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Genuine Fakes

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One would think the line between “real” and “fake” would be obvious, especially when it comes to art or fossils or other museum-worthy items. But, as it turns out, there is an area in between, where forgeries become collectibles in and of themselves and entire museums are replicas of “the real things.”

Lydia Pyne explores a number of these types of gray-area things in Genuine Fakes. In one part of the book she looks at the history of scientists trying to replicate diamonds in the lab, and how their efforts were initially dismissed as an impossibility or the results as inauthentic. But now many people accept lab-created diamonds as completely satisfactory alternatives to those discovered in mines; some even prefer them because of the objectionable history of how many diamonds have been trafficked through war-torn areas (think “Blood Diamonds”). Are these manmade gems “real” because they have the exact structure as mined diamonds or are they still not quite there because of their provenance?

A forger active in the late 1800s and early to mid-1900s succeeded in fooling many, even art experts, into thinking his (or her) creations were those of sought-after artists, but later the works of the still-unidentified “Spanish Forger” became famous on their own, and people actually collect them.

In 1994, cave specialists discovered a Paleolithic cave in France that held artifacts, fossils, paintings and even footprints of the people who had been there thousands of years before. The priceless find was treated extremely carefully so it would not be degraded by visitors, so the decision was made to create a replica of the original so tourists could experience the cave for themselves. The Caverne du Pont d’Arc is not the actual Chauvet Cave, but it was designed meticulously so it could be a stand-in and the original would be preserved.

Through these and other similar examples, Pyne shares how these kinds of “genuine fakes” allow us to “explore how, why and under what circumstances we can — and ought — to accept things as authentic. … We ought to think about the purpose, intent and content of the object in question and what we would accept as the Real Thing.” Fakes may usually be created to deceive, but our genuine fakes can provide “important cultural history and meaning.”

Genuine Fakes explores a topic I’d never considered before. I learned about a number of forgeries I’d never heard of and was intrigued by the notion of “fakes” turning into collectibles or being created in such a way that they are the best alternative to an original. Some of the cases in the book are amusing; some are mysteries; all are evidence that reality can sometimes be a little messy and fuzzy at the edges. Occasionally the book got a little slow or I wasn’t sure where the author was going with an example, but overall it was educational and interesting.

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A fascinating look at real fakes, forgeries, and frauds. The author addresses questions like, what is real or fake art and why does it matter? Should appeal to fans of art history, pop culture, science, and more.

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What is real? What is fake? What do those terms even mean? Is there some kind of gray area in between? And what about authenticity? Is that the same thing? Can something be real without being authentic? Or authentic without being real?

That idea of what is real is the central tenet of Lydia Pyne’s new book “Genuine Fakes: How Phony Things Teach Us About Real Stuff.” Through an exploration of eight different objects that land somewhere in that blurry place between real and fake, Pyne offers readers a chance to consider what the differences might be.

Too often, we allow ourselves to be conditioned to believe that there are two choices: real and not-real. But the world is far too complex to be governed by that sort of yes/no binary – authenticity depends on one’s perspective.

What Pyne does with “Genuine Fakes” is offer up examples that point up the malleability of authenticity; what is and is not real isn’t always set in stone. And just because something comes to be through methods different than the norm, does that make it fake? Or just a different kind of real? It’s a legitimately fascinating read, well-researched and packed with detail – the sort of book that will surprise and delight the intellectually curious.

We hit the ground running in the introduction; Pyne talks fakes and forgeries before diving into the story of the artist Paul Stephenson, who in 2010 found and purchased 10 original acetates (essentially, negatives used in silk screening) by Andy Warhol. After thoroughly researching Warhol’s techniques, Stephenson created a new set of prints using the original acetates.

So – are those pieces new Warhols?

