Fakes and Forgeries: Exhibition, Crime, and the Role of the Media
As museum controversies go, fakes and forgeries are ironically both scandalous and acceptable. The history of false artworks and objects stretches back into antiquity when the Romans carved copies of Greek statuary, and it persists into the modern day when artists specializing in forging specific artists or types of work. For example, Dutchman Robert Driessen was caught forging Giacometti sculptures in 2011 - and again in 2015.i Although they are used synonymously, a difference exists between a fake and forgery. Noah Charney defines a forgery as "...the wholesale creation of a fraudulent work," and a fake as "...the alteration of, or addition to, an authentic work of art in order to suggest a different authorship or subject matter that results in a greater sale value of the object."ii
Hamburg, Germany's Museum of Ethnology displayed terracotta statues of the soldiers buried with Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China, in 2007 for an exhibition titled Power in Death. Originally discovered in 1974, the ceramics were claimed to have been lent to the museum by the local Chinese Centre of Arts, consisting of eight ancient Warriors and two terracotta horses alongside sixty other burial artifacts.iii Controversy arose, however, when the Museum was accused of exhibiting false objects, which was considered by the Chinese government a "serious act of fraud [which] has implications for intellectual property right[s]," as put by representative Chen Xianqi of the Shaanxi Bureau of Cultural Heritage.iv The German museum's staff and visitors felt duped, while the Chinese representatives claimed to be confused due to apparent miscommunication and a definite discrepancy between Eastern and Western beliefs. Is this a forgivable forgery?
There is also a lot of uneasiness over the level of awareness of the Chinese consulate when it comes to this case: the Cultural Heritage Bureau had apparently heard about the German exhibition through television, leading to a lot of debate over whether "...the government agencies back in the country are seen as willfully ignorant if not involved in the fraud themselves."v Commenter Lutz Winter (30 Dec. 2007, 5:10 PM) considers it "laughable" that there would be arguments over the definitions of "authentic" and "original" - but this is entirely the root of the problem. The differences between Eastern and Western views on forgery, discussed by Charney, basically state that the Chinese considered these copies "authentic" in the sense that they exactly mimic something dating from the ancient period, but are not actually from antiquity: these sorts of objects are the most desirable in the Chinese art trade. The warriors displayed in Hamburg were made recently in the ceramic-making village of Jingdezhen. Conversely, Westerners need the object to be dug from the earth or otherwise dating to the past and surviving to the modern day to be considered "authentic."vi
Similarly, defining of this type of art crime varies widely, just as public opinion upon discovery of a faked piece and ultimately the backlash reaction frequently aimed at museums for not properly investing the time or money into a thorough examination of a suspicious piece. Not surprisingly, famous forgery scandals abound, and a comparison of case studies showcases high-tension controversy between the affected parties along with the role the media plays into public reaction to forgery scandals, the hesitant exhibition of purportedly - or confirmed - fake objects, and the branch of art crime being committed in the creation of forgeries or fakes.
Terracotta Warriors 
Terracotta Warriors 
Ossuary Box