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A few looks from the Vika Gazinskaya Spring 2018 ready-to-wear collection appear to take direct inspiration from the work of artist Brad Troemel-without permission, acknowledgement, or arrangement. Through a few posts on Instagram, Troemel alleges that, after making a back-to-back comparison, the dresses, which made their debut during the shows in Paris last week, directly lift designs and imagery from paintings he first showed at Tomorrow Gallery in New York last November.

The fracas erupted yesterday, after Troemel posted the looks from the Vika Gazinskaya collection next to images of work from "Freecaching," his show at Tomorrow (which has since merged with Hester gallery to become Downs & Ross). In that show, the work on the walls served as certificates that authenticated his studio inventory, which Troemel said he had hidden in Central Park ( you can read the full explanation here), and consisted of grids that contained 130 blocks, alternating between colored blocks, white blocks, numbered blocks, or blocks covered in snippets of text.

The looks designed by Gazinskaya, who has been at the helm of her Moscow-based namesake line since 2006, allegedly lift not only the aesthetic of the work in "Freecaching," but also, at times, the precise design scheme-the dresses consist of grids with colored blocks, white blocks, numbered blocks, and blocks of text. Sometimes, the arrangement appears to be nearly identical.

"It's a swatch-by-swatch copy from the upper left black to the lower left yellow to the text breaks between the green and yellow to the text break between the pink to the blue," Troemel wrote in a comment on Instagram. "There's really no room left for coincidence."

Troemel implies in his initial post that he came across the appropriation in a Vogue review of the show, which lists as influences the choreographer William Forsythe, the actress Katharine Hepburn, and thrift stores in London and L.A.-but makes no mention of the artwork that it ostensibly copied. The story has not been updated to include any mention of Troemel's influence, and the lead image is still of a dress with the Troemel-aping grid.

Representatives for the Vika Gazinskaya line did not respond to a request for comment. However, the designer appeared to be posting in the comments section of Troemel's Instagram posts and other posts. The first occurred after the handle @gentle_virus, which appears to be the Instagram presence of the artist Mark Fingerhut, wrote "Copied from brad troemel" on one of the @vikagazinskaya Instagram posts. The designer responded immediately, saying: "Actually, it is too obvious to 'hide' it. So, it is an inspiration. And I can use art in my clothes as much as I want."

This seems to be a confirmation that she had at the very least used Troemel's work as a jumping off point. A few hours later, Troemel doubled down on the accusation, sharing with his 60,000 followers a screenshot of her statement where she admitted to the work being an "inspiration."

"If my work was an inspiration as you say, you probably would've mentioned me as an inspiration when asked what influenced your line in Vogue," Troemel wrote. "Instead, you covered it up, thinking your world was so large and mine so small that you could get away with ripping me off without anyone noticing. You are an international fashion brand selling goods that are direct copies of my work for thousands of dollars. I'm a working artist trying to figure out how to pay my rent next month. This is not a horizontal relationship of influence."

Gazinskaya jumped into the fray immediately after, saying that she had seen an image of Troemel's work in "Freecaching" while making the line and even went so far to share that image with Amy Verner, the fashion critic who wrote the story for Vogue -but didn't know the name of the person who made it. She also alluded to a note she had sent Troemel, and implied that she will retroactively credit him as an inspiration.

"I wrote u that I had no idea who u are and never hided the picture which inspired me," Gazinskaya said. "I were showing it to buyers and Amy. But we both did not know. I wrote u this, saying that we will add the 'inspiration' being u. Since now I figured out your name. But u prefers to stay angry - I thought artists are more kind and spiritual."

"im not angry at life im angry at you for directly copying my work and profiting from it," Troemel responded. "You say you had 'no idea it was my work' but it was obviously *someones* work, there arent 140 block gradients with numbers and text excerpts growing on trees. At which point you directly copied the series block by block."

A few comments later the tone shifted and Gazinskaya became more contrite, saying "'Shame on me' I did not know your work" and adding that "for me it is great to know and point your art was an inspiration." She also said that, contra his claims of fighting a much larger fashion world machine, she too struggles to make a profit when the retail stores mark up the costs of her dresses by a factor of five.