We’re talking about an artist who was notable for receiving considerable assistance in the studio. Hell, he called it “The Factory.” Assistants and other workers did the lion’s share of the physical painting/printing/what have you, with Warhol simply adding finishing touches. He wasn’t even always the one who signed the work. Stephenson followed the same blueprint with the same materials, so … are they authentic Warhols?

From there, Pyne ventures far and wide – often in unexpected directions. The first chapter is art-driven as well, offering a look at the artist behind numerous faked medieval artworks known only as “the Spanish Forger.” She also spends time on William Henry Ireland’s notorious Shakespeare forgeries. Both the Forger and Ireland have become collectible in their own rights, further blurring the line with regards to the value of what is “real.”

Another fascinating chapter involves the long history of flavor science. We hear the term “artificial flavor” regularly, yet in many cases, the chemical construction of that supposedly-fake flavor is the same as that which occurs in nature. Finding ways to generate familiar tastes in new contexts is a multi-billion-dollar industry. Oh, and we get to talk about Jelly Belly jelly beans as well.

The chapter titled “Taking a Look Through Walrus Cam” lends an interesting perspective to nature documentaries, asking what exactly is true when it comes to filming the natural world. Is it better to offer up raw, uncut looks at nature? How much is too much when it comes to shaping and forming a narrative? And what do the filmmakers owe the viewer in terms of acknowledging what was captured organically and what was staged? Does creating a feeling of authenticity excuse some manipulation?

Other chapters deal with faked fossils, paleontological and archaeological reproductions, lab-manufactured diamonds, ancient Mayan codices and the history of whale exhibitions.

Through these examples, “Genuine Fakes” digs deep into the notion of what is real, what is authentic … and whether it is possible for an object to be one without being the other. At what point does something stop being real, whether it’s an artist creating forgeries by incorporating genuine elements or a museum filling in the gaps of a giant skeleton with metal and plaster? It’s the Ship of Theseus writ even larger; at what point does replacement and refurbishment turn the real thing into a copy? And does that process somehow dilute or eliminate that sense of authenticity?

Nonfiction that is both information-dense AND fun to read is rare; Lydia Pyne has given us precisely that with “Genuine Fakes.” A book like this could easily become bone-dry, a slog of a read. But Pyne maintains an airiness throughout, treating the material with seriousness but never severity. Everything unfolds with a very light touch. The result is a book that is very difficult to put down.

The world is more than just real and not-real. There’s room for things that are real and inauthentic, just as there’s room for things that are authentic yet not real. Getting drawn into learning about those things is the real joy central to “Genuine Fakes” – a joy that you really ought to experience for yourself.

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***I was granted an ARC of this via Netgalley from the publisher.***

What separates a fake from the real thing? What if you made a fake and instead of being met with derision it was applauded? In the book, Genuine Fakes: How Phony Things Teach US about Real Stuff by Lydia Pyne, she explores why some fakes, genuine fakes, are accepted in their own right and have a value of their own. Pyne does this by giving the reader different case studies from the past involving fakes. From the Spanish Forger, fake fossils, artificial flavors to natural vs lab made diamonds and nature documentaries vs nature life streams, Pyne goes through each case study and examines why the fake in that particular scenario was important. Each of the scenarios presented are interesting and the reader will have fun learning are paleolithic cave art or how far people have gone to try preserve a blue whale for display. By the end of the book, I feel that Pyne provides a convincing argument for why in the case studies presented we accept these “genuine fakes” are real in their own right and how our times and culture influence what we say and will accept as real. I would recommend this book to people who like interesting stories from history, art and the natural sciences and books on how people view the world.

Rating: 4 stars. Would highly recommend to a friend.

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I ended up learning a lot from the tidbits and explanations that accompanied the stories of fakes that were once passed off as real, another thing now thought (by most scholars but not quite all) real that was once dismissed with a sniff as faux (Grolier Codex), the olfactory assault and unbelievable amount of work involved in prepping the bones of a Blue Whale for display, and how 19th century Americans had tasted banana flavoring before most of them had ever even seen a real banana. Are flavors still artificial if they are the exact chemical composition of the real thing? I’ll also pass on trying vomit flavored Jelly Bellies though I’ll believe that modern flavoring techniques and scientific analysis probably get it correct.


