1,000 Warhol artworks are on sale for just US$250 each. But only one is real
CTV
An art collective purchased an original Andy Warhol drawing for US$20,000 and is selling it to one lucky buyer for just $250. But there's a catch: The artwork is being offered alongside 999 high-quality forgeries -- and even their creators can't tell them apart.
This is the latest stunt by New York's MSCHF, the group of around 20 artists infamously sued by Nike for creating modified "Satan" sneakers containing real human blood.
Dubbed "Museum of Forgeries," the group purchased an authentic 1954 Warhol pen drawing, titled "Fairies," and then used digital technology and a robotic arm to recreate the artist's exact strokes, before using heat, light and humidity to artificially age the paper.
Having mixed the 999 fakes with the lone original, MSCHF now claims not to know which is the real Warhol. And from Monday collectors can buy one of the 1,000 works, each titled "Possibly Real Copy Of 'Fairies' by Andy Warhol," for $250.
If all the pieces sell, the group would have made over 12 times what it originally paid for the drawing. But MSCHF also hopes to poke fun at an industry more interested in the authenticity of an artwork -- or who created it -- than the art itself, said chief creative officer, Lukas Bentel.