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Speaker 1: Pushkin. Andy Warhole once gave a silkscreen portrait of Marilyn

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Speaker 1: Monroe to a skeptical friend. Just tell me in your

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Speaker 1: heart of hearts that you know it isn't art, said

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Speaker 1: his friend. Warhole wasn't offended. Wrap it up in brown paper,

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Speaker 1: put it in the back of a closet, he replied.

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Speaker 1: One day it'll be worth a million dollars. Perhaps he

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Speaker 1: under sold himself. In May twenty twenty two, another of

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Speaker 1: Warholes marilyn silkscreens, Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, became the most

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Speaker 1: expensive work of twentieth century art when it sold for

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Speaker 1: one hundred and ninety five million dollars. Shot Sage Blue

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Speaker 1: Marilyn's backstory is as striking as the price. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty four, Dorothy Podber, an artist and provocateur, came to

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Speaker 1: Warhole studio the factory, pulled out a gun and fired

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Speaker 1: through several of the portraits. Four years later, Warhol himself

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Speaker 1: was shot and nearly killed in the factory, which can

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Speaker 1: only have added to the mystique of bullet scarred Warhole pictures.

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Speaker 1: The picture deserves the cliche iconic, but there is a

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Speaker 1: much more obscure portrait that has a claim to being

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Speaker 1: Warhol's most interesting and definitive work. May I offer for

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Speaker 1: your consideration Chay, a silk screen picture based on a

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Speaker 1: newspaper photograph of the corpse of the recently executed Marxist

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Speaker 1: revolutionary leader Chay Guavara. It is, in most ways a

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Speaker 1: classic Warhol portrait. It was made in the same way

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Speaker 1: and by the same man as many of his other

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Speaker 1: instantly recognizable silk screens. But what makes Chay so interesting

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Speaker 1: is that when it was first exhibited for sale in

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Speaker 1: row Home's leading art gallery, Andy Warhol apparently had no

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Speaker 1: idea that the picture existed. I'm Tim Harford and you're

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Speaker 1: listening to Cautionary Tales. This is another one of our

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Speaker 1: cautionary conversations, and I'm very excited today to welcome Alice Sherwood.

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Speaker 1: Alice has worked for organizations from Accentia to the BBC

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Speaker 1: and is currently a visiting Senior Research Fellow at the

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Speaker 1: Policy Institute at King's College, London. But the reason I

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Speaker 1: wanted to talk to her is because she's written an

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Speaker 1: absolutely delightful book titled Authenticity, Reclaiming Real in a Counterfeit Culture.

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Speaker 1: It's absolutely packed with stories I hadn't heard. That immediately

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Speaker 1: made me think and learn. Alice, welcome to Caution Detales.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Tim. I'm really glad to be here.

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Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad you're here as well. And I found

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Speaker 1: out about this story from your book Authenticity. And I

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Speaker 1: was a little bit naughty in my introduction because I

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Speaker 1: said that the Chay picture was made in the same

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Speaker 1: way and by the same man as many of Warhol's

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Speaker 1: other silk screens. But that man wasn't Andy Warhole, was it.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't Andy Warhole. It's absolutely true that it was

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Speaker 2: the same man who made many of Andy's warholes, and

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Speaker 2: it was a man called Gerard Malanga or Jerry, who

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Speaker 2: was Warhole's very very long time assistant in all his

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Speaker 2: silk screening and in much else. And in fact, this

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Speaker 2: was so well known and where knowlished that there's an

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Speaker 2: interview with Andy Warhol for Cavalier magazine when they're asking

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Speaker 2: Andy all about his pictures, and after a while he says,

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Speaker 2: slightly irritated, if you want to know about my pictures,

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Speaker 2: why don't you speak to Gerard? He painted most of them,

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Speaker 2: So it.

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Speaker 1: Wasn't a secret at all. Andy was playing with these

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Speaker 1: ideas of authenticity and authorship. Could you tell me a

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Speaker 1: little bit about the actual process of making these silk screens,

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Speaker 1: what was going on when they were made.

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Speaker 2: Well, a silk screen is effectively a sophisticated multi layered stencil.

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Speaker 2: So in order to make a silk screen, you don't

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Speaker 2: take her paint brush in a canvas. What you take

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Speaker 2: is an image, which can be a drawing or a photo,

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Speaker 2: and you have various stencils made of it for the

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Speaker 2: different colors. And then what you do is you put

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Speaker 2: the stencils on top of the canvas or paper, and

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Speaker 2: you push the paint through with a squeegee to get

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Speaker 2: a layer of that color, and then you use another

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Speaker 2: stencil for another color and push the paint through there.

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Speaker 2: And sometimes you might touch it up a bit with

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Speaker 2: a paint bush at the end, but mostly when Andy

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Speaker 2: and Jerry worked together, they did very little touching up.

