The bulk update request #11445 is pending approval.

change category forgery_(artwork) (2) -> meta

Reason: Both of the posts in this tag were previously tagged as forgery, which was too ambiguous as these are actual forged artworks, while other posts in the forgery tag depicted the act of forgery. A separate tag was needed.

I wonder if forged_signature would be better. "Forgery" on its own makes me think the whole thing is fake, but in the case of those examples, the artwork is totally legitimate, it's just been misappropriated by someone signing it with the incorrect artist.

watsit said:
I wonder if forged_signature would be better. "Forgery" on its own makes me think the whole thing is fake, but in the case of those examples, the artwork is totally legitimate, it's just been misappropriated by someone signing it with the incorrect artist.

You mean you don't think the artwork was done by the forger? Someone just stole two unrelated pictures of dogs and then defaced them with... that?

...that possibility didn't even cross my mind because that's just fucking depressing. If it was created for the purpose of being a forgery, that would be one thing, but...

lendrimujina said:
You mean you don't think the artwork was done by the forger? Someone just stole two unrelated pictures of dogs and then defaced them with... that?

What do you mean by forgery? Saying the image itself is a forgery would be saying it's not a real drawing, that it was somehow faked and passed off as artwork of a dog (tracing over real photos, I guess?). It being a legitimate drawing of a dog, but someone signing it as a person that didn't create it (be it the person themself, or someone trying to credit them for something they didn't make) makes more sense to me. If it's the former, I'm not sure such "artwork" should stay as it would basically just be a trace, while the latter I could see having leeway to stay if it's good enough even if the true artist is unknown.

watsit said:
What do you mean by forgery? Saying the image itself is a forgery would be saying it's not a real drawing, that it was somehow faked and passed off as artwork of a dog (tracing over real photos, I guess?). It being a legitimate drawing of a dog, but someone signing it as a person that didn't create it (be it the person themself, or someone trying to credit them for something they didn't make) makes more sense to me. If it's the former, I'm not sure such "artwork" should stay as it would basically just be a trace, while the latter I could see having leeway to stay if it's good enough even if the true artist is unknown.

That's not how 'forgery' is used in art. Lots of art forgery involves making a real painting and passing it off as the work of someone else. The forged painting may be a duplicate of an original or something made in the style of a famous artist that the forger is passing off as a previously undiscovered work.

Here, I'm guessing the signature was added as a meme/joke/to piss people off.

regsmutt said:
That's not how 'forgery' is used in art.

It is, but I suppose not exclusively. Creating a copy of someone else's art by hand and passing it off as either the original or a legitimate copy I guess would also be considered a forgery. Though those wouldn't be something allowed to stay here either I don't think, so a tag for it wouldn't be necessary. A kind of "forgery" where it is a legitimately created new piece of art, but attributed to/signed as someone who didn't actually make it, I think would be the only kind that would need a tag.

regsmutt said:
Here, I'm guessing the signature was added as a meme/joke/to piss people off.

Or maybe someone contemporary trying to give that certain someone credit for a skill they didn't have (to that degree, or didn't have time to produce), to bolster their standing among the public.

regsmutt said:
Here, I'm guessing the signature was added as a meme/joke/to piss people off.

It was added to artificially inflate its resale value. There's been a considerable market for artwork by that guy since the day the war ended; it's not a good thing, but as you can see from the amount of comments on those posts, that kind of historical baggage gets people talking. There are a lot of fakes falsely attributed to him.

Funny thing, though; a lot of the fakes are too good to have been done by him. He was rejected from art school for a reason. Genuine works by him are considered extraordinarily mediocre by the art world; if it weren't for his signature, it would be worthless to any sort of art collector.

lendrimujina said:
It was added to artificially inflate its resale value. There's been a considerable market for artwork by that guy since the day the war ended; it's not a good thing, but as you can see from the amount of comments on those posts, that kind of historical baggage gets people talking. There are a lot of fakes falsely attributed to him.

