Forged works in the art world are never completely true to their claims of false copies. To make a false or forged work of art, a process is under taken where the imagination of the original artist is carefully studied and a new work is produced. That act of forgery is more like an extension of the particular aims realized in the original work.
To falsify, is to slip behind the original and go deeper into the work.
As one becomes occupied in a work of art, the process, materials and results become the dominant force of a work; the artist descends further into the history and the language of art. Faussaire: Forger is a celebration of the imaginations of artists and their audiences - their timeless investigation into the possibilities of art and what it can mean.
articule has asked a diverse group of artists to create works that are pastiches of the oeuvre of renowned Quebec artist Claude Tousignant.
For this exhibition, the audience will be surrounded by imitations or current versions of hard edge abstraction images. Somewhere in the mix will be one piece that was/is a catalyst for this movement in contemporary art. M.Tousignants’ steadfast commitment to hard edge, abstract art shows the artists’ stringent control of making art. In Chromatic transformers, Chromatic accelerators and Gongs – the titles of Tousignants best know paintings and prints - there is no loose brush work or expressionist compositions. The subjective qualities of the maker are the choices of colours and sizes of images. The process and materials used to create a work becomes a point of engagement for the audience and the artist. There is not one meaning, rather an arrangement of colours and forms that is open to interpretation.
The original intentions of M. Tousignant and articule provocations of these ideas confirm the force of the art making process as a language that artists are the fodder to nourish.
Natalie Olanick is an artist, writer and part-time curator. She teaches at Dawson College and is on the board of articule in Montreal. She has shown her work in various galleries and museums in Canada and the United States. Recently, she curated an exhibition of Francoise Sullivan at Womens’ Art Resource Center in Toronto (2010). This event was in partnership with the Art Gallery of Ontario. In November 2011, for Sortons les archive at Skol, she did a raid and came up with a diverse selection of works.
Roland Barthes, in Death of the author, refers to writing as the beginning point- where the presence of the creator is found and at that same moment that the work is begun, the author dies; the text consumes the soul of the author. In our case it is the act of making art, not writing which is the carnivore. If we look at art from this vantage point, there cannot be copies but continuous extensions of objects and ideas that challenged the parameters of methodology.