A fascinating study.
Radnoti is...a rigorous, common-sense thinker of daunting erudition. His interest is art forgery goes way beyond the Hitchcockian detective stories that pop up regularly in newspapers to the philosophical structure of the enterprise itself. Get your hands on a copy of The Fake and westle with it. You'll find that Radnoti has done us all a favor.
Bookforum - Peter Plagens
The most rewarding elements of Radnoti's sustained meditation on the status and function of forgery arise from his ability to combine detailed knowledge of cultural history with a philosopher's concern for the thorny theoretical and conceptual problems that this history continually thows up. Indeed, what distinguishes Radnoti's account from the already sizeable literature on the subject in analytic aesthetics is his insistence on the historical character of the concept and practice of forgery.
British Journal of Aesthetics
Contemporary aesthetics has transformed the fake from a problem in connoisseurship to a problem in the philosophy of art. Contemporary art has transformed the replication of a given work from the status of the fake to that of an appropriation. These shifts affect virtually every component in the concept of art, and it is greatly to Sàndor Radnòti's credit that he has addressed these revolutionary changes in a systematic way, and written a sweeping, insightful book, which pivots in the concept of the fake, but carries the reader through current philosophical reflection and contemporary artistic practice.
Radnoti's book is all the more exciting because he discloses territories for questioning rather than narrowing them down.
Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal
In this fine work, Sándor Radnóti uses the concept of forgery to explore important issues in art theory. It is an insightful strategy.. .. and this overview can't do justice to the subtle, dialectical quality of the argument in The Fake.
College Art Association - Robert Cavalier
A pioneering work in the field of aesthetics. .. its scholarship is impeccable.
The Fake provides an exhaustive and informative overview.
The Fake blends history, ethical concerns, and artistic examination in a delicate weave of unique insights.
This book is subtle, detailed and exceedingly well-researched.
What is wrong with a fake? Is it wrong at all? The discussion of these questions leads Radnòti to the re-examination of the main aesthetic and conceptual implications of the autonomous art of modernity (originality, novelty, tradition, cannon), to their crisis and transformations in the practice of contemporary art. This is one of the most original and interesting books in art theory published in the last decade.
The most rewarding elements of Radnoti's sustained meditation on the status and function of forgery arise from his ability to combine detailed knowledge of cultural history with a philosopher's concern for the thorny theoretical and conceptual problems that this history continually thows up. Indeed, what distinguishes Radnoti's account from the already sizeable literature on the subject in analytic aesthetics is his insistence on the historical character of the concept and practice of forgery.
British Journal Of Aesthetics
In this fine work, Sándor Radnóti uses the concept of forgery to explore important issues in art theory. It is an insightful strategy. . . . and this overview can't do justice to the subtle, dialectical quality of the argument in The Fake.
Radnoti is...a rigorous, common-sense thinker of daunting erudition. His interest is art forgery goes way beyond the Hitchcockian detective stories that pop up regularly in newspapers to the philosophical structure of the enterprise itself. Get your hands on a copy of The Fake and westle with it. You'll find that Radnoti has done us all a favor.
Radn ti (aesthetics, Budapest Univ.) explores not only the notion of what is "fake" in art but what, if anything, makes an artwork "authentic." Building on the work of a number of art historians and theorists (Arthur C. Danto, Ernst Gombrich, etc.), Radn ti draws careful distinctions among forgeries, copies, misattributions, and ignorance. An interesting digression into literary "forgeries" and whether such a beast actually exists (outside the artifactual reproduction of manuscripts) helps the reader clarify Radn ti's focus on the traditional visual arts. Will the reader be able to identify a "fake" after reading this work? Probably not, but in these post-Duchamp, post-Warhol times, Radn ti's discussion will help the reader articulate the issues. A lack of illustrations is a drawback for those unfamiliar with the many works mentioned by the author, but an excellent bibliography will allow the student of the subject to explore further. Recommended for larger public and all academic libraries.--Martin R. Kalfatovic, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, DC Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Asserting that the forger, in his constrained position, is forced to know a great deal about what art "really is," Radn<'o>ti (aesthetics, U. of Budapest, Hungary) explores the issue of forgery as a modern philosophical problem. Among the issues he explores are whether indiscernible works can be categorized as original versus fake, forgery as a mechanism of convention maintenance, and the idea of forgery as the paradigm of modern art. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
A short, tough, brilliant book... get your hands on a copy of The Fake and wrestle with it. You'll find that Radnoti has done us all a favor. Bookforum