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Speaker 2: It was quite a mechanical, quite a fast process.

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Speaker 1: And the photographs themselves were not by Warhole, and I

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Speaker 1: understand the stencils weren't made by Warhole either.

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Speaker 2: There was an awful lot of if you like, borrowing,

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Speaker 2: an outsourcing. When he wanted to stop being a commercial artist.

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Speaker 2: He was very successful commercial artist, particularly making drawings for

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Speaker 2: shops and stores and retail outlets of ladies, handbags and shoes,

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Speaker 2: but he wanted to move into the artistic world properly,

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Speaker 2: and his big inspiration was that he wouldn't make drawings anymore.

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Speaker 2: What he would do would be to take photos, and

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Speaker 2: not just any photos, but I can't nick striking emotive photos.

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Speaker 2: So these could be Hollywood stars like Marilyn monroel Is Taylor.

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Speaker 2: And then what he would do is have the stencils

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Speaker 2: the ascetates made for him by someone else, and then

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Speaker 2: he and Jerry or other people would make the images.

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Speaker 1: So you've got these images where the photograph is not

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Speaker 1: by Warhol and the stencil is made by a printer,

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Speaker 1: and then Jerry Malanga is often the guy actually squeezing

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Speaker 1: the paint onto it and doing the silkscreen process. So

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Speaker 1: is it fair to say that in some cases Warhol

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Speaker 1: would never have touched the canvas at all.

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Speaker 2: It's absolutely fair to say that. And in fact, later

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Speaker 2: on in his life he actually had a rubber stamp

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Speaker 2: made of his signature, and he gave the rubber stamp

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Speaker 2: to friends so that they could sign in inverted Commas

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Speaker 2: his pictures for him, and certainly as time went on

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Speaker 2: he outsourced more and more, so you certainly got situations

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Speaker 2: where the whole thing was made off site, sometimes with

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Speaker 2: instructions Aroundy, sometimes with instructions from someone who knew Andy,

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Speaker 2: and he really wouldn't see the result, sometimes until it

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Speaker 2: turned up to where he was meeting the client, still

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Speaker 2: slightly with the paint wet.

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Speaker 1: So this is a huge break, I think, from traditions

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Speaker 1: in art. And it's not like a stylistic break in

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Speaker 1: the way that say, a Jackson Pollock drip painting looks

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Speaker 1: different to a Rubens. I mean, stylistically they're incredibly different.

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Speaker 1: But deep down people really really care where the Rubens

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Speaker 1: actually painted the Rubens, and people really care whether Pollock

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Speaker 1: painted the Pollock. But in the case of the Warholes,

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Speaker 1: we know perfectly well that Warhole didn't touch the painting

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Speaker 1: in some cases and gave credit to Jerry Malango, and

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Speaker 1: that was kind of part of the art.

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Speaker 2: He was very deliberately distancing himself from the classical way

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Speaker 2: of making pictures. You know, our classic picture of the

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Speaker 2: artist is the man. It's usually a man with the

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Speaker 2: brushloaded with paint, conceiving of this great image which he

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Speaker 2: then paints, and authenticity is linked to a person, a

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Speaker 2: person's idea, a person's inspiration, and a person's work. And

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Speaker 2: Andy disposed pretty much of all of that. You know,

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Speaker 2: he actually said once, I want to be a machine.

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Speaker 2: He didn't want works that were literally man made. He

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Speaker 2: wanted to shock people and to make art industrial. And

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Speaker 2: that really messes with our ideas of authenticity.

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Speaker 1: No, it really does. And he wasn't, I think, the

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Speaker 1: first artist to not necessarily be doing much of the

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Speaker 1: actual painting, but he does seem to have been the

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Speaker 1: first artist to have made a virtue of it. And

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Speaker 1: I wanted to go back all the way back to

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Speaker 1: Ruben's because there is this wonderful passage in your book

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Speaker 1: where you describe various negotiations between Rubens and various rich,

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Speaker 1: powerful clients, and what they're arguing about is how much

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Speaker 1: of the painting is Ruben's actually going to do.

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Speaker 2: There's a completely lovely correspondence which is between a diplomat

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Speaker 2: called Sir Dudley Carlton, who is very keen to acquire

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Speaker 2: a Rubens and is prepared to swap all sorts of

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Speaker 2: ancient antiquities and statues that he's bought in Italy for

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Speaker 2: a genuine Rubens. And Rubens is very helpful and says,

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Speaker 2: I offer you the flower of my stock. But as

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Speaker 2: he describes each of his paintings, he keeps saying, oh, yes,

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Speaker 2: this one is completely wonderful. It was begun by one

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Speaker 2: of my students, but I'll touch it up so it

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Speaker 2: can pass for an original. And each time Dudley Carton goes,

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Speaker 2: that's not really what I had in mind, and again

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Speaker 2: Rubens comes back and said, oh well, I'll offer you

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Speaker 2: another painting. And this correspondence keeps going until Dudley Carlton says,

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Speaker 2: I want one that is by Rubens and only by Rubens,

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Speaker 2: And at the end of that Rubens says, very charmingly,

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Speaker 2: of course I'll do that for you, but it will

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Speaker 2: cost you a bit more. So.