In a Moda Operandi." A green draped ruched dress from Vika Gazinskaya profile of the brand, leading online trade the Business of Fashion says that the "label is currently stocked in luxury boutiques such as Fivestory in New York and Symphony in Dubai, as well as online at Net-a-Porter, Avenue 32 and retails on Lyst.com for $1,575. Katy Perry wore a Vika Gazinskaya skirt when she appeared on The Late Late Show in May.

The commentariat was quick to condemn Gazinskaya and compare the predicament to other instances of brands swiping ideas from artists, such as when Supreme borrowed liberally from Barbara Kruger's aesthetic to create its iconic logo. Kruger had an immortal response to a reporter's inquiry on the matter: "What a ridiculous clusterfuck of totally uncool jokers. I make my work about this kind of sadly foolish farce. I'm waiting for all of them to sue me for copyright infringement."

For Troemel, too, this must seem like a bit of an absurd situation- his practice also dissects and sends up issues of appropriation and ownership, fashion and retail, social media and digital influence, all of that. It almost seems like he could've cooked up the whole controversy himself.

When reached over text, Troemel said he declined to comment until he speaks with his attorney later this afternoon.

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'You Directly Copied the Series': Brad Troemel Accuses Fashion Designer of Ripping Off His Grid Work for Ready-to-Wear Collection -

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A few looks from the Vika Gazinskaya Spring 2018 ready-to-wear collection appear to take direct inspiration from the work of artist Brad Troemel-without permission, acknowledgement, or arrangement. Through a few posts on Instagram, Troemel alleges that, after making a back-to-back comparison, the ... Read More

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What is truth, what is fiction? It's a question philosophers have contemplated for centuries, a subject writers, journalists and even psychologists ponder every day. For art experts, weeding through the fakes to find the authentic works can at times demand the hard-nosed precision befitting the medical forensics of a criminal investigation.

Courts and investigators in Germany and France are now applying such diligence in getting to the heart of a forgery scandal that is rocking the international art world.

According to German news website Spiegel Online, renowned German art historian and former director of Paris' Centre Pompidou Werner Spies is being sued in France for damages to a company after its purchase of an allegedly forged painting from a Paris gallery in 2004.

A recognized Max Ernst expert, Spies had confirmed the authenticity of "Tremblement de terre" as having been painted by the Surrealist art extraordinaire.

Making a mark

Max Ernst's 'Petales et jardin de la nymphe Ancolie'

"Max Ernst had a dramatic impact on the 20th century, not just in art, but in many aspects of society," said Beate Elsen, a 20th-century art expert at the Würth Museums in the southern German state of Baden-Württemberg, which houses a Max Ernst collection.

"He developed new artistic techniques like the collage, explored the subconscious like no artist before him and was a master Surrealist who later influenced filmmakers such as David Lynch," she pointed out in an interview with Deutsche Welle.

That reputation helped the "Tremblement de terre" painting change hands several times over the past decade before being sold for $1.1 million at Sotheby's in New York.

Landing a Max Ernst is an art collector's dream, said Elsen, adding that "he was one of the most creative, imaginative painters in history."

In a more shocking case, the counterfeit "La Forêt (2)" - also authenticated by Spies as a Max Ernst original - snagged 4.9 million euros ($7 million) on the international art market. New York publishing giant Daniel Filipacchi, a leading collector of Surrealist art, bought the painting.

These are two of at least 14 paintings touted as German expressionist and Max Ernst originals, which are meanwhile assumed to be forgeries. At the end of May, the Cologne prosecutor's office brought charges against German artist Wolfgang B., as well as three others, for their alleged involvement in the sale of the forged paintings. The case could come to trial this summer, Spiegel Online reported.

A reproduction of Max Pechstein's 'Junges Mädchen'

The sale and resale of these counterfeits may have resulted in losses of around 34 million euros ($49 million) in the art community, authorities have estimated.

