MSCHF is selling 1,000 Andy Warhol sketches for $250, but 999 of them are forgeries
The group's latest effort skewers exclusivity as a metric for artistic value
MSCHF, the group responsible for giving us everything from evil and holy shoes and Sunday Chick-fil-A sandwiches to an astrology-based investment app and AI-dreamed foot pics has now set its sights on the art world with an Andy Warhol sketch auction.
The catch—because of course there’s a catch—is that MSCHF sold 1,000 versions of a Warhol sketch where the single original piece was mixed in with 999 forgeries.
Each of the (now sold out) sketches went for $250 while the original “Fairies” piece is currently worth an estimated $20,000. Museum Of Forgeries created in its own “Possibly Real Copy Of ‘Fairies’ By Andy Warhol,” an exact forgery of the real sketch, and promises that “any record of which piece within the set is the original has been destroyed.”
On the website, MSCHF writes that “the capital-A Art World is more concerned with authenticity than aesthetics” while “paradoxically, for artists, successful merching down an object [equals] consistent, increased revenue.”
“By forging ‘Fairies’ en masse, we obliterate the trail of provenance for the artwork,” the site reads. “Though physically undamaged, we destroy any future confidence in the veracity of the work. By burying a needle in a needlestack, we render the original as much a forgery as any of our replications.”
It continues by stating that “Warhol and the Factory built toward a mass-production of art, equivalent to consumer goods.”
“The replications we produce extend this trajectory; we trade up the aberrations of the human hand for those of the robotic arm,” the statement reads. “The dream of industrialists all over the world is the obsolescence of mankind.”
The whole thing is a pretty great middle finger to the rise of technological efforts to value art not based on any non-financial qualities but instead for its exclusivity. To check out videos and further explanations of the process behind Museum Of Forgeries, check out its website.
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