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Speaker 1: People were very clear that, you know, not every Rubens

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Speaker 1: is exclusively by Rubens, and Rubens was, well, I I

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Speaker 1: guess we don't know exactly what the clients were getting,

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Speaker 1: but it seemed that he was quite transparent about it. Now,

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Speaker 1: of course, in the modern world we have to look

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Speaker 1: back at Rubens or Rembrandts or whatever and we have

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Speaker 1: to deduce how much were they actually involved. And I

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Speaker 1: learned from your book that there were these quite fine

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Speaker 1: distinctions between saying the Rembrandt and studio of Rembrandt and

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Speaker 1: circle of Rembrandt. Could you explain those to us?

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Speaker 2: Yes, I mean one of the most fascinating things is

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Speaker 2: there are if you're in the art market, and particularly

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Speaker 2: if you're an auction has basically nine levels of authenticity

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Speaker 2: for a picture, so going from totally authentic to really

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Speaker 2: not sure, and you will find them at the back

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Speaker 2: of auction catalogs. But just to pick the key ones.

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Speaker 2: If you have the artist's full name in the description

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Speaker 2: of picture, so ren Brandt van Raun, they think it's

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Speaker 2: actually by the artist, anything less than the full name,

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Speaker 2: and it's less than totally by the artists. So it

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Speaker 2: might be studio, of which means, rather like Rubens, it

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Speaker 2: was done by some students, maybe with some touchups or

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Speaker 2: the original sketch by the artist. Or it can be circle,

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Speaker 2: of which means it was done by someone at the

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Speaker 2: same time who was an admirer or working in the

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Speaker 2: same tradition, and that's slightly less valuable obviously than one

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Speaker 2: completely by the master. And then if something is done,

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Speaker 2: say several hundred years later, but in that style, it's

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Speaker 2: worth a lot less, but it would be described as

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Speaker 2: manner of And all these gradations affect the authenticity but

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Speaker 2: also the price. And then this to a huge extent,

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Speaker 2: to a huge extent. So I write about something called

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Speaker 2: a drawing called Labella Princeipessa, which the owner totally believes

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Speaker 2: is by Leonardo da Vinci, in which case it will

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Speaker 2: be worth he says, one hundred and fifty million dollars.

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Speaker 2: But when it was sold, it was sold as manner

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Speaker 2: of so at nineteenth century kind of imitation, and it

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Speaker 2: was sold for twenty two thousand dollars.

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Speaker 1: Cautionary tales will be back after the break. Well, I'm

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Speaker 1: curious as to what we should make of the decisions

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Speaker 1: of the army market in this respect, because you've got

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Speaker 1: the same painting, it has the same quality, the same

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Speaker 1: visual quality. But if an art historian or a connoisseur

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Speaker 1: decides to upgrade it or downgrade it, and the art

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Speaker 1: market accepts that change in status, I mean we're talking

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Speaker 1: about adding several zeros or subtracting several zeros to the

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Speaker 1: price of this painting. Even though it's the same painting.

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Speaker 2: It's difficult because even art experts are fallible, so sometimes

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Speaker 2: they'll make a judgment and sometimes they'll change it. And

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Speaker 2: the market really does decide, you know. It takes into

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Speaker 2: account all the available information and says, well, we can

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Speaker 2: listen to this scholar, and we can listen to that scholar,

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Speaker 2: but we noticed that that museum didn't exhibit that painting

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Speaker 2: as a Leonardo, and on balance, the market will decide

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Speaker 2: the value of this work.

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Speaker 1: Well, you describe these nine grades of authenticity, but it

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Speaker 1: seems that Warhole kind of obliterates many of those grades.

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Speaker 1: This brings us back to the story of the chay

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Speaker 1: Guavara silk screen that I teased people with at the

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Speaker 1: beginning of this episode. Tell us how this chay Guavara

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Speaker 1: painting comes into existence. It's quite a fascinating tale.

