ARTH3101/5101 Critical Issues (Fall 2023)

Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art is a documentary that chronicles the infamous Knoedler Gallery forgery scandal from its inception all the way to its admittedly anti-climactic end. Nestled as one the core interviewees is Ann Freedman herself, the “Knoedler director who peddled the fakes, to address the situation head-on”. Made You Look presents a wide array of perspectives from different parties caught up in the scandal ranging from duped clients, lawyers, editors, and the very people who made the scandal possible. I admittedly knew very little about this case and was enthralled by the complex scandal that occurred. For my individual issue study I will give an in depth overview of the documentary as well as diving deeper into the court case itself. Ann Freedman in Made You Look Freedman insists throughout the entirety of the documentary that she “did not knowingly sell fakes”. Even after her trusted colleagues confide that the pieces they purchased from her were fake, she a...

      Blog 3 - Nazi-Era Looted Art and Restitutions   Charles Doyle Columbus College of Art & Design ARTH3101:  Critical Issues Contemporary Art Joanne Keston November 8, 2023 Blog 3 - Nazi-Era Looted Art and Restitutions Now we get to the most difficult part of the story, events in 1938 leading up to and including Kristallnaacht, which translates to ‘the night of the broken glass’.  This was a night of horror as Jewish shops were vandalized, and the Nazis started moving people from their homes to ghettos and confiscating most, if not all, their possessions.  It is a story of betrayal on a large scale, the disappearance of trust, and death, as well as a campaign of persecution, expropriation, and forced emigration.  ( Ltd., 2000, p. 121 )             Hitler was fully in control at the beginning of 1938.    He was convinced he had come to fulfill...

On July 21, 2021, the Hyperallergic podcast released an episode titled “Understanding Why a Harvard Museum Will Return Standing Bear’s Tomahawk.” In this 24 minute episode, Hrag Vartanian of Hyperallergic conversed with lawyer and member of Pawnee tribe Brett Chapman about a special tomahawk and its journey back home. Photo of the Tomahawk and Portrait of Standing Bear on Display via Podcast Episode Page About a decade after the Civil War (in which the 14th amendment was passed), the Ponca nation was forced to move from Nebraska to an “Indian Territory” in Oklahoma. Standing Bear was a Ponca Chief who became an advocate for Native American Civil Rights as a result of this treatment by the US government. After their removal from Nebraska, they were not allowed to leave the new territory without permission. On the long journey to this new territory, Standing Bear’s daughter died among 200 others. Shortly after their arrival, his son passed as well. Standing Bear did not want to bury hi...

Pre-Colonial SouthEast Asian Art Imani Burke Pre-colonial art in SouthEast Asia was thriving with many religious influences including Janai, Islam, Catholicism, and Christianity. South east Asia contains Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia, and the Philippines. But technically the Philippines wasn't referenced until much later on and was the only country in that region that did not have an influence with  Hinduism of  Buddhism. The  Philippines was colonized several times by the Spaniards, Americans, and the Japanese. During the Spanish occupation, there was a vast change in religion, art, and music.  The Spanish occupation ruled the Philippines from the beginning of the 16th century to 1821, which is a pretty huge time period for the merging of cultures and beliefs.  Magellan led the first Spanish invasion and took control of Cebu, but quickly met his fate on the island of Mactan, then later succeeded to con...

  Andy Menzel- Today I’m going to talk to you about art forgery and its influence on Art as well as a little bit about its history and what modern historians have done to make it easier in detecting these forgeries. Andy Menzel- Before we dive too deeply into the proverbial “meat and potatoes” we should talk about the differences between fraud, forgery and fakes. Oxford dictionary describes art fraud as having 4 important and notable things. One, there must be a level of deception, particularly on the side of the defendant. Two, there must be some kind of harm because of said deception. Three, the victim that was involved was deceived and finally there was a level of knowledge and dishonesty about the deception, basically it wasn’t accidental. Art forgery is described as the crime of copying money or documents in order to cheat people. An art fake is described by the oxford dictionary as something that isn’t as it appears to be. So, there’s definitely some intersecting between th...