In 2017, an exhibition of the early 20th-century artist Modigliani was shut down early after art critic and collector Carlo Pepi alerted the authorities that the paintings were likely, not authentic. As a result, the exhibition, held in Genoa, closed days after a massively successful run at the Ducal Palace. Immediately after, investigators started probing more in-depth into the allegations and discovered that 20 of the 21 paintings displayed at the Ducal Palace exhibit were forged.
About the incident, Pepi said, “A Michelangelo is a Michelangelo. A Picasso is a Picasso. But when a painting is a fake, it is missing its soul, and these were missing that three-dimensional elegance of Modigliani — even a child could see these were crude fakes.” Pepi also described the paintings as ”garbage” in an interview on Italian state TV.
When questioned, one of the two curators involved in the incident defended his work, saying he wasn’t the authenticator of the selected paintings. Curator, Rudy Chiappini, said: “I gathered the information and the documentation that was supplied to me for every canvas. If there have been irregularities, you need to go back to the source, to whoever made the first attribution.”
This story reminds me of how we accept the counterfeit things in life as the real deal. For example, God created sex, and sex is good, but we buy into the idea that sex outside of God’s parameters is acceptable. Or, for instance, work. God created work as a means to provide, but when we worship work or the money and make it our god, we’ve created a counterfeit.
We all need to go back to the source, God’s word, to compare the counterfeits’ in our life and call them out for what they are, fakes.
Daily Directive:
Answer and Journal the Following
Read:
Read and meditate on Hebrews 13:4-9.
Pray:
What counterfeits do you have in your life? Pray and ask God to show you.
Meditate / Make It Real:
Determine how you will eliminate these counterfeits from your life and replace them with the real deal. With what and when will you start?
Share / Show:
Share what you’ve learned with someone else.