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Speaker 2: Well, it starts, as we said, with Andy and Jerry,

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Speaker 2: with Warhole and Malanga, and in nineteen sixty three when

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Speaker 2: they meet, Warhol is looking for somebody to help him

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Speaker 2: do these silk screens, these pictures that aren't what we

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Speaker 2: would traditionally call paintings or art, and Malanga, as well

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Speaker 2: as being very cool and very beautiful, which matters to

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Speaker 2: Warhole has also had experience as silk screening, not art

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Speaker 2: but actually men's ties, men's neckwear. He already knows how

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Speaker 2: to do these things, and he's got a useful skill,

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Speaker 2: and they set to it and they create an astonishing

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Speaker 2: number of screen prints in the first year. I think

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Speaker 2: they do something like sixty Liz Taylor's, a handful of Elvis's,

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Speaker 2: a lot of those car crash pictures. All of these

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Speaker 2: are multiples, so lots of screen prints, and within the

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Speaker 2: screen prints, if you've ever seen a warhole, quite a

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Speaker 2: lot of repetitive images too. So they work really really

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Speaker 2: hard churning out these things, and Andy is building a

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Speaker 2: name for himself and they're getting more and more into

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Speaker 2: the underground and artistic circles, both Malanga and Andy. And

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Speaker 2: by about nineteen sixty four sixty five, Andy is also

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Speaker 2: getting very interested in film. He's made some things on film,

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Speaker 2: and he's quite key to use one of the very

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Speaker 2: new fangled video cameras, but video cameras then are very

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Speaker 2: very expensive. And what he does is he comes to

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Speaker 2: a deal where he says, look, I will run off

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Speaker 2: some screen prints of a portrait of myself from an

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Speaker 2: assetate he'd made a year earlier, and I will give

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Speaker 2: those to you in exchange for having the video to use.

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Speaker 2: So he's really getting into using these screen prints almost

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Speaker 2: as currency because there are so many of them. He

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Speaker 2: swaps them for all sorts of things, and Gerard is

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Speaker 2: involved in those, and Gerrard is actually involved in his films.

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Speaker 2: And then what happens is that they've both done so

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Speaker 2: much of this screen printing and filming that Gerard is

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Speaker 2: beginning to tire of what he calls the factory scene.

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Speaker 2: And he's also in love actually with a Italian society

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Speaker 2: beauty called Benedetta, and he follows her to Rome. He

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Speaker 2: says to Andy, look, I'm just going to stop. I'm

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Speaker 2: off to Rome. I'm off to Italy for the film festival.

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Speaker 2: And Andy tries to persuade him to stay because obviously

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Speaker 2: he's a very valuable person in the making of all

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Speaker 2: these screen prints, but no, no, no, Gerard heads off.

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Speaker 2: About a month in to being in Italy, Gerared runs

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Speaker 2: out of money, so he telegrams Andy and says, I

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Speaker 2: am broke. You promised, please send money, but he gets

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Speaker 2: no reply, possibly because Andy is a not really very

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Speaker 2: amused that Gerard has left him in the lurch.

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Speaker 1: I mean, Andy could be quite cruel, I think to

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Speaker 1: his associates, couldn't he.

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Speaker 2: Yes, he was certainly very keen on getting the best

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Speaker 2: use out of them.

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Speaker 1: So we have Andy in New York. He's lost his assistant,

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Speaker 1: Jerry in Rome, chasing this society beauty, running out of money,

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Speaker 1: writing to Andy. Andy's ignoring him. So what happens next?

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Speaker 2: So what happens next is that Jered simply does on

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Speaker 2: his own and for himself what he has always done

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Speaker 2: with Andy, which is he takes a striking image, in

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Speaker 2: this case one of the jacobarra taken after his death,

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Speaker 2: and he sends the photograph off to get some assetates made,

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Speaker 2: and then he runs off some screenprints. At first he

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Speaker 2: runs off a couple, and he gets in touch with

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Speaker 2: Andy and says, listen, I'm doing these as warholes. I'm

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Speaker 2: sure you won't mind, And again he doesn't get an answer,

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Speaker 2: so he assumes it's okay, and then he runs off

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Speaker 2: fifty more versions and copies for an exhibition at an

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Speaker 2: Italian art gallery called the Tartaruga Gallery.

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Speaker 1: And he's very clear that he is proposing to sell

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Speaker 1: these as Andy warholes. They're not circle of warhole, to

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Speaker 1: use the old distinction. They are Andy warholes absolutely, and

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Speaker 1: Andy doesn't say yes, but he doesn't say no.

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Speaker 2: Andy doesn't say anything. Jared keeps saying, I assume it's okay.

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Speaker 2: And of course the way he tells and sells it

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Speaker 2: to the gallery owner is that these are warholes. I mean,

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Speaker 2: the gallery owner undeniably believes that they are. So the

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Speaker 2: show is a complete sellout, and in fact, the pictures,

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Speaker 2: the paintings are sold before the exhibition even opens. It's

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Speaker 2: a huge success. And Gerard does try telling Andy, look,

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Speaker 2: I've made you a huge success in communisticaly, he says,

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Speaker 2: but he still doesn't get any answer from Andy. The

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Speaker 2: rumors start flying that these are not actually real warholes,

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Speaker 2: and the gallery owner gets wind of these rumors and

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Speaker 2: he confronts Malanga and he says to him, listen, are

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Speaker 2: these real or not? Because I have to tell you

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Speaker 2: that forgery carries the fifteen to twenty year prison sentence

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Speaker 2: in Italy.