The examples used also made me pause and think a lot about how fake can become real and why in some cases (diamonds and paleolithic cave paintings) this is beneficial and a more ethical route to travel down. Once I’d learned exactly which “Blue Planet” scenes got faked, I can understand why it was done and it even answered my own questions of “how’d they film that scene?” It’s all to make life less stressful for the animals and less dangerous for the film makers. Some explanations tended to drift a bit and were extended maybe a mite too much but overall this was an interesting plunge into what makes or changes our perceptions of what is real.

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An interesting, but uneven book. The chapters each deal with a different type of fake, ranging from Ice Age cave replicas to artificial and natural flavors. While I understand that she is exploring notions of falsity in various things, many of the chapters don't really have a point It often feels as if the book is just a compilation of articles instead of a coherant book.

Because rarely do the chapters come to grip with the larger questions, I would consider it only mildly worth reading.

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A fascinating look into what’s real and authentic and what isn’t, Genuine Fakes discusses art, science and psychology in a conversational way. The author uses a direct language that makes the hardest subjects easy to grasp. It will also make the readers think. If bananas went extinct, would you rather live without them or would a synthetic substitute be OK? If diamonds can be grown in a lab, why are they less real than natural ones that may be ethically compromised? I would personally love to visit Faux Chauvet, the largest cave replica ever built, rather than miss the Prehistoric art altogether or, worse, risk its integrity with my presence in the original. My favorite parts were the ones set in the art world, and how some fakes become authentic in some way. I was also astounded at some old practices that made me cringe (paying to see a dead whale?) and others are so hard to believe I would have doubted them had I read about them in a less reputable medium. Pyne sets the context and then explains the facts, letting readers make up their own minds.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/Bloomsbury USA!

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A fascinating read on a subject of which I knew very little. I always thought the dividing line between real(authentic) and fake was clear cut. That it was black and white. Reading this book allowed me to discover that there are more shades of grey between the two than I could ever have imagined! I would definitely read more books by this author!

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Extremely interesting book on whether something is "real" or "fake" actually makes a difference or not. The author uses several examples of things throughout history that were "genuine" fakes, but uses their stories (forgeries, synthetics, replicas, and so forth) to illustrate to the reader that the difference between "real" and "fake" aren't quite as razor sharp as you think, and may not really matter at all.

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How do we decide what’s real? Sometimes it’s about full disclosure of the conditions of production, as when museums make blue whale models and reconstruct parts—even significant parts—of the animal for display. Other times that’s not quite enough, as when a present-day artist uses Warhol’s acetates to create a new set of prints from the negatives by employing the same methods (inks, stretcher bars, canvas, etc.) that Warhol used to create his “originals.” The artist called the project a ‘forced collaboration’ and pointed out that Warhol himself said “ I want other people to make my paintings.” Meanwhile, the Andy Warhol Foundation and the representatives of Basquiat, Roy Lichtenstein, Keith Haring and Jackson Pollock have all dissolved their authentication boards to minimize hassle and legal risk, “rather than deal with the legal repercussions of mistakenly authenticating some work of art that later proves to be fraudulent,” and “scholarly conferences that focus on the authenticity of an artist’ s work have been cancelled, as even the merest whisper of doubt about a painting could have ramifications for its value.” In this vein, the book explores various types of historical authenticity, not just in paintings but in “fossils,” synthetic diamonds, synthetic flavors, nature films, blue whale models, and replicas of ancient art where the art itself is too physically sensitive to be exposed to tourists.