Funny thing, though; a lot of the fakes are too good to have been done by him. He was rejected from art school for a reason. Genuine works by him are considered extraordinarily mediocre by the art world; if it weren't for his signature, it would be worthless to any sort of art collector.

At least one of the signatures has some odd artifacting around that makes me think photoshop.

In either case, ultimately I'm not really keen on calling the artwork itself a forgery if it's solely because of a forged signature while the art itself looks plenty legit. Imagine making some beautiful landscape paintings from your own skills and hard training, and finding copies of your art labeled "forgeries" because someone thought to be a funny guy and added Bob Ross's signature in the corner. The signature for sure would be forged, but it feels pretty demeaning to me to call the art itself a forgery when real effort was put into making something personal and unique, and it's only the small scribble in the corner that you had no hand in adding that sullies it.

The false signature is what defines art forgery.

nin10dope said:
The false signature is what defines art forgery.

Art forgery is the creation and sale of works of art which are intentionally falsely credited to other, usually more famous artists.

Not just a false signature. Creating and selling with intentionally false credits. Works of art created and sold honestly, just with a false signature added by a third-party in publicly available copies, doesn't rise to "art forgery".

A false signature is a forgery. If that forgery is attached to a piece of art, then it is art_forgery
The intention to sell based on that forgery for financial gain is the legal offense.
We're not the government so we don't need that arbitration.

Sold honestly, just with a false signature

Bruh...

nin10dope said:
The intention to sell based on that forgery for financial gain is the legal offense.
We're not the government so we don't need that arbitration.

And we don't need to get into the weeds for the intent and purpose of a forged signature on art that may get posted here. I don't see a need to restrict the tag to such cases when it could be more useful in a broader context of misappropriated art via a forged signature.

nin10dope said:
Bruh...

Are you trying to misquote and misunderstand what I said?

watsit said:
And we don't need to get into the weeds for the intent and purpose of a forged signature on art that may get posted here. I don't see a need to restrict the tag to such cases when it could be more useful in a broader context of misappropriated art via a forged signature.

Are you trying to misquote and misunderstand what I said?

Then explain it better. You're the only one getting into the weeds trying to deny that a forged signature on art is art_forgery

nin10dope said:
Then explain it better. You're the only one getting into the weeds trying to deny that a forged signature on art is art_forgery

I suspect what is trying to be said is that a physical art piece that, in its physical form, has only had correct credit attached to it having a signature digitally added to a digital copy of it (without changing the attribution of the physical original) isn't a forgery. That might be a bit hard to follow, so in a hypothetical example- someone photoshops a Hitler signature onto a Richard Scarry drawing for funzies. They are not selling it as an authentic Hitler drawing or otherwise claiming that it is. The original drawing, with a correct signature, still exists somewhere.

I'm inclined to agree here, more-or-less. I do not know if this applies to the two images in the forgery tag though. I cannot find originals of either piece- searches turn up either sites claiming them to be Hitler's art or unrelated similar-looking dog sketches by an assortment of artists. One of them has funky artifacts on the signature. I don't know where the claim of forgery comes from so I can't verify that either.

nin10dope said:
Then explain it better. You're the only one getting into the weeds trying to deny that a forged signature on art is art_forgery

I'm not sure how to clarify "Works of art created and sold honestly, just with a false signature added by a third-party in publicly available copies". To explain the difference with "Sold honestly, just with a false signature", it's pretty simple. The latter indicates artwork being sold honestly with the false signature, which makes no sense (it can't be intentionally sold with dishonest attribution while being honest), while the former indicates art being created and sold without any false attribution/signature, while publicly available copies (those that would end up here) were somehow given a false signature by a third-party (someone with no connection to the original artist or their sale of the art).

And I already explained above why I think instances of the former would feel pretty demeaning to have the art itself be labeled "forgery", because of the actions of a third party that had no connection to the creation of the art. A forged_signature tag would be both less condescending when the art itself was created with honest intentions and only defaced by a third-party after the fact, and also not be restricted to "creation and sale of works of art which are intentionally falsely credited" while still being applicable to such art. It's a more useful classification for the kinds of affected artworks that would be allowed here, IMO.