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Speaker 1: So this is a big problem for Jerry because he's

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Speaker 1: been running off these things. I mean, they're really not

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Speaker 1: clearly not warholes, and he is now facing spending half

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Speaker 1: a lifetime in an Italian jail. So what does he do?

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Speaker 2: It's an absolute disaster from his point of view. There

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Speaker 2: is no money, threatened with jail and a very very

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Speaker 2: angry gallery owner, and he wires Andy a telegram saying

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Speaker 2: I will be in an Italian municipal prison without bail.

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Speaker 2: Please help me, Please please help me. And then what

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Speaker 2: I think is a very nice sixties touch signs it

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Speaker 2: peace Gerard.

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Speaker 1: So there we are. Jerry Malanga is, in his own words,

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Speaker 1: trapped like a rat in Rome. He's threatened with fifteen

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Speaker 1: to twenty years in prison. He writes to Andy Warhol

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Speaker 1: one more time, begging for help, and we'll hear how

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Speaker 1: Warhole responds. After the break, I'm back with Alice Sherwood,

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Speaker 1: the author of the book Authenticity. We're talking about authenticity

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Speaker 1: in art. We are talking, in particular about a very

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Speaker 1: interesting episode in Andy Warhol's life where we left it.

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Speaker 1: Warhole's long term assistant, Jerry Malanga, had gone freelance sold

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Speaker 1: silkscreen prints in Rome, claimed they were Warhol originals. Warhole

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Speaker 1: possibly didn't know anything about it. Warhole certainly hadn't said

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Speaker 1: anything about it. And when Jerry Mlanger was threatened with

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Speaker 1: jail for forgery. He begged Andy to save his skin.

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Speaker 1: So Andy broke his silence. What did he say?

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Speaker 2: Eventually he breaks the silence and he agrees to authenticate

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Speaker 2: the pictures that Malanga has made on the condition that

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Speaker 2: he receives the proceeds of the sale. So he wires

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Speaker 2: the gallery owner and he says, Jay Gubars are originals. However,

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Speaker 2: Malanga not authorized to sell them. Contact me the bill.

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Speaker 1: Let's just underline that for a second. So Warhole may

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Speaker 1: not have even known these paintings existed. I mean, he

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Speaker 1: may have known because Malanga was writing to him, but

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Speaker 1: he may not even have known these paintings exist. Here's

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Speaker 1: these complaints from Italy that there are these forgeries circulating.

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Speaker 1: He gets this begging message from Malanga saying you've got

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Speaker 1: to help me, and his response is to retroactively create

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Speaker 1: genuine Andy Warholes. When he sends this telegram and he

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Speaker 1: says the Cheguavara paintings are genuine, what is he doing

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Speaker 1: is he is he stealing Jerry Mlanga's paintings, Is he

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Speaker 1: saving Malenger's skin? Or is the whole thing this astounding

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Speaker 1: piece of conceptual art how do we even understand what's

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Speaker 1: going on here?

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Speaker 2: I think we need to look back at Andy, who

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Speaker 2: was very, very keen on money to understand what was

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Speaker 2: going on in his head. And Andy a couple of

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Speaker 2: years earlier had worked out that he could put his

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Speaker 2: name on things and they would become more valuable or

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Speaker 2: they would become warholes. So he was ahead of the game,

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Speaker 2: if you like, in terms of understanding how art might

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Speaker 2: become a brand. And he even put an advert in

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Speaker 2: the Village Voice saying, this is Andy Warhol, I will

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Speaker 2: put my name to any of the following and he

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Speaker 2: sends a long list of all the things that he

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Speaker 2: would happily sign or endorse, from records to film equipment

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Speaker 2: to food. So I would say it's unlikely that top

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Speaker 2: of his mind he's tried to save Malanga's skin. So

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Speaker 2: I think it's in my view, something quite different. For me,

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Speaker 2: it is the moment when Warhol realized and enacted the

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Speaker 2: fact that what an artist said about a work could

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Speaker 2: be more important than the work itself. He was the

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Speaker 2: artist as authorizer. So I call it the authenticity shift

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Speaker 2: from a concept of artist's hand to the artist's brand,

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Speaker 2: where you have a whole collection of products that can

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Speaker 2: have the artists or the brands mark on them, but

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Speaker 2: don't necessarily need to have been made by the person

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Speaker 2: whose name they bear. I think it just points up

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Speaker 2: what a tangle we have got ourselves in about what

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Speaker 2: is authentic in a world where things are not just

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Speaker 2: handmade but machine made and multiplied, and where an artist

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Speaker 2: like Andy can make ten thousand works in a lifetime

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Speaker 2: you know you've written about for me, he made somewhere

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Speaker 2: between I think twenty one and forty.

