Chat Club with Wolfgang Beltracchi
In this special podcast episode, I spoke to Wolfgang Beltracchi, probably one of the most notorious and at the same time most fascinating artists of our time, about his extraordinary life story.
Beltracchi, who was once known for his spectacular art forgeries, makes it clear right at the beginning: "I didn't forge any art at all ’ - he only forged the signatures under his works. But how did he decide to go down this path?
Perfectly decoding the handwriting of great masters
Beltracchi provides exciting insights into his time at the Werkkunstschule in Aachen and explains how he began trading art at an early age and earning a lot of money with it at a young age. With a twinkle in his eye, he tells of art dealers who used the ‘infamous needle test’ to check his works for authenticity - without realising that they were not holding the original in their hands. His ability to perfectly decode the handwriting of great masters made him one of the most successful forgers in art history.
However, the false white colour eventually proved to be his undoing, leading to his exposure, a trial and his conviction. After this time, he moved to France, and when the political climate there became rougher, he decided to move to Switzerland.
"The expert is only as good as the forger is bad.’
Wolfgang Beltracchi also shares his view of art and creativity. Variety is the key to his artistic work, he says. Today, he only paints his own works - and his paintings fetch far higher prices than the works he used to sign with forged signatures. But success also brings challenges: he is met with a lot of hostility and hatred, which he can understand because, as he says: ‘The expert is only as good as the forger is bad.’
KI and art - an experiment
We also talk about the film version of his life - in which he would love Benedict Cumberbatch to play the leading role, his current work on a novel trilogy, planned major exhibitions, including one in Prague, and not least about his opinion on artificial intelligence in the art world. The first attempts he made at an event were not nearly satisfactory. After all, Beltracchi emphasises, AI ultimately does nothing more than copy, but it is about decoding the artist's handwriting.