Tonight at EMPAC: Peter Matthaes talks about art fraud

Tonight, EMPAC has Peter Matthaes giving a talk about the very interesting topic of authenticity of art. Matthaes has worked at the Museo D’Arte e Scienza, which was founded by his father and ee has spent a serious amount of time in the lab, where he conducts scientific analyses to assess the authenticity of art.

From EMPAC:

Recognizing the authenticity of an art object is as fascinating as it is complex. The classic approach, which studies style, is supported by numerous new methods of scientific investigation and by the ability to use our senses: sight, touch, smell, hearing, and to a much lesser extent, taste, substituted by our “sixth sense.

An overview will be given on the methods used by the Museo d’Arte e Scienza of Milan in its day-to-day activities to ascertain authenticity, illustrated by an ample number of cases studies. The lecture will demonstrate how such investigations are based on intuition, logic, and the results of rigorous scientific and sensorial analyses.

The Observer Effects series invites thinkers to present their highly integrative work in dialogue with the fields of art and science. This lecture series takes its title from a popularized principle in physics that holds that the act of observation transforms the observed. Outside the natural sciences, the idea that the observer and the observed are linked in a web of reciprocal modification has been deeply influential in philosophy, aesthetics, psychology, and politics.

The talk begins at 6pm. I highly recommend showing up early and grabbing a drink and a snack before hand and checking out the other exhibits they have around the building!