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Speaker 1: This seems to be an extraordinary parater because people everywhere,

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Speaker 1: but particularly in the art market, people prize scarcity. Ideally,

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Speaker 1: they prize uniqueness. And there's one of the reasons why

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Speaker 1: Leonardo da Vinci works are so highly valued, and Vermire

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Speaker 1: works are so highly valued, are so few of them.

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Speaker 1: And yet Warhol breaks all those rules, and yet the

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Speaker 1: Financial Times called him a one man art market index.

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Speaker 1: His whole thing was ubiquity and repetition. So he breaks

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Speaker 1: the scarcity rules, he breaks the uniqueness rules, and yet

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Speaker 1: his works are worth an enormous amount of money. So

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Speaker 1: what lessons should we draw from that?

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Speaker 2: I think the lessons that we want to draw is

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Speaker 2: that we're living in different times, so that oil paintings,

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Speaker 2: if you like, belonged to a time where there were

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Speaker 2: fewer objects, more time to appreciate of subtlety and layers

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Speaker 2: of paint and the way they were applied, and things

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Speaker 2: were scarce. Pictures were limited by the hours of an

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Speaker 2: artist's life, and the number of objects that people owned

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Speaker 2: and the number of things vying for people's attention were

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Speaker 2: far fewer, so we were clear what authenticity was. Now

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Speaker 2: we live in very very different times. We live in

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Speaker 2: very crowded times. We are assailed by images all the time,

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Speaker 2: and so resources aren't the scarce thing. The real scarcity

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Speaker 2: is our attention. I think you could classify your warhole

395
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Speaker 2: buyers as people who are cash rich but time poor.

396
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Speaker 2: And what warholes do above all is their attention grabbing

397
00:28:01,650 --> 00:28:04,290
Speaker 2: they become and must have because you can appreciate a

398
00:28:04,330 --> 00:28:08,770
Speaker 2: warhole very quickly. We immediately recognize, as you said earlier,

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Speaker 2: as a warhole. We know it's a warhole, and if

400
00:28:11,770 --> 00:28:14,370
Speaker 2: we put it on our walls, everybody else will know

401
00:28:14,570 --> 00:28:18,250
Speaker 2: it's a warhole too, without any explanation needed. So it's

402
00:28:18,290 --> 00:28:24,290
Speaker 2: a very time effective purchase. We've moved into something where

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00:28:24,770 --> 00:28:29,530
Speaker 2: the economy, the scarcity in the economy was things and money,

404
00:28:30,930 --> 00:28:36,970
Speaker 2: to an economy where the scarcity is really scarcity of attention.

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Speaker 2: And therefore the sort of things that we respond to

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Speaker 2: and particularly in the art world, are ones that are

407
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Speaker 2: much more like posters. Things have to stand out, and

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Speaker 2: they have to stand out quickly.

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Speaker 1: Now I can't help but draw a line between Warhole

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00:28:58,130 --> 00:29:01,850
Speaker 1: and people, and I wanted to ask you about people.

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Speaker 1: So People, as many people will know, is a digital artist.

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Speaker 1: He has been creating the lot and posting it on

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Speaker 1: the web every day for quite a while and attracting

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Speaker 1: quite a followership. So's he's created this brand value. He's

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Speaker 1: got people's attention. And then Peopaule announced that he was selling,

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Speaker 1: well not really selling an artwork. He was selling an

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Speaker 1: nft A non fungible token asserting ownership of an artwork.

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Speaker 1: So effectively, anybody can look at the artwork that's free,

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Speaker 1: it's infinitely reproducible, but only one person has this cryptographic

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Speaker 1: token that asserts you own the work. And that cryptographic

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Speaker 1: token sold for nearly seventy million dollars. And I would

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Speaker 1: love to ask Andy Warhol what he makes of it all,

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Speaker 1: But I can't ask Candy Warhole because he's no longer

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Speaker 1: with us, So I want to ask you, Alis, well,

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Speaker 1: what do you think of people and this seventy million

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Speaker 1: dollar cryptographic token and what do you think Andy would

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00:30:19,050 --> 00:30:19,530
Speaker 1: have made of it?

