiated
| though.
| nehushtan wrote:
| (2018)
| [deleted]
| teleforce wrote:
| Detecting anomaly and fake is the foremost killer application of
| AI. Given enough 'ground truth' data with enough details and
| dimensions, AI algorithms should be able to spot anomaly or fake
| much better than any human and it can be easily scalable unlike
| human.
|
| Ironically, however, the thing that make AI popular to the mass
| is deepfake. For this purpose, AI is then being used recursively
| to accurately create and detect deepfake in a useless vicious
| cycle.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| The discussion about "If the fake is good enough, what's the
| problem?" was dismissed by the article hastily. They suggest that
| to study a fake Rembrandt as a real one, would muddy our
| understanding of Rembrandt. I wonder how many of these fakes in
| private collections are studied at all? In fact if studied,
| aren't they detected as fakes?
|
| It's an honest question, if a forger is as talented as Rembrandt
| then why isn't their work valuable too?
| elliekelly wrote:
| The Barnes Foundation has (or at least used to have) a really
| great exhibit where they'd showcase the real art alongside a
| reproduction.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > It's an honest question, if a forger is as talented as
| Rembrandt then why isn't their work valuable too?
|
| Because there's no originality in it and the time for that
| style has passed. Plus, there will always be more imitators.
| Same reason tribute bands aren't notable, even if they perform
| better than the original musicians.
| nubb wrote:
| Wouldn't a fair argument be that replication isn't as valuable
| as art creation?
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| But these forgeries are not copies - that would be trivial to
| detect ("Hey! Here's the real one over here!")
|
| They're imagined art in the style of a master. Perhaps a
| recreation of a lost work, or a portrait of a historical
| figure not previously pictured. Lots of creation in that.
| aaroninsf wrote:
| <researches the legality of forged NFTs, quickly pivots to
| legitimate NFTs for forged works>
| bell-cot wrote:
| No snob appeal, nor bragging rights with your rich friends (or
| well-to-do supporters of your museum).
|
| No perceived scarcity, to (hopefully) appreciate in value as
| the uber-rich keep bidding up the values of very scarce goods.
| bloqs wrote:
| This not a helpful approach. Art maintains it's value as it
| expresses the depth of human creativity. If someone imitates
| it, it's an entirely different (and vastly more common)
| skillset and thus considerably less valuable. Further
| devalued by the communal irritation at fakes in the art
| community. Creatives take humanity forwards, it is the cusp
| of that creative point that is being celebrated.
| keiferski wrote:
| This is largely a Romantic conception of art (circa early
| 19th century) and not one that would necessarily be true
| when _art_ meant something like _craft_ , which was what it
| meant for a long, long time (see the Latin _ars_ or Greek
| _techne_.)
|
| Medieval European artists, for example, likely would have
| no issue with any sort of copying or "fakes", as the
| primary goal wasn't self-expression.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| It's hard to make a forgery. I'd guess it doesn't change the
| scarcity equation much?
| bell-cot wrote:
| This. From a quick web search, a matched pair of portrait
| paintings by Rembrandt sold for $180 million in 2016.
|
| I'll venture that the most-skilled art forgers currently
| living would jump at the chance to earn even 1/100 that
| much, for producing a pair of faux-Rembrandt paintings.
|
| [Edit - add the obvious missing "the".]
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