Navigation

Since Rosalind Krauss published her seminal essay “The originality of the avant-garde” in 1986, the cult-like veneration of the supposed original object has been increasingly exposed as a myth. Created by a famous artistic personality, a so-called genius, the original object’s mythological quality is centered on the idea of cherished uniqueness. Modern artists who challenge or subvert this concept through seriality, reproduction, and repetition often struggle to find a place in the historical narrative. Take for example, the case of Giorgio de Chirico. Even as a renowned modernist, de Chirico’s later work was rejected by the avant-garde. In the 1920s, de Chirico began to create verifalsi (true-fakes), copying and backdating his later paintings to his famed Metaphysical period (1910-1919). These works—imitating the style and subject of his earlier paintings—complicate how de Chirico’s oeuvre is viewed. De Chirico’s story reminds us that the original constitutes more than mere materiality, because its power lies in its context. Our understanding and valuation of the original object is not just predicated on the significance of its creator but its rarity and distinctiveness. This session seeks to address the modernist myth of the original object, with topics including but not limited to: the relationship between materiality and concept; the production of forgeries; the use of reproduction and seriality; the art market and economics; the politics of the originality/repetition dichotomy; the demystification of the artist as romantic genius; the redefinition of the concept of avant-garde; and broader issues about the nature of objects.