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00:30:20,090 --> 00:30:25,410
Speaker 2: Well? I think People's seventy million price tag for his

429
00:30:25,530 --> 00:30:31,530
Speaker 2: work is absolutely spot on for our attention grabbing society,

430
00:30:31,650 --> 00:30:36,930
Speaker 2: our attention economy, because it was all over the papers

431
00:30:36,970 --> 00:30:40,370
Speaker 2: and all over the media. And of course, if you

432
00:30:40,450 --> 00:30:43,330
Speaker 2: get a high price for a work, that in itself

433
00:30:43,370 --> 00:30:46,210
Speaker 2: feeds the value of the work because it makes it

434
00:30:46,250 --> 00:30:49,730
Speaker 2: part of the attention economy. I think Warhol would have

435
00:30:49,810 --> 00:30:53,330
Speaker 2: beaten people to it, to be honest, because he was

436
00:30:53,610 --> 00:30:57,650
Speaker 2: always ahead of the game. He knew about the artist

437
00:30:58,050 --> 00:31:02,970
Speaker 2: as a brand before anyone else, and I think he

438
00:31:03,810 --> 00:31:07,290
Speaker 2: was always one for new tech. So I have a

439
00:31:07,370 --> 00:31:10,210
Speaker 2: hunch that Andy might have been people.

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00:31:10,610 --> 00:31:13,890
Speaker 1: Now, Alice, Before I let you go, as a student

441
00:31:14,010 --> 00:31:17,130
Speaker 1: of authenticity and someone who clearly knows a great deal

442
00:31:17,170 --> 00:31:20,450
Speaker 1: about art and art markets and the history of art,

443
00:31:20,570 --> 00:31:23,890
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you for your thoughts on one

444
00:31:23,930 --> 00:31:27,010
Speaker 1: of my favorite cautionary tales which loyal listeners will know

445
00:31:27,850 --> 00:31:31,410
Speaker 1: all about the art Forger and the Pope is the

446
00:31:31,450 --> 00:31:35,890
Speaker 1: title of the episode, and this was an occasion in

447
00:31:35,930 --> 00:31:42,290
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties where a great art critic, Abraham Bradius,

448
00:31:42,730 --> 00:31:50,210
Speaker 1: was persuaded to authenticate this newly discovered work as a Vermir,

449
00:31:51,010 --> 00:31:54,850
Speaker 1: and not only a Vermir, but the masterpiece of Johannes

450
00:31:54,890 --> 00:32:00,370
Speaker 1: Vermir of Delft, and Vermir, as we've alluded to, is

451
00:32:00,370 --> 00:32:04,210
Speaker 1: a mysterious figure. He didn't paint many paintings. It was

452
00:32:04,410 --> 00:32:08,490
Speaker 1: sensational to discover a new one, and of course it

453
00:32:08,530 --> 00:32:10,570
Speaker 1: was too good to be true, and the whole thing

454
00:32:10,650 --> 00:32:14,250
Speaker 1: turned out to be a rotten fraud perpetrated by a

455
00:32:14,450 --> 00:32:19,330
Speaker 1: really repulsive character called Hahn van Megrin, and yet a

456
00:32:19,330 --> 00:32:21,330
Speaker 1: lot of people believed it, and a lot of people

457
00:32:21,970 --> 00:32:25,730
Speaker 1: continued to believe that, even when the fraud was discovered,

458
00:32:25,890 --> 00:32:29,010
Speaker 1: that Van Magrin was something of a hero. It feels

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00:32:29,010 --> 00:32:31,690
Speaker 1: like a story with something to tell us today.

460
00:32:32,570 --> 00:32:37,610
Speaker 2: I think it's a wonderful story. And as you say,

461
00:32:38,570 --> 00:32:44,130
Speaker 2: so much of the fraud that was perpetrated, it was

462
00:32:44,210 --> 00:32:47,730
Speaker 2: the story that people wanted to hear, and in particular,

463
00:32:47,890 --> 00:32:51,810
Speaker 2: as you say, Brady's had been longing for some more

464
00:32:52,850 --> 00:32:58,690
Speaker 2: Vermiers to show up. So I think there's a huge

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00:32:58,930 --> 00:33:05,130
Speaker 2: effect in the success of any art, forgery or any

466
00:33:05,170 --> 00:33:10,010
Speaker 2: other sort, if it taps into something that people want

467
00:33:10,210 --> 00:33:13,370
Speaker 2: and some deep desire. So I think there's a universal

468
00:33:14,370 --> 00:33:18,010
Speaker 2: thing to watch out for, which is if something really

469
00:33:18,050 --> 00:33:23,810
Speaker 2: makes people feel strongly you know, look again, what's going

470
00:33:23,850 --> 00:33:24,290
Speaker 2: on there?

471
00:33:25,690 --> 00:33:29,930
Speaker 1: So Alice the book just to remind people is called authenticity,

472
00:33:30,210 --> 00:33:33,450
Speaker 1: and you're really wrestling with this subject from every direction.

473
00:33:33,530 --> 00:33:37,650
Speaker 1: It's full of fascinating stories. Having read it, I was

474
00:33:37,730 --> 00:33:41,210
Speaker 1: left with the question for you, which is is this

475
00:33:42,010 --> 00:33:46,170
Speaker 1: a more authentic age than before because we value authenticity

476
00:33:46,290 --> 00:33:49,370
Speaker 1: or is it more inauthentic than ever I think?

