Mari Matsumoto
Amy Stuart
1
June 2022
1
June
2022
24
June 2022
Gallery 1
In this exhibition, Amy Stuart presents a small selection of replica works - or props - she has fabricated for researcher Emily Kobayashi. For the past three years, Kobayashi has been investigating the prolific art forger Mari Matsumoto, who vanished in approximately 2002. Under careful instruction from Kobayashi, Stuart has produced these replicas of Matsumoto’s forgeries drawn from oral descriptions, photographs and newspaper articles.Working during the 1980s and 90s in Naarm (Melbourne), Matsumoto’s main fare was in forging the paintings of the so-called Australian Impressionists - Frederick McCubbin, Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton - because of the high market value their paintings did (and continue to) command. Kobayashi, for her part, came to Matsumoto’s activities via a critique of these deeply nationalistic champions of the white, settler-colonial imaginary. For Kobayashi, her current project is to think through the potential destabilising effects of Matsumoto’s fakes - as they circulate through private and public collections.
Exhibition documented by Lucy Foster.
In this exhibition, Amy Stuart presents a small selection of replica works - or props - she has fabricated for researcher Emily Kobayashi. For the past three years, Kobayashi has been investigating the prolific art forger Mari Matsumoto, who vanished in approximately 2002. Under careful instruction from Kobayashi, Stuart has produced these replicas of Matsumoto’s forgeries drawn from oral descriptions, photographs and newspaper articles.Working during the 1980s and 90s in Naarm (Melbourne), Matsumoto’s main fare was in forging the paintings of the so-called Australian Impressionists - Frederick McCubbin, Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton - because of the high market value their paintings did (and continue to) command. Kobayashi, for her part, came to Matsumoto’s activities via a critique of these deeply nationalistic champions of the white, settler-colonial imaginary. For Kobayashi, her current project is to think through the potential destabilising effects of Matsumoto’s fakes - as they circulate through private and public collections.
Amy Stuart
Amy Stuart is an artist in Naarm (Melbourne). Amongst other things, she teaches at Monash University (MADA) and is an editorial assistant for the publisher Discipline and Parrhesia journal. Since 2019, Stuart has been researching art forger Mari Matsumoto and has presented exhibitions (Monash University, Seventh Gallery, KINGS Artist Run) and publications (un Magazine Issue 17.1: RESIST) on Matsumoto's history and activities.