A fabricated story
Beginning in the 1990s, Wolfgang B., his wife, her sister, and another accomplice known as Otto S. apparently began tempting art collectors with a story that some 50 paintings which had gone missing during the Nazi regime had resurfaced. The story went that the paintings were inherited by Wolfgang B.'s wife and her sister. The sisters' grandfather, art lover and industrialist Werner Jägers, had supposedly acquired the works from a prominent pre-war Jewish art dealer, Alfred Flechtheim, in Cologne. Otto S., had a similar story. Prosecutors believe that Wolfgang B. painted the forgeries. His wife and her sister apparently passed them off to auction houses as originals by artists such as Max Ernst, Max Pechstein, Fernand Léger and Heinrich Campendonk. The women included a few genuine paintings among the fakes, so as not to arouse suspicion. The foursome had apparently selected paintings to forge which were known to have been lost over a century again, but of which photographs and descriptions existed in catalogues and other records. Art lovers and collectors were ecstatic in Germany, with several museums buying up the "long-lost" works. An incorrect label on the back of one of the forgeries, however, triggered suspicions of a racket about three years ago, prompting investigations. Ralph Jentsch, an expert on art dealer Flechtheim, could show that the labels on the forgeries did not match those Flechtheim actually used.

Max Ernst shaped Surrealism
According to Spiegel, authorities at Berlin's State Office of Criminal Investigation view Spies as merely a witness in the "La Forêt (2)" case. What is clear is that the list of people duped by the art cons is long, and includes a range of prominent dealers and auctions houses across the country and the world. Shockwaves Investigators are to analyze nearly all of the 50 paintings involved in the "Jägers Collection" forgery scandal. Laboratory tests have revealed that some of the pigments used for painting the canvases were not available at the time of the originals' creation, in the first part of the 20th century. But as shocking as these discoveries are, Elsen - whose own group of museums has two artworks affected by this forgery scandal, but which she cannot discuss as investigations are ongoing - said that the art world will recover. "All this criminal energy in the art world is harrowing, but it can't destroy art," she said. "Everything will settle down again at some point. After all, there have been Michelangelo artworks that have been suspected of being fakes as well." Author: Louisa Schaefer Editor: Kate Bowen

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Forgery network dupes Max Ernst experts, blots art world | Culture | DW | 14.06.2011

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What is truth, what is fiction? It's a question philosophers have contemplated for centuries, a subject writers, journalists and even psychologists ponder every day. For art experts, weeding through the fakes to find the authentic works can at times demand the hard-nosed precision befitting the medical forensics of a criminal investigation.

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Born in Tuscany to an Italian Jewish family, Modigliani worked mostly in France and died in Paris in 1920 when he was just 35. He is big business in the art world, with prices for his nudes and portraits skyrocketing even into Picasso territory. There is also a thriving market of fakes, which have turned up in Russia, the Balkans, and now Italy.

Mr Pepi has publicly called out suspected fakes before, but this time, exasperated by the large scale of the apparent fraud, he decided to make a formal complaint with the Carabinieri art fraud unit in Rome.

French art historian Marc Restellini, who is founder of the Pinacothèque de Paris and a Modigliani expert, backed him, calling the exhibit "dubious."

After magistrates received independent confirmation of suspected fraud, the exhibit was shut down three days early - little comfort to the more than 100,000 people who have visited since it opened in March.

Three people, including the curator from Lugano, Switzerland, are under investigation.

The Doge's Palace released a statement "offering maximum collaboration" and noting it considered itself an injured party, having suffered a blow to its reputation as a prestigious international art partner that has in the past collaborated on exhibits of masters including Frida Kahlo, Van Gogh and Picasso.

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Genoa closes art exhibition after paintings 'turn out to be fakes'

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Born in Tuscany to an Italian Jewish family, Modigliani worked mostly in France and died in Paris in 1920 when he was just 35. He is big business in the art world, with prices for his nudes and portraits skyrocketing even into Picasso territory.

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Meet the artist behind Jeff Koons’s controversial ballerinas

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Master forger once foiled by The Art Newspaper reveals his secrets

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Three men charged with selling fake Damien Hirst prints online for $400,000

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These Four Technologies May Finally Put an End to Art Forgery