Unlimited

Ernst Caramelle – Forty Found Fakes, 1978

In contrast to what the title with its alluring alliteration might suggest, what is at issue here is not so much the question of forgery or faking but rather the question of the original. The possibility of mistakenly recognizing in the photographs of day-to-day situations the work of important artists makes conversely clear that their ‘authentic’ works must be seen as originals attributed to them personally. This is noteworthy inasmuch as each of the works invoked draws on Marcel Duchamp’s aesthetics of the ready-made, i.e. the radical questioning of artistic originality. Ernst Caramelle’s ability to see in all possible things a reflection of artistic originality makes clear to what extent the young artist was able to perceive in the outstanding art of his time a return to the cult of the original. 

Ernst Caramelle (born 1952 in Hall in Tyrol, Austria), since he began exhibiting in the 1970s, has explored the ideas behind production and reproduction, the perception and context of art, and how we can believe in what we see. Caramelle lives and works in Frankfurt am Main and New York.

Location: U57