Artist derives authenticity and beauty from fakes

Galaxia’s work shows his reflection on the fragility of Spanish culture, which has been hugely impacted by the influx of Chinese immigrants and Chinese fakes, said Xia Yanguo, a Beijing-based art critic and curator of the show.

“Chinese pattern sheds light on the uniqueness of fakes through emulating how they are produced in a handmade manner. This recreation endows fakes with aesthetic values,” he said.

During a roundtable prior to the exhibition’s opening, Xia also touched on the legitimacy of fakes, in terms of “making new technologies and cultural products more accessible to disadvantaged groups, thus pushing forward social progress”.

Themed Original or Copy?, the exhibition is coupled with Fake Magazines, another project by Spanish artist Nuria Carrasco.

The exhibition runs until December 8.

If you go:

Free admission, 10 am-9 pm, Monday-Sunday.

The Cervantes Institute in Beijing, A1 Gongti Nanlu (South Road), Chaoyang district, Beijing. 010-5879-9666

Yang Xiaoyu contributed to the story