Art & design styles: Conceptual art
August 2021
Sting in the Tale
Art, Hoax, and Provocation
by Antoinette LaFarge
An illustrated survey of artist hoaxes, including impersonations, fabula, cryptoscience, and forgeries, researched and written by an expert “fictive-art” practitioner. The shift from the early information age to our 'infocalypse' era of rampant misinformation has given rise to an art form that probes this confusion, foregrounding wild creativity as a way to reframe assumptions about both fiction and art in contemporary culture. At its center, this “fictive art” (LaFarge’s term) is secured as fact by employing the language and display methods of history and science. Using typically evidentiary objects such as documentary photographs and videos, presumptively historical artifacts and relics, didactics, lectures, events, and expert opinions in technical language, artists create a constellation of manufactured evidence attesting to the artwork’s central narrative. This dissimulation is temporary, with a clear “tell” often surprisingly revealed in a self-outing moment. With all its attendant consequences of mistrust, outrage, and rejection, this genre of art with a sting in its tale is a radical form whose time has come.