Although the book argues that some forgeries gain value with time as artifacts of their own time of production—the Spanish Forger is the prime example—that didn’t particularly convince me; the value seemed to come from being sufficiently old to tell us something about the artistic preferences of the people around at the time of creation, which is fine but not super tightly connected to the fact of being a forgery (except insofar as that fake provenance led people to notice and preserve that particular work). More convincingly to me, the book tracks shifting ideas around synthetic diamonds, which are both physically like natural diamonds and highly unlike them in conditions of production, which initially made synthetic diamonds less appealing but may now make them more so to people worried about conflict diamonds. (Although the book characterizes synthetic diamonds as physically “identical” to mined diamonds, it also says that De Beers developed technologies that could often distinguish them by looking for “an optical absorption line, found in the majority of natural diamonds but not in laboratory ones.” I would have liked more about that—first, is it a distinction without a difference? Second, that “majority” is really interesting in context: should we think of those natural diamonds without absorption lines as less “real”?)

I wasn’t as clear about the point of the chapter on synthetic flavors. You may have seen the tidbit that artificial banana flavor tastes so distinct from today’s bananas because it was based on the extinct Gros Michel banana, but there’s been a lot of effort to create synthetic flavors that would qualify as “better” than the original—super-strawberry and the like. But the book doesn’t explain much about what “better” would mean here, and the supposed reversal of valuation doesn’t seem complete without an attempt to create flavors that don’t actually have a natural referent. We haven’t seen much in the way of attempts to create “unicorn flavor,” for example, even if Jelly Belly experiments with gross flavors. Another useful factoid: telling people they were eating free-range, organic meats made the meat taste better, though they mostly can’t differentiate in blind taste tests; likewise, “oysters taste better with the sound of the seashore playing in the background.”

Because I’m interested in visual realism, I liked the chapter about how what counts as a “realistic” nature documentary has changed over time, in terms of the amount of human intervention into creating and narrating the story. Apparently, “certain kinds of artifice are necessary to create an ethical wildlife documentary,” such as splicing in footage of tame or captive animals to illustrate an otherwise unseeable part of an animal’s story. It makes sense that it’s not a great idea to get too close to wild bears, or to habituate them to humans. The blue whale chapter was similar: whale skin and bones are uniquely hard to preserve, so if you want a whale or whale skeleton that looks like the real thing (and doesn’t smell nauseating), you can’t have it made entirely or even substantially of real whales. The question then becomes what is an “authentic” model, and museum location (as opposed to sideshow appearance) as well as at least some disclosure of what happened seems to be the key here. “As whale curators and showmen have found, there’ s only so much authenticity about whales that audiences are willing to tolerate–no leaking, dripping or smelling–even if those things are just as ‘real’ as the other parts of an exhibit.”

Similarly, caves with ancient human paintings deteriorate if exposed to many humans, as discovered with Lascaux, so replicas are the only way that the art can be both visible and preserved for the future. As with the synthetic diamonds and nature documentaries, there’s a specifically ethical appeal to the artifice: using the replica keeps the original in existence.

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I really enjoyed this book. At first I thought it would be some fun stories about counterfeit purses, but it was so much more. The author did in depth and almost exhaustive research into the history of each topic.
For instance, the chapter about food tastes was remarkable, and as I read it, I could see how much sense she made. I had never really considered how our tastes and palates have changed over time.

Sometimes the research is a bit dense and not all that fun, I would really prefer fake purses,
Really interesting and captivating read, I recommend.

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The world of fakes is as big as the world. If a fake is of unauthorized manufacture, then every homemade item is a fake of the original model. Counterfeits are hundred billion dollar businesses. So what then is a genuine fake? In Lydia Pyne’s telling, they are fakes that have been legitimately accepted as marketable legally.

It’s a tortured definition, and Pyne doesn’t always make it work. There are forgers whose work is so good people collect them, and they’re worth big money. A fake unpublished Shakespeare play can be priceless. It’s whatever the marketplace accepts, and Pyne shows the marketplace can be very forgiving.

