Faking It
November 2010
I, too, was fooled. When a blog post led me to iartistlondon.com—which purports to be an
e-commerce company offering “the world’s first affordable
DIY high art sets”—I believed that the site was actually
dealing in such amusingly audacious offerings as IHirst, which contains
everything you need to make “your very own replica” of
Damien Hirst’s For the Love of God (a plastic human-size skull,
8,601 crystal beads, glue, a paintbrush, silver paint, and
instructions), and The Banksy Machine, which allows the buyer to
“create your own Banksy graffiti for just £9.99.”
Alas, it turns out the whole thing is a conceptual work by 26-year-old
Spanish artist Naroa Lizar Redrado—but at least I wasn’t the
only one who was duped. In the year since her site went live, Redrado
has been contacted by hundreds of prospective customers, including
buyers from Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, and museum gift shops. Redrado
conceived the website as her final project while studying at the
University for the Creative Arts in Kent, England, intending it as an
exploration of what does and doesn’t qualify as “real
art,” she says. But “when it got a bit out of hand, I got
this idea that I could actually make it a real business and produce the
items in China.” Sadly, a letter from Hirst’s lawyers put an
end to her plans. In the
end, however, Redrado walked away with
something potentially more valuable than a fledgling novelties company:
a promising art career. This fall her work
was included in the First
Ural Industrial Biennale of Contemporary Art in Ekaterinburg, Russia,
and in June she landed a Fulbright, which will fund her M.F.A. in the
States. Mr. Hirst, watch your back.
- Keywords
- What,
- 2010 Art Issue