477
00:33:49,410 --> 00:33:52,170
Speaker 2: And this has obsessed me for all the time I've

478
00:33:52,170 --> 00:33:56,730
Speaker 2: been writing the book, that we are in an age

479
00:33:57,050 --> 00:34:00,530
Speaker 2: where authenticity is more important to us than ever before,

480
00:34:00,570 --> 00:34:03,730
Speaker 2: and the pursuit of authenticity in very many ways has

481
00:34:03,810 --> 00:34:07,210
Speaker 2: become one of the most important goals in life. And

482
00:34:07,290 --> 00:34:12,930
Speaker 2: yet at the same time, we have created this world

483
00:34:13,210 --> 00:34:17,690
Speaker 2: that's faker than ever before. Really, across the board, it

484
00:34:17,730 --> 00:34:21,210
Speaker 2: doesn't matter whether you're talking to art people or academia

485
00:34:21,410 --> 00:34:27,050
Speaker 2: or fashion or technology or policy, they're all worried about

486
00:34:27,090 --> 00:34:33,490
Speaker 2: how inauthentic things are becoming. So we have this peculiar paradox,

487
00:34:33,530 --> 00:34:37,610
Speaker 2: which is really what I wanted to investigate. I'm very

488
00:34:37,690 --> 00:34:42,490
Speaker 2: much reminded of that famous phrase by William James, which

489
00:34:42,530 --> 00:34:45,810
Speaker 2: is that at the end of our days, our life

490
00:34:45,890 --> 00:34:50,450
Speaker 2: experience will equal what we paid attention to, whether by

491
00:34:50,570 --> 00:34:55,690
Speaker 2: choice or by default. So we are if we don't

492
00:34:55,770 --> 00:34:58,890
Speaker 2: pay attention to the things that are worthwhile, if we're

493
00:34:58,970 --> 00:35:03,170
Speaker 2: too distracted by the fakes, we're at risk of living

494
00:35:03,210 --> 00:35:07,570
Speaker 2: lives that are less our own, and that really matters.

495
00:35:09,290 --> 00:35:10,970
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Alice Sherwood.

496
00:35:11,250 --> 00:35:11,690
Speaker 2: Thank you.

497
00:35:15,890 --> 00:35:20,290
Speaker 1: Alice Sherwood's book Authenticity is available to buy now from

498
00:35:20,370 --> 00:35:23,690
Speaker 1: all Good booksellers. And if you enjoyed this conversation, you

499
00:35:23,770 --> 00:35:25,810
Speaker 1: might also like to go back and listen to our

500
00:35:25,850 --> 00:35:30,050
Speaker 1: episode on Van Megren's not very convincing forgery of a

501
00:35:30,130 --> 00:35:34,930
Speaker 1: lost Vermire masterpiece. It's called The Art Forger, The Nazi

502
00:35:35,370 --> 00:35:44,010
Speaker 1: and the Pope. Cautionary Tales is written by me Tim

503
00:35:44,050 --> 00:35:47,890
Speaker 1: Harford with Andrew Wright. It's produced by Alice Fines with

504
00:35:48,050 --> 00:35:52,050
Speaker 1: support from Edith Uslow. The sound design and original music

505
00:35:52,450 --> 00:35:56,850
Speaker 1: is the work of Pascal Wise. Julia Barton edited the scripts.

506
00:35:57,610 --> 00:36:01,210
Speaker 1: It features the voice talents of Ben Crowe, Melanie Guttridge,

507
00:36:01,290 --> 00:36:05,050
Speaker 1: Jemma Saunders and rufus Wright. The show wouldn't have been

508
00:36:05,130 --> 00:36:09,970
Speaker 1: possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Ryan Dilly, Gretta Cohene,

509
00:36:10,210 --> 00:36:18,570
Speaker 1: Leitel Millard, John Schnaz, Carlie mcgliori and Eric Sandler. Cautionary

510
00:36:18,570 --> 00:36:22,210
Speaker 1: Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. It was recorded

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00:36:22,250 --> 00:36:25,650
Speaker 1: in Wardall Studios in London by Tom Berry. If you

512
00:36:25,730 --> 00:36:28,890
Speaker 1: like the show, please remember to share, rate and review

513
00:36:29,050 --> 00:36:31,290
Speaker 1: go on you know it helps us and if you

514
00:36:31,370 --> 00:36:34,210
Speaker 1: want to hear the show, add free sign up for

515
00:36:34,370 --> 00:36:37,810
Speaker 1: Pushkin Plus on the show page in Apple Podcasts or

516
00:36:37,890 --> 00:36:41,530
Speaker 1: at pushkin dot fm, slash plus