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Friday, 27 August 2021

Movie review: Made You Look, dir Barry Avrich (2020)

This Netflix documentary chronicles the case of fake art made by a Chinese painter who masterfully copied the styles of leading American abstract expressionists (eg Pollock, Rothko). The art was sold by a reputable New York gallery for a total of $80 million, starting in the late 1990s. The FBI finally took the dealer to court but the gallerist who offloaded the works was only forced to retire.

The show is engrossing for anyone, like me, who is interested in art, because it makes you think about the value we place on this form of human expression. The object is therefore privileged, and ‘Made You Look’ asks us to question how it is that one production from one artist is worth so much when the work of another artist is relegated to obscurity.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching this show. It was one of two shows I watched on the same day when, after about a year away from Netflix, I finally returned to sample what’s on offer to subscribers.

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