Haox CTS

In this CTS Lesson, we were taught about a couple Hoax's that had occurred in recent times, then tasked to create our own Haox in the form of a tabloid or a simple photoshopped image. What had sparked my interest however was how some Haox's presented were spread around, and the publics' reaction.

We first learnt about a haox that had taken place within the art world, specifically in Holland within the 1940's. Han Van Meegeren was a professional painter who, in my opinion created wonderful art pieces all of which were his own. He found success for quite sometime before his paintings popularity started to diminish. The reason for this was that critics felt that his artwork focused too much on the past, as this was time where forward thinking artists were starting to become popular. As Meeregen was trying to formulate new ideas, he thought of doing the unthinkable and forged paintings then re-selling them under deceased artists names and had made large amounts of profits. He would adjust his style subtly so that it would convey enough information to critics, fooling them into thinking the painting was genuine.

While I do think that forging someones artwork and profiting off of their name is generally an incorrect way to build an artists brand, Meeregen was very clever in doing this as it had increased interest in his name after he was discovered he had created the paintings himself. He was celebrated and was labelled a 'patriot' after he had sold the inauthentic paintings to a Nazi commander and had profited from them. He was looked at as a hero of Holland, for deceiving the enemy and had therefore gotten a lot of recognition for this act. Though luck had it's hand at building Meeregens success, the way he conducted himself when creating the paintings were also quite interesting. He would put a coating over of the paintings then create slight cracks after it hardened, making them look as if time had worn them down slightly, without having the painting underneath being tampered with.

Following Meeregens work, I had created a more modern approach to this hoax as for my own project I had created a photoshop image of a worn down garage area that had caught fire, and created my own hoax. I had photoshopped a couple shadows in the image as the garage was being burnt down, and then in the aftermath images showing men with a similar build to the previous images staring at the destroyed garage. With these two images, I will have created intrigue in the viewer, as some might notice the similar builds of the men in both the images and wonder if they had some connection to the fire itself.