It’s also arguable that not all fakes are fakes. A 1:1 scale model of a Blue Whale is not a fake. Artificial flavors are not fakes. Industrial diamonds are not fakes. But each has its own chapter in Genuine Fakes.

In the chapter on flavors, Pyne admits we’ve been making artificial flavors for 5000 years. We don’t consider them fake, just a different variety. They are necessary, convenient, economical and crucial. The whole argument they are genuine fakes seems misplaced, if not irrelevant. But Pyne provides a great tour of the flavor world.

The chapter on diamonds is all about the scientific search to replicate what nature does in squeezing diamonds out of carbon. There is a great deal on DeBeers, the global diamond monopoly and how it has been beaten down between man-made diamonds and international anti-competition laws. But artificial (a word she does not use here) diamonds are not considered fakes. They are their own legitimate product in their own legitimate market (they are also making inroads in the traditional jewelry market because of ethics issues in mining and war.) So are industrial diamonds “genuine fakes”? What difference does it make?

There is a chapter on animal films, in which she criticizes producers for making animals human, acting out human stories of love, challenge and death. This is called anthropomorphizing (a word she does not use), and we do it with everything – our cars, our plants, our homes, clouds – everything, to make them lovable and relatable. (Think about The California Raisins. That takes it all in instantly.) This is in no way fake; it’s how we relate to everything.

She calls archaeological replicas ethically tricky. Is a replica of the Lascaux Caves a genuine fake? Why is it important to label it that way? Everyone knows you can’t get into the original any more. So this replica is the only option. What good comes from labeling it fake? Is a hologram of Michael Jackson a fraud? Does it have no value? Are art posters fraudulent? Is a Charlie Chaplin film on DVD fraudulent? Or is it a genuine fake?

The whole premise of Genuine Fakes is difficult to digest. Pyne is a good storyteller. The book makes Shakespearean frauds, paleolithic caves and walruses sunning on the rocks fascinating and absorbing. Her stories have just the right level of detail. But tying them all together in the rubric of genuine fakes seems a stretch.

David Wineberg

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An intriguing fascinating look at the world of fakes .A book that asks the question of when is a fake a fake from art painting jewelry etc.the surprise value of fakes,This is a very entertaining informative read love the title highly recommend,#netgalley #bloomsburyusa

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Thank you to NetGalley for a Kindle ARC of Genuine Fakes.

This was a fascinating book with an intriguing topic.

The world is full of fakes, the fake bags and watches you used to be able to buy in Chinatown, the copies of famous paintings you buy at the museum gift shop, the replica of King Tut's tomb in the Museum of Natural History.

When is a fake not a fake?

Can a fake be better or worth more than the original?

The author pulls excellent examples from art, culture, and history and offers readers an in depth look at moments in history when a forged painting becomes nearly as valuable as the original; or when manufacturers can create diamonds with machines and technology what would usually take nature billions of years to create.

The author has done meticulous research and it shows; unfortunately, the writing is more scientific and scholarly than I had expected, the prose is dry but well written.

Overall, still an interesting read at what a genuine fake is, what it means socially, contextually, and how it has immense cultural significance in our world.

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This was an insightful and interesting read. I never gave much thought to all the trickery that goes into to so many aspects of our lives. I know about, and wonder a lot, about the artificial flavors in things (I have a cousin who is a food scientist specializing in creating new flavors). Jelly beans come to mind, but I know chemicals, natural or otherwise, are in many foods as enhancements. Fakes of art work have always existed, and I have heard of a few of the fakes selling for far more than the originals. The documentaries on animals always distress me, but I do watch them on occasion. I've often wondered how real they were... Well, this was somewhat of an eyeopener. I think it was a good, if a bit academic, read, but I would recommend it.

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An interesting perspective of “what is real” “what is fake”?
From art to food to nature itself, society has created the ideal of each... but unfortunately ideal is also fake. Well researched and entertaining.

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