a lot of really annoying media discourse on tumblr comes down to people having a hard time accepting that both of the following are true at the same time:
for any work of fiction interesting enough to be worth talking about, there will be multiple equally plausible and valid interpretations that are possible – and by interpretations here i don’t just mean headcanons about minor details, i mean how you read the core themes and character arcs. and very often some of those equally valid interpretations will directly contradict each other and that’s ok
not EVERY interpretation is valid, some are genuinely just dumb as hell and unsupported by the text
One of the best things that ever happened to me was during my trip to Venice 5 years ago. I had bought an all-inclusive ticket for all museums and exhibitions in the Piazza, and I was going through an exhibition of statuettes when I entered the next wing with paintings. The styles seemed somewhat familiar, but I couldn’t work out what was happening. Thankfully this incredible lady working at the exhibition saw that I was a bit confused and approached me to ask if I knew what this exhibition was. I said no, just that it had seemed interesting.
She explained that the reason why I might be confused is that I had entered the exhibition of Wolfgang Beltracchi from the end rather than the beginning. She then took me to the start and started explaining about him and his history. He has art forgeries in every style from medieval paintings to modern art and his forgery is not copying existing paintings but creating “lost paintings” that the artist might have painted or talked about painting but never did. He perfectly matched the artist style, composition, ideas, colours and medium. His materials were historically accurate and experts couldn’t determine that they were fakes.
And his wife Helene Beltracchi was incredible. She helped “backdate” paintings and provide evidence of their age. One of the things that stuck with me the most is this black and white photo, created with an old-time camera and medium and the photo itself was aged so carbon-dating couldn’t discover that it was a modern photo. It was of Helene, with her features slightly altered, dressed in an old-time, era appropriate dress with the painting in the background. can you imagine the level of dedication and the immense attention to detail required to so convincingly fake a photo to provide a reliable history of this painting existing for centuries? She helped him create fake history for a lot of his paintings.
I’ll never forget that exhibition. There were so many paintings, all of them in the styles of different artists, most of them verified by experts as genuine until his mistake with the white paint which prompted a much, much deeper examination by experts. I think the lady mentioned that they could still not forensically confirm that some paintings were fakes, but it’s been a while, I might be misremembering. I was just struck with awe at the sheer knowledge they must have of multitude of painters, not just their styles, but their lives and the way their minds worked. He painted scenes “they might have painted” and when you look at them, you could definitely see it. It hits especially hard when you have more than passing familiarity with the artist, their lives and struggles, their choices of mediums and themes. You can look at this painting and think, this is definitely created by []. It makes so much sense, it has that distinct flair and works incredibly well as a parallel to [], their earlier painting. It was indescribable. Can you imagine the skill required to back that knowledge up? To be able to perfectly mimic the styles of so many artists and be able to so accurately forge paints, brushes and canvas that experts verified them as genuine?
And he had his own original paintings as well. One of them struck a chord with me especially. It was a painting of storage rooms, storing thousands and thousands of paintings that the public doesn’t know of, because they’re the unpopular paintings, the paintings that never get exhibited, the forgotten paintings. I thought it was very poignant.
I love these people. They really did do it because they loved art, they loved playing around with art forensics, and they just had a blast. Seeing his gallery brought be such incredible joy and so many interesting things to think about. 10/10, would definitely recommend
So the “Hawk Tuah” person launched a crypto currency meme coin that – and I kid you not – surged in price on release only to quickly collapse, leading to complaints that her currency (unlike all of them?) was a scam.
Because nothing says, “trust me with your money” quite like viral Internet memes!
Why are people having so much issue with the article, I agreed with it? The title isn’t the most eloquent thing ever but the article wasn’t encouraging cheating, where you go behind your partners back, but instead looking at the issue of cheating as a not black-and-white thing where there’s one horribly evil person who just wanted to have fun/get laid with one traumatized-for-life victim. Instead, like most- nah, let me say with ANYTHING in real life beyond fiction, the article sees the grays in cheating and why the person cheated in the first place. Not to say that cheating isn’t a horrible thing to do, but I feel like people need to understand that there are reasons people do the things they do. People who cheat are human beings. They could feel horrible about it, they could be trapped in a marriage or relationship that they don’t feel they can escape, they can feel insecure and unloved. Again, not to say it’s something you should ever do, but dehumanizing someone over a mistake is just as bad in my opinion. There’s nowhere where they can talk about their experiences, and it’s likely we know a lot of people who have cheated in our lives even if they haven’t (or were too scared) to tell us about it.
ALT
amhrancas 