Call for Proposals

Fakes in the Art Market
International (online) Workshop
Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna
21 June 2021

with the contribution of
University of Bologna Institute of Advanced Studies (ISA)
Department of Statistical Sciences “Paolo Fortunati”
Department of the Arts

Fakes and forgeries are items that characterized the art sector since the birth of the art market. Artwork copies, fakes and forgeries (almost) freely circulate in the art market and affect the way price is formed, the way the discourse on artists takes place, and the way art market institutions and agents choose their strategies. This effect consists in an increase of the uncertainty about the authenticity value of the artworks, a value which is part of the cultural value, that in turn affects the artworks’ economic value.
This makes the existence of fakes an important issue, which should be analysed with an interdisciplinary view. Art market scholars, including economists, art historians, sociologists, management and marketing scholars, historians, among the others, analysed the influence of fakes in the market under different points of view, but the need to link together these views in a holistic analysis of the issue of fakes in the art market is now necessary.
This workshop wants to be a way to start this process of creation of an interdisciplinary framework of analysis of the art market fakes, welcoming approaches and arguments of different academic fields, so as to enucleate the differences and similarities in the approaches used.
The workshop will consist of the intervention of a series of invited speakers from international renewed universities, together with 3 sessions for contributed works by scholars and researchers from national and international research institutions. The workshop will also host the presentation of the multimedia database on fakes curated by Professors Donatella Biagi Maino and Giuseppe Maino, that will be followed by a roundtable moderated by Professor Donatella Biagi Maino where invited experts, practitioners and scholars will highlight the policies adopted and to be adopted in researching the fakes in the art market.

Topics of the workshop (among the others):
- Economic impact of fakes’ discovery
- Historical role of fakes in the art world
- Art fakes and art crime
- Ambiguity surrounding the definition of “fakes” in the art market
- Case studies of fakes and forgeries in the art market
- (Large-scale) empirical evidence the influence of fakes in art market figures
- Technologies for forgery detection and their impact
- Dating and authentication in art
- Collectors’, dealers’, and other market agents’ behaviour with respect to fakes
- Forgers’ (economic and non-economic) incentives to create fakes
- Copies, fakes and forgeries
- Fake or restoration?
- The role of the art historian in the art market
- The value of expertise

Invited Speakers
- Prof. Elisabetta Lazzaro, Full Professor of Creative and Cultural Industries Management at Business School for the Creative Industries, University for the Creative Arts, UK
- Dr. Naomi Oosterman, Permanent lecturer at Department of Arts and Culture Studies – Erasmus University Rotterdam, NL; Affiliated researcher “Heritage under Threat” at the Centre for Global Heritage and Development, NL
- Dr. Anne-Sophie Radermecker, Tutor/Lecturer at Erasmus School of History, Culture and Communication – Erasmus University Rotterdam, NL; Research Associate at the Department of History, Arts, and Archaeology of the Université Libre de Bruxelles, BE

Submission and other information
The submission of a (up to) 500-word abstract (.doc or .pdf file) can be made via email at the address francesco.angelini7unibo.it, with “Art Fakes Workshop” in the object.
The deadline for the submission of the abstract is 31st of March 2021.
The workshop will be hosted online, via Zoom. The participation to the workshop is free of charge.
The registration to the workshop will be possible after the results of the selection of the paper will be available (30th April 2021) at the following link:
https://forms.gle/9gHAjpz4s8hrFgs3A

Important dates
- 31/03/2021: Abstract submission deadline
- 30/04/2021: Results of the selection for the sessions and registration opening
- 18/06/2021: Registration deadline
- 21/06/2021: Workshop

Scientific Committee
Prof. Massimiliano Castellani, Department of Statistical Sciences “Paolo Fortunati” – University of Bologna, IT
Prof. Donatella Biagi Maino, Department of Arts – University of Bologna, IT
Prof. Giuseppe Maino, New York Academy of Sciences, USA
Prof. Lorenzo Zirulia, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods – University of Milan, IT
Dr. Francesco Angelini, Department of Statistical Sciences “Paolo Fortunati” – University of Bologna, IT