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In an office where people sit in swings to think and gather in a chat corner with orange walls and orange chairs to watch a flat-screen TV, there is a public art exhibition with the words “Dishonesty” and “Cheat” embedded in its title. The artists are deadly serious; their ideas are food for thought. The office is that of Dan Ariely, James B. Duke professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, and he masterminded the show.
Carter Hubbard’s “Added Value” and Jordi Williams’ mandala set the tone. Hubbard’s installation covers a large wall and includes about 20 clipboards, holding sheets of paper, hanging from the ceiling, interspersed with copies of labels from boxes of oranges. On the clip boards, written in bold black letters, is the phrase, “look busy.” Under the labels are the words “always smiling,” the logo of the brand of oranges. Hubbard has encapsulated what happens regularly in the workplace: Employees fake being busy with a lot of smiling and very little real work. There could not be a more dishonest act in a work environment. Or sit in front of the mandala where we are invited to meditate, confess to wrongdoing and immediately feel better. Is confession all we need to right a wrong? The religious act of confession in the church immediately comes to mind.
This is not a random show. According to Ariely’s blog, he orchestrates all sorts of experiments. In one, he asked an acting student to pose as a beggar on a busy Boston street. After very little success, a professional beggar suggested he go up to a person, look him in the eye and offer his hand to shake; the person will not pass you by, said the professional. This method was successful and Ariely, deduced two lessons: One, our lives are structured by social norms, such as the act of shaking hands, and we, as human beings, tend to avert our eyes when someone is in need, because if we look we will feel compelled to do something about it.
In a separate but connected project, according to Catharine Howard, the outside professional curator, Ariely determined that creative people find it easier to rationalize dishonesty than others.
To follow that premise further he put out an Internet call to visual artists, who might respond to the idea of behavioral economics, dishonesty and cheating. A disparate group of artists answered and Ariely invited them to attend a one-hour workshop online and then submit ideas for an art object, with dishonesty and/or cheating as the theme. Based on those parameters, Howard was brought into the project and chose 22 out of 30 artists to each create a work of art in one month. According to Howard, the exhibition idea will probably live for a year, with new artists coming in and, at some point, the theme will probably change.
A number of the objects consider the way an artist produces a painting and which, if any, seem to be cheating. First there is the composition the artist paints entirely by hand. Then there is the painting where the artist projects an image onto the canvas or prints an image on a canvas and, in both cases, finishes it with traditional painting techniques. Bruce Mitchell uses all three methods in creating his photo realistic images of cars. If visitors are willing, there is a survey which asks them if they think the artist has cheated because of some of the methods described.
There are also artists who copy the work of other artists and do not acknowledge that connection, either in a gallery note or in the wall text. Charlie Cook’s “Puzzled Amy,” a large piece put together like a giant puzzle, owes a great deal to James Rosenquist (b.1933) and Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004). There is also Ryan Slagle’s use of a famous 1951 photograph of the abstract expressionists in which he uses Photoshop to place his image into the group. There is even an art piece that tests the honesty of the viewers by inviting them to take something from a box and leave $1 in exchange.
The exhibition addresses certain aspects of artistic dishonesty, but the bottom line here should be the calculated fraud in the art world, driven completely by money. For example certain artists working in the 1980s began to copy everything from famous works of art, to photographs, to commercial ads, always with the proper credit line. They then framed them differently and, in so doing, either caused the viewer to look at the iconic image in a new way or to come face to face with how the viewer is manipulated, especially by advertising. Art historians labeled this movement as “Appropriation,” giving it legitimacy.
Artists have been copying other artists since the beginning of time, and as long as they made variations and credited their source it was acceptable. And artists and dealers have been creating frauds since the beginning of time, and that is not acceptable. As for technology, in the 19th century it was photography, and in the 21st it is digital images and Photoshop, to name just two. Today sculpture and painting can be identically copied by fairly easy methods. The artist justifies the use of different techniques in a particular composition by writing on the wall label, “mixed media.”
And then there are original prints. Over the past several decades, well-known artists have contracted with print houses to reproduce their works, sometimes with and sometimes without their supervision. When the run is complete, the artists come back and sign a certain number which are then marketed and sold as original multiples.
Time will determine which art object is real and which is fraudulent. In the meantime, beware: The emperor may not be wearing new clothes.
Blue Greenberg’s column appears each week in Entertainment and More. She can be reached at blueg@bellsouth.net or by writing her in c/o The Herald-Sun, P.O. Box 2092, Durham, NC 27702.
