Immendorf: Copied, Faked, or Authorized

It has been left to a court in Germany to decide whether or not a work apparently by Jörg Immendorff–but probably signed by the artist–is or is not a fake. But to define “fake art”, we have to first define “art”. Of course the word was invented well before Duchamp opened Pandora’s Box. Before, that is, he decreed that the term included found objects, that art need involve only the artist’s choice, not his hand–that the idea is the art. Now that can be true if the idea is profound enough, or the object beautiful enough. But again it might just not be art even if the artist says it is.

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