"The film unpacks how, in an age before social media but already steeped in digital illusion, a young artist managed to deceive one of Europe's most powerful critics and an entire institutional ecosystem. In 1999, Flash Art magazine published a ranking of Italy's top fifty artists. Toscani, famed for his boundary-pushing Benetton campaigns, appeared second to last, just above Marco Lavagetto, dubbed 'the poor man's Cattelan.'"
"For the exhibition, the 'fake Toscani' proposed four equally fake artists, designed to stretch the moral and conceptual limits of the art world: Dimitri Bioy, a self-declared pedophile; Bola Ecua, a Nigerian activist allegedly pursued by her government; Carmelo Gavotta, a pornographer (and an anagram of Lavagetto's own name); and Hamid Picardo, Bin Laden's 'official photographer.' These characters formed a grotesque mirror of contemporary art's appetite for scandal and shock value."
A deceptive episode surrounding the inaugural Tirana Biennial in December 2000 revealed the art world's appetite for scandal and its institutional vulnerability. A young artist impersonated prominent photographer Oliviero Toscani by email, convincing Flash Art editor Giancarlo Politi to invite the supposed photographer to curate a section. The impostor proposed four fabricated artists—Dimitri Bioy (self-declared pedophile), Bola Ecua (Nigerian activist), Carmelo Gavotta (pornographer, an anagram of the impostor's name), and Hamid Picardo (Bin Laden's 'official photographer')—to test moral and conceptual limits. The hoax highlighted pre-social-media digital illusion and the ease of manipulating critical gatekeepers.
Read at designboom | architecture & design magazine
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