Data Journeys in Art? Warranting and Witnessing the ‘Fake’ and the ‘Real’ in Art Authentication

This chapter approaches questions about data and data journeys by examining demonstrations of fakery and expertise in popular accounts by forgers and their pursuers. We examine how relations between tellers and audiences are configured – who can be trusted, and what can be relied on when it comes to knowing the real from the forged. The various ambivalences regarding the nature of art, of perception, and of expertise, as well as the ways in which moves and techniques (re)produce the expert-teller in fraught conditions, bring a shiftiness to the constitution of data and evidence in this domain. Taking our cue from STS scholarship on the fixation and circulation of visual evidence in scientific practice, we discuss moves and techniques that point to (particular) features of a work of art to resolve authenticity questions, as well as those that point away from and negate features. More though, at stake in the case of forgery is not just how individual objects get rendered discernible, but also whether there is anything to discern at all. This chapter examines how experts find a place to stand as they account for the potentially unfaithful